Acall to the Undercurrent office on Friday, April 13, alerted us to an "interesting boat" docking at the Union Steamship Marina. And an interesting boat it turned out to be. It was a 29-foot Oar Northwest ocean row boat, the James Robert Hanssen. Its crew was about to embark on a counter-clockwise circumnavigation of Vancouver Island.
The boat was built by Woodvale in England in 2005. One of 10 in the world, it is the only one found in the Western hemisphere. Jordan Hanssen, crew member and winner of the first rowing race across the North Atlantic Ocean, said, "We're just here on Bowen Island making sure we get off on the right foot. We're getting ready to row across the mid-Atlantic (in December 2012) and so there is a lot of trouble-shooting. The nice thing about being in the Inside Passage is that we can go out and test these things and, if we have some bugs to figure out which we inevitably will, we'll do it." The boat had been launched in Seattle the week before with little time to test the instruments in the water.
The expedition's major sponsor is the Canadian Wildlife Federation (CWF). Heading up the science team is Frederick (Fritz) Stahr, Ph.D. from the University of Washington School of Oceanography who is also the head of the educational advisory committee and the Marine technical team. He combed over the boat's high-end equipment to work out the glitches as it spent the night in Snug Cove before the crew departed on their Salish Sea Expedition. "I've got a data logger recording and [the crew] will send those files back once every six hours. There will be a time and date location stamp with GPS knowing where your observations are is very important," stated Stahr. "They also have an instrument that they're going to drop through the water column so that we'll have a vertical profile of temperature and salinity which will be really nice to go with the horizontal stuff that the boat will be collecting."
There have been some major improvements on the boat since 2006 that include the power system. There are more solar panels and they are more flexible than they used to be. Stahr points to a water stream bubbling out from the side of the boat. "Water is constantly pulled in through some instruments measuring temperature, salinity, chlorophyll fluorescence, so we know how much phytoplankton is in the water, and oxygen so we can measure how much is in the water."
Stahr also mentioned other sensitive equipment on board that measures wind speed, direction, atmospheric pressure, pitch and roll. One of the three GPS antennas is dedicated to the Automated Information System (AIS) for ships, something new that's come about since 2006. "You can go online and see where the ships are and they can look at each other it's really important for a small boat to have a something like that."
The crew of four will not only be testing water quality and collecting data about the wind and the environment but their sleep/rest cycles will be electronically monitored by The Centre for Sleep and Human Performance in Calgary, as they keep the boat running 24 hours a day. An on board hydrophone will allow the recording of whales, important to monitor this time of year around the north tip of the island where the resident pods tend to "hang out" before beginning their journey along the Inside Passage. Several mounted cameras will be recording at all times resulting in approximately six mini-documentaries produced by Shaw.
The cramped quarters limit personal belongings and food must be well planned out. A hand-cranked blender is clamped to one side it will turn pre-soaked dried fruit and protein into much-needed power smoothies. There must also be room for a mandolin and a violin, very valued by the crew.
This is a "wet run" for their next expedition planned for December 2012. "Africa to the Americas" will take the boat from Liberia to Venezuela and the estimated time to cross is 60 to 80 days, rowing 24 hours per day in two-hour shifts. This expedition is also sponsored by the CWF to raise money in support of Right to Play (www.righttoplay.com), an organization with the mission "to improve the lives of children in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the world by using the power of sport and play for development, health and peace."
On Bowen Island, Stahr hugged the team goodbye before boarding the Queen of Capilano to return to the mainland. Follow the crew consisting of Jordan Hanssen (Seattle), Richard Tarbill (Seattle), Markus Pukonen (Tofino), Adam Kreek (Victoria) and Greg Spooner (Bellingham) on their interactive web-site, www.oarnorthwest.com where you can read their blog, view photos and videos and enter exciting contests for American and Canadian youth alike.
JANISTRELEAVEN
Special to the Undercurrent
