Partial circumnavigation in 2014/15 by Antarktis OPPOSITE to Paulsen's upcoming Treshnikov trip.

ANTARKTIS TRAVELLED SAME PLANNED ROUTE AS PAULSEN in REVERSE

I ran across another apparent claimed partial circumnavigation of Antarctica by a group calling itself Antarktis.net which looks Dutch to me. They also have "carbon-neutral" on their site which indicates that they're part of the development-prevention cause. The path they took is the REVERSE of what Fred Paulsen / Swiss ACE plan to take this coming 2016/17 summer in Antarctica. 

SOURCE: 

Antarctica 2014/15 - Antarktis | Antarctica

http://www.antarctic.eu/triplogs-photo-galleries/antarctica-2014_2015.html

Note how the trip begins in South America on the left side of this map and ends in New Zealand at the bottom. Note the list of targeted places they visit do NOT involve research stations-- an anomalie similar to Paulsen's upcoming trip-- other than the station at Macquarie Island. I don't see how they plan to avoid that. Note how this Antarktis trip maintains a tight perimeter only around Unclaimed Land (Marie Byrd Land) and that both Paulsen's Swiss ACE trip and this Antarktis trip stay away from the other 3/4 of Antarctica's coastline where it would be easier to dock at the research stations that line the perimeter/coast.

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COUNTER CURRENT VOYAGE BY ANTARKTIS

Note that the maps of the water currents in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica are WEST to EAST... yet Antarktis sailed EAST to WEST. I'm not knowledgeable about powered ships and how much more energy it takes to sail against current but I'm just noting that here as a point. It's not likely that powered ships are hindered by sailing upcurrent. 

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1983 INSPECTION TOUR SAILED 3/4 AROUND ANTARCTICA

Note how the following route map of the Inspection Tour of 1983 travels the portion of Antarctica, close to the shoreline, stopping AT THE RESEARCH STATIONS. This shows that it's POSSIBLE to do so-- something that neither Paulsen nor the Antarktis voyages did. 

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RUSSKAYA is WITHIN A STONE'S THROW of PAULSEN'S VOYAGE

Given Paulsen's association with the Russians-- and his admiration for their polar work on both ends, north and south, you would think that Paulsen would visit the RUSSKAYA station located just a bit south of where the TRESHNIKOV will sail. Felix noted in an earlier post that Russkaya may not be operational. Still, Paulsen's trip in 2015/16 is an ecology and environment trip-- ostensibly-- so it would behoove him to visit Russkaya on behalf of the Russians simply for the environment's sake. 

See RUSSKAYA on the bottom left of Antarctica. 

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RUSSKAYA and PAULSEN'S TRESHNIKOV 2015/16 ROUTE ON FLAT EARTH

I roughly plotted the Treshnikov's route on a flat earth projection of Earth (dotted red line). It's interesting to see that the Treshnikov travels very close to Russkaya.

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RUSSKAYA RESEARCH STATION REVIEW

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PAULSEN'S TRIP AVOIDS RUSSKAYA

Now that we have a better idea, via several maps, of where Russkaya is and where previous voyages have gone, witness Paulsen's trip again. 

Rick's tentative conclusion-- It seems to me that there is NO DATA on times and distances travelled by the Antarktis voyage and therefore no way to cross reference anything. This is going to be the problem for Paulsen's Treshnikov journey too. I'm only beginning to see that the use of GPS is a problem and that these Antarctica trips are not documenting their ordinary travel logs for public consumption. Overall, it shouldn't be a problem because the magnitude of the time and distance scale should make things obvious. Still, it's a problem that I haven't really got a grip on. The curious anomalies that pop up in the back of my mind (like popcorn) just keep popping up (like popcorn) and it's just too much to try to deal with at this time. Why can't anyone make a simple circumnavigation, touching base with all research stations and note time and distance and tell us how it was done? I've got hundreds of pieces of information but I can't pull them tegether. It's always "close but no cigar" type of thing. 

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UPDATE: 

CASE STUDY OF A RUSSIAN VOYAGE in EAST ANTARCTICA 2014/2015 & 2016 with loose times and distance calculations as an example of loose data in general and what I have to go through to get a handle on these types of accounts.

In comments below, Felix pointed to this trip by a Russian ship...

http://www.raexp.ru/ocherednoi-antarct-poxod-nes.html

Очередной антарктический поход НЭС «Академик Федоров» | РАЭ

TRANSLATION OF PART OF IT... 

After a short stay in South Africa "Akademik Fedorov" December 7 will go to the domestic field the Antarctic base of Youth [Molodezhnaya]

Parking vessel on the basis of the Youth Field [Molodezhnaya] will be held from 15 to 17 December, after which the ship will proceed to raid a Russian Progress station, located on the coast of Prydz Bay

From 03 to January 6, 2015 the vessel will go on a raid Mirny station - 3 days travel

In the period from 07 to 12 January 2015 the ship will proceed to the area of ​​the ice cap Zavadovskiy

From 13 to 15 January the ship will be in the region of the approaches to the Bunger Hills

January 16-17, the ship will go back to the Peace Station [Mirnyy

25 January will go back to Progress station. 

February 8 in Cape Town, which is scheduled to arrive on 20 February

SUMMARY

Dec. 7- South Africa

Dec. 15 - Molodeznaya

? - Progress

Jan 6 - Mirny

Jan 13 - Bunger Hills

Jan 17 - Mirney

Jan 25 - Progress

Bunger hills is 220 miles east of Mirney

quote: 

but an overwintering attempt failed, and the occupants had to be evacuated to Mirny Station (350 km/220 mi to the west) on March 17.

unquote

Antarctic Lake's Secret Water

http://www.thelivingmoon.com/47brotherthebig/03files/Antarctic_Bunger_Oasis.html

[Rick's note: See how OASIS II (SOVIET UNION) is South Of Mirneyy on the above map... with the Australian "Edgeworth" nearly on top of it... without Bunger Hills being labelled-- however I think Bunger Hills IS this area] 

Stations

The Soviet Union built a scientific station by the name of Oazis in the center of the area at 66°16'29"S, 100°44'49"E, starting October 15, 1956, with two buildings for eight people.

