It now appears that Swiss Antarctica Institutes ACE taking shortcut too.

A few days ago, I decided I would at least think about going on a trip around Antarctica myself and as I looked into that, I concluded I would need to charter a cruise ship. In searching for the cruise ship operators who could do either a 15,000 or 60,000 mile trip, I ran across Quark of course-- who claim to do multi-ship circumnavigations but also was reminded of the current mission by the large research vessel Treshnykov, currently sailing on its' second leg on it's own circumnavigation. The Swiss Antarctica Institute's "Akademic Trishnakov" research vessel has about 160 people on board,  is currently on the second leg of circumnavigation of Antarctica. Following are my earlier reports on this research-cruise, then an update for today.

Reference 1. 

Rick Potvin's Virtual Circumnavigation of Antarctica to Decide if Earth is Global or Flat: Swiss Polar Institute mission - 1

http://rickpotvinflatearth.blogspot.com/search/label/Swiss%20Polar%20Institute%20mission%20-%201

Reference 2. 

Swiss Polar Institute mission - 2 - Paulson

http://rickpotvinflatearth.blogspot.com/search/label/Swiss%20Polar%20Institute%20mission%20-%202%20-%20Paulson

Reference 3

Rick Potvin's Virtual Circumnavigation of Antarctica to Decide if Earth is Global or Flat: Swiss Polar Institute mission - 3 - update at end of first leg

http://rickpotvinflatearth.blogspot.com/search/label/Swiss%20Polar%20Institute%20mission%20-%203%20-%20update%20at%20end%20of%20first%20leg

Reference 4

ACE Expedition – A better understanding of Antarctica

http://spi-ace-expedition.ch/

Reference 5

AKADEMIK TRYOSHNIKOV - Global Alerting Platform

https://iridium.globalalerting.com/public-map/caa339bf-12db-4a48-a40e-0a55bfe28e05

UPDATE Jan. 25, 2017

After reviewing some of my own earlier work on the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition by Paulsen under his Swiss Antarctica Institute, I no longer believe that it'll be useful in determining the circumference of Antarctica as rim or island. Their reporting on the internet is not giving me real ship coordinates and elapsed time, latitudes, longitudes, star maps etc. with which I can verify their journey's route. It's too easy for them to take short cuts similar to a number of other solo-sailboat journey's around the world. Here is Paulsen's SWI/ACE route....

The same route, as accurately as I can freehand draw it, on the Gleason projection with my added research stations is as follows....

YELLOW = leg 1

ORANGE = leg 2 now underway

RED = leg 3

The reader will notice that the short cut is easy to see-- that Paulsen is quite possible not close enough the the Antarctica short to qualify as a true circumnavigation of Antarctica as advertised in the name "Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition" or ACE suggests. The yellow-orange-red line is not 1/4 the length, however, of the outside 60,000 mile rim of the shores of Antarctica. Eyeballing it, it might be over half, or 30,000 miles. It appears he has already travelled 1/3 of the way around or 10,000 miles-- in one month or 300 miles a day. or 12 miles per hour non stop. These numbers are guesstimates that are quite likely off quite a bit-- but useful for my current thinking in general terms in orders- of-magnitude.

Here's another view of the mission where the AQUA line is the preferred route for my purpose, the GREEN line seems to be Paulsen's route and the RED line would be a real cheater's route.

 The RED line, the cheater's route is likely at least half or under half the length of the AQUA line, the true circumnavigation route. A true mission would check in with the research stations or at least arrange to be PINGED by the radar stations around Antarctica for verification of location. 

Here are a few of the sailors who have apparently sailed around the world at higher latitudes than Paulsen, and what their routes look like on a top down projection of flat earth...

Another fairly disturbing aspect of the Paulsen mission is his website's use of a locator website that ostensibly shows where his boat is located currently in real time....

 

As the reader notes, there's not a lot of information there. There is no latitude, longitude for example. There are no radar stations. This map is about as bad as something you might find in a children's book or a comic book. Note the difference and what's possible with sections of the Gleason Map of the same location below...

Note the detail possible over a hundred years ago in terms of coordinates and place names. One would think that Paulsen's mission with 100 academics aboard would be able to find the time and resources to properly map their voyage consistent with standards set by today's military and mappers 100 years ago. But nope, we got a red pin on cartoon blue map. It's actually fairly insulting to anyone who might have decided to follow their mission. 

Finally, I quickly hand drew via eyeballing Paulsen's route on a polar projection of Antarctica to compare a true circumnavigation route with his route. The ORANGE line seems like it would be 2X as long as the YELLOW line, a tighter circumnavigation I would need for my purpose. Given that the Treshnikov is an icebreaker, I wonder if I can sell Paulsen on the idea of giving his trip another go around in the tighter YELLOW line route to verify distance.

The 1983 inspection tour route is more representative of what I'd like to see conducted today under full observation by crew and internet social media. We need to conduct a repeat of the 1983 route.