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A University of Victoria (UVic) team will use an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to look for ships lost 167 years ago in the Arctic. The ill fated Franklin expedition went down in 1845 looking for the Northwest Passage.
According to the University of Victoria in Canada, the two missing ships are called the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. All 129 crew members were lost. According to the CBC, the ships were outfitted with advanced technology for their time period.
Franklin’s vessels, the Erebus and the Terror, were outfitted with steam engines, desalinators, iron plates over their wooden hulls, and propellers and rudders that could be retracted to prevent ice damage.
Fast forward to 2012 and UVic will be using some of the most advanced technology of our time to look for the doomed vessels. The AUV is called “Mano” which means shark. It has a side sonar which will help its handlers identify items on the sea bottom and chart the region.
“Among the challenges, will be navigating the torpedo-shaped vehicle in the northern waters where the magnetic field is erratic,” says research engineer and team leader Alison Proctor. “That’s an integral part of our navigation system and these are uncharted waters, so we are uncertain what to expect.”
The Mano will be controlled by team members in a “16-foot boat that will be launched daily from a Canadian Coast Guard vessel and a research vessel provided by the Arctic Research Foundation”. They will spend 12 to 14 hours a day in the boat. The actual sonar pictures won’t be seen until the end of the day when the AUV resurfaces and the pictures can be downloaded from the Mano’s onboard computer.
No one knows exactly where the two ships went down so this years expedition may not be successful, but even if it is not successful, it will rule out at least one section of the Arctic for future trips. If the trip is successful and one or both ships are found, this is just the beginning of the exploration.
Once the ships are located by sonar, another expedition will set out to get actual footage of the ship or ships using another type of submersible equipped with a camera. The final step will include sending divers down to the wrecks for a closer look.
Best of luck to the researchers. May seas be calm and the wind always at their back.
The above photograph is of:
UVic Research Team
A team of UVic researchers are traveling to the arctic this summer to help Parks Canada locate Sir John Franklin’s lost ships. Pictured from front to back are UVic research engineers Emmett Gamroth, Alison Proctor and Jeff Kennedy.
Photo by: UVic/Bluefin
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