The Soviet Union became interested in the Bunger Hills again in the late 1980s, and built a new station - Oazis-2 - a few hundred metres to the west of Dobrowolski. The station was used for summer visits up to the mid-1990s.

Bunger Hills or Bunger Lakes or Bunger Oasis is a coastal range on the Knox Coast in Wilkes Land in Antarctica, consisting of a group of moderately low, roundedcoastalhills, overlain by morainicdrift and notably ice free throughout the year, lying south of the Highjump Archipelago.[1]

Bunger Oasis 

66° 17' 0" S, 100° 47' 0" E 

[Rick's note: The entire trip cited above lies along roughtly the 66 deg S. latitude line-- with Longitude at 100 E. The entire trip ran from about 45 E (MoloDezhNaya)  to Bunger (Oasis II) 100 E... that 55 deg of long. at 66 south lat. where the spherical earth would be x1 miles in diameter and each degree of longitude would be x2. 

Total distance travelled would have been 55 X x2.

Total time would have been Dec.7 to Jan. 13 or about 5 weeks.

Travel time would have been shorter since there were stays at each stop but I'm only interested in an order of magnitude estimate right now without subtracting the stop times. 

Latitude/Longitude Distance Calculator

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gccalc.shtml

[Rick's note-- Total distance travelled would have been 2X 1300 nm for the return trip or 2600 nm in 5 weeks with only a part of the time for travel since a lot of time was spent docked. That's about 500 nautical miles per week or 71 miles per day on average including stops ON A SPHERICAL EARTH. At this latitude there are 1300/55 = 23 miles per degree of longitude on a spherical earth.

On a FLAT EARTH, there would 4X that-- which is 92 miles per degree of longitude for a total of 92 miles X 55 degrees = 5000 miles. They would have had to have travelled 10,000 miles in total in 5 weeks for 2000 miles a week, or 285 miles a day with stops.  

Rick's conclusion-- The site that Felix pointed to has no cross referencing data. The length of the stops are not clear. The travel times are not clear. The distance travelled, according to the captain, are not stated. 

Travelling 71 miles a day with stops would mean twice that mileage if half the time were spent docked... so they would have had to travel 142 miles a day through ice floes for 5 weeks while moving. That seems hard to believe.  The distance would have been 4X that on a flat earth which is impossible to believe. There are no reports of rendezvous's with crews at the research stations. It's in Russian so it's impossible to decipher anything further. 

2nd example

http://meteoinfo.ru/news/1-2009-10-01-09-03-06/11761-29102015-29-61-

Progress station (Dec. 23-28) - Mirny (January 2-6, 2016 .) - oceanographic research (12-18 January) - Progress station (Jan. 20 - Feb. 15)

Travel from Progress to Mirny presumably Dec. 28 to Jan 2, or 5 days for about 20 degrees of longitude at about 66 S. would be 23 miles per degree X 20 = about 460 miles or 92 miles a day-- possible I suppose on a sphere... certainly not feasible if it was 4X that on a flat earth for almost 400 miles a day. 

Rick's conclusion-- Again no real data that can be relied on here of the quality we need to cross check things... only several thick paragraphs of description that we have to accept as written. 

NOTE TO FELIX

Thanks. I looked at all of that and there's no way to cross check anything. We have to take their word for it, in their long paragraphs, that they were where they said when they said. Nothing posted looks to me like actual ship logs or captain's diary. It's all written in long paragraphs with no tables, charts, pictures, or anything checkable.

I DID check the figures, in any case. They would have had to travel between 90 and 140 miles a day through ice floes. I don't think that is possible even in modern ships. If we think about travelling 6 miles an hour for 24 hours-- unlikely that they sailed 24 hours straight-- or 12 miles an hour for 12 hours-- a workshift-- they could have done it I supposed. There are NO PICTURES of the sea ice they encountered so there's no way to verify their account. Here's a possible picture of the sea ice they would encounter-- where they say they travelled 12 miles per hour... http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/131226184059-tsr-live-keiler-antarctica-chris-turney-stuck-on-ice-00024425-story-top.jpg
That's not neccessarily around Mirnyy and Progress but it's an example of the type of photo we have to have to believe these types of logs. 

Rick's conclusion-- The voyages could have taken 4X as long and we wouldn't know-- because there is no way to cross check the account. A trip could take from November to April (6 months) instead of 5 weeks from Dec to Jan, through the summer of the southern hemisphere. The ship could have travelled faster than 12 mph on average for 12 hours a day in ice free water. How fast can these ships go? I don't know. I should know. There is no data on ship's speed. I have to independently find out where the fuel depots are, how much fuel the ship carries, the type of boat. There are no names of captains or crew. Nothing.