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For security of course one of important
programs we can meet is of course icebergs.
So for this new edition, we'll use
those to be sure the boats will not go in bad situation,
with Marcel van Triest we decide a restriction zone.
With all the last information we can have with cells information.
They can give us new photo of the stream of the icebergs.
So we decide before the restriction zone,
and that's a really big difference we have with the last because it was only doors.
But what we thought between two doors you can go down to the icebergs so
we prefer to do research [INAUDIBLE] and for the strategy of competitors is
maybe more interesting for them to know exactly what the limit.
At CLS we provide several kinds of information to the rest direction.
1:47
is information about icebergs and about ocean condition.
And for that point, more specifically we work with Marcel van Triest
and we provide him with the location of the iceberg we detected with our technologies.
And so we are hoping to define the exclusion areas
all along the course of the Barcelona World Race.
We have a meeting regularly with them and as soon we
are aware there's a new iceberg detected we inform Marcel van Triest.
But there is a possibility that some isolated iceberg
remain in the Ocean North of this exclusion area.
So in that case, and if we detect the iceberg with our technology,
we will alert Marcel van Triest on the race direction as soon as possible,
so that this information can be sent to this keepers.
So this will be a process that can go on every day if necessary.
Ice research project is a big project for any round the world race.
There's no information available on the internet.
You can't buy it anywhere.
You actually have to order it and have to custom made.
Barcelona World Race has done it two times and
a third time coming up and it involves quite a bit of organization.
First of all you have to decide where the boats are going to sail more or less.
Then you have to order custom images for
those areas to get data if there's any icebergs there.
No one knows if there's any icebergs until your order images.
3:26
Treating all those images and so it's a big job relating them to
whether where the fleet will be when they get there, also don't forget the fleet
will be quite separated from the first boat to the last boat,
if the last boat had some problems, they can be half an ocean.
So you have to make exclusion zones that work for
the whole fleet, you can't make it, a little bit further North for one boat,
a little bit further South for the next boat.
So dealing with that and finding the right compromise between
safety and having a good course around the world, without going through all
the highs in the middle latitudes there is a discussion between the race organizer,
the meteorologist, me and CLS, which are the experts in providing those images and
analyzing those images.
But it's a big job and a big responsibility.
So in the ice project, the way we work, more or less is as follows.
We start off with a simple study.
It's not that simple but
with an instrument on satellite which called the altimeter.
The altimeter measures the distance from the satellite to the sea surface,
if in a sea surface there's some floating object like a ship or
an iceberg, that signal will come back quicker to the satellite and
that data, when it gets beamed back to us on the shore,
we'll be able to distinguish that there are icebergs there,
ships and all that.
So all those floating objects then, that have been defined.
They can be icebergs.
They can be ships.
That gets correlated with the database of all ships that are known to be out there,
and their positions,
a lot of it is known now.
And then some of them will say, okay those are ships.
Some of them, we're not really certain.
A majority will say, those are icebergs.
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That work has already started.
We've done it over the last few years.
We'll be starting it again in September.
And we'll keep on updating it.
The only problem is that with that measuring of the altimeter from
the satellite to the Earth's surface, you don't cover everything all the time.
And icebergs drift quite a lot.
I will be providing with logical information to CLS to actually
estimate and calculate this drift.
All right, but it drifts quite a lot.
So it could be that you ping it now here where next time sunlight comes around,
5:44
Right, the iceberg has drifted and you miss it.
So some fall through the maze basically.
So although this gives us a rough indication where the main
concentrations of ice are, after that we go in with a finer
grain instrument which is called a scatterometer.
The scatterometer takes a picture from the satellite.
Well it's not really picture, it actually emits a radar beam.
A radar beam like the ship's radar or
a radar that the police use to give you a fine.
The radar beam from the satellite to the Earth surface.
6:17
Those radar waves reflect back from the Earth's surface and
that's get captured by satellites.
And this is why it's called, a scatter emitter because
those radar beams they get scattered by the Earth's surface.
And a wave or
a flat ocean will give a different scatter than an iceberg or a solid object.
So then all that data as you can mention it's an enormous amount of data,
all this scattered data basically.
Gets then put back together basically as an artificial image.
Then they say, that's an iceberg, that's an iceberg, that may be, that may be not.
So we sort of go finer, especially to find...
The main concentrations will get with the altimeter, but there's more on the edges.
Is it still safe there?
Or is there still a few icebergs around.
Then in discussion with the race organizer we'll decide where to put the exclusions up
and then see as we'll keep on monitoring that in case there is any danger.
[COUGH] For some of the competitors that arrive later,
that some iceberg has floated out of that area, out of the exclusion zone.
Especially approaching Cape Horn for instance.
Cape Horn, you have to go South.
There is no option to go through Panama Canal for instance.
You have to go South and you could end up in a situation where it's impossible for
the race organizer to guarantee that there will be no icing by competitor.
You will never be sure because even its scatterometer data it's still
fairly coarse.
It only picks up icebergs which are at least 150 meters wide or
tall, whatever you want to call it.
Right. So even the smaller ice bits,
you don't really pick them up.
So you try to correlate all that between sea surface temperature where
were the icebergs.
Was there a chance that there was a bigger one here that is now falling into small
bits, right.
Of only the size of a car, size of a truck?
And if they are there, how far away do we have to stay?
Where will they go with the ocean's currents?
When do they get into warm water and will melt.
So it's all about finding the right compromise in between safety and
sailing around the world.
So this part of organizing a race is very different now than the old days.
The old days are not that old.
The old days are only 20 to 30 years ago when we started.
Sailing around the world on a regular basis, either fully crewed, single-handed.
The Barcelona World Race arrived later.
20, 30 years ago, there were no instruments.
There were no satellites out there that could actually do something with it.
So boats left more or less in the blind, ignorant.
And then when they came to port they say, we've seen a lot of ice.
There have been some collisions.
There haven't been any major disasters.
But that's been more a matter of luck than anything else.
I mean I remember doing a race starting from
Uruguay to Western Australia, Freemantle.
And if you would take the shortest route,
it would basically take you over the Antarctic continent.
So we spent weeks down there at 60, 61 degrees South in really slow boats.
And saw a lot of ice and thought nothing of it, it was probably normal.
Today, it's all very different,
I mean the boats are a lot quicker, which makes it a lot more dangerous actually.
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Because now single handed,
double handed which means you can't have a watcher on deck to look out.
That sort of stuff.
Also that sort of information is available.
You can get the information now you can no longer ignore it.
The whole liability and responsibility.
The game has changed a lot.
When I did my first around the world race it was organized by the English Navy.
And some rare admiral said: Off you go chap!
Jolly good! And that was the end of it.
You arrived, you didn't arrive, no one cared.
And that's no longer possible in 2014.
This change in responsibility and liability for instance,
you can also see back in the Australian Barrier, as we called it.
I mean there is a limit on how far south you can go under Australia,
basically because the Australian search and rescue authorities have said, okay, so
you're sailing around the world, good.
We are responsible for the well-being of your sailors while they're in our waters.
And we can't reach you more than 12,0000 miles from our nearest
and station basically.
When it gets too far away, we can't send ships, we can't spend taxpayer's money.
Basically, to go and rescue some single handed or
double handed sailor 4,000 kilometers from our shores, basically.
So that is another limitation that is in the race now.
Tomàs Molina
