Antarctic video gallery
Changing of the Guard
Video transcript
Jono Reeve, Science Coordination Manager With Aurora Australis we had an amazing new world-leading capability. All these capabilities that people had dreamed of for some time, and all these things we wanted to do we could now do, and plan to do. Work out ways to do new things that we hadn't ever done before.
Leanne Millhouse, Shipping Officer The Aurora Australis was particularly important to the Australian Antarctic Program. She was with us for 30 years and for the majority of people who work at the Antarctic Division now, she's the main vessel that they would remember.
Kim Ellis, Director It gives us the capability to operate throughout the Southern Ocean. It extends our operating range. It gives us additional days of scientific activity in the Southern Ocean. It allows us to resupply all of our Antarctic bases, and it allows us to work in collaboration with Australian and international science organisations, to deliver answers to some of the really big questions about climate, biology, and other ocean issues that are so important to us at the moment.
Jono Reeve, Science Coordination Manager It’s a big challenge to make an icebreaker Silent R. Icebreakers have to be immensely powerful to break ice. That doesn't lend itself to being silent usually.
Silent gives you a whole range of scientific capabilities. If you're silent you can hear really well, you can hear what's out there. The other thing is, if you're silent you can be stealthy, so that means that the fish don't go "what's that?", and they don't know you're there so they keep on doing what they're doing, and you don't affect them.
Rob King, Krill Biologist And it also opens up new ways of collecting specimens. We can trawl for specimens like we used to with the Aurora, but we also have this capability using the wet well system to suck specimens in through the side of the ship, even when we're transiting through sea ice. So that opens up the opportunity to work on the physiology and the behaviour of specimens that have only ever been available before to teams of divers.
Jono Reeve, Science Coordination Manager Yeah this ship has what's called DP2 level dynamic positioning, so that takes what we had in Aurora and makes it a lot better again. So that allows this ship to hold position in bad weather, 40 knot winds and currents against you in big seas, we can still stay there doing scientific research, not having to wait for the weather to improve. So you can assure yourself of the safety, that you're not going to go aground, or something go wrong and dangerous in your operation.
Kim Ellis, Director So whether it's redundancy in operating systems. Whether it's fire safety systems. Whether it's passenger management and evacuation systems, the Nuyina is leading edge in every part of that.
Jono Reeve, Science Coordination Manager We've got 48 containers in the forward hold, and we can have that much again in the back hold, or a mix of containers and vehicles and other, what's called break bulk cargo. But then of course we can put way more stuff on the hatches.
Leanne Millhouse, Shipping Officer Which means that we can put more cargo on her, and have the capability of resupplying more than one station and refuelling more than one station at a time. That's something that we've not had the ability to do before.
It'll be a very different working paradigm. Even just working out how to move around the vessel. Because she is much larger than any of the vessels that I have sailed on.
Jono Reeve, Science Coordination Manager All of Hobart is going to be just a bit surprised at how big it is. I know that when Nuyina comes into Hobart a lot of people are going to be so excited.
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Sound Science
Video transcript
Environmental Officer Helen Achurch:The moorings are comprised of a string of components including weights, acoustic release, hydrophone, external battery packs and floats. Once lowered through the sea ice the floats allow the mooring to gently descend to the sea floor to depths between 50 and 250 metres.
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Nuyina homeward bound
Video transcript
The delivery voyage is very important for us because it allows us to actually get that final confirmation that the ship's in good operating condition. It's going to be an amazing opportunity to see this ship in action, in all weather, on a really extended voyage.
To see the ship finally come off the berth and actually proceed to sea under its own power, and it still takes my breath away when I see photos of the vessel at sea, because it's been a long time in the making. And we're almost there to have it here in Hobart and actually start working for the program which it's been designed for.
So distance wise it's about 12,000 miles. So we're looking at about halfway around the planet.
Yeah, this is a big event in my life, and certainly a big event in the Australian Antarctic community.
Which will allow people not just to see the ship, but to understand the connection between the ship and the amazing capability it delivers. The scientific ability, the logistics ability, the Australia's presence in Antarctica that it's going to bring.
Throw the drinks on ice, we're on our way, we'll see you in six and a half weeks and certainly a lot more comfort and a lot quicker than Abel Tasman did in 1642.
She's steaming south right now with the Australian flag flying high. It's an incredibly proud moment for the Australian Antarctic Division.
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Learning the ropes
Video transcript
This training sets the scene for attending to a casualty in the wilderness in any sort of circumstance. At night time, in the rain, in the cold, whatever arises.
We'll hold it and then one, two, three, down. Okay just to make sure that everything's okay. Right so one, two, three, up.
You're far away from, from help and you really have to be self-sufficient, but more than that you actually rely on your team surprisingly how much you depend on the others with you.
Sally, some, how's about we leave you some pain relief and a radio. I'll kill the radio as well.
It was wonderful. Yes so it was great we were a small group and I think we all got to know each other pretty well over the eight days and it was challenging.
Would you be able to (indistinguishable) We've got some people listening out to see if you're nearby.
One of the aspects on the course was to kind of try and get yourself acclimatised by having cold showers in the morning, so that's going pretty well at the minute, so.
I like the concept of being a little bit outside of your comfort zone but being able to kind of utilise what's around you with your everyday kind of experience, and yeah maybe experience all the outdoors as well, and being able to thrive in that environment is quite appealing.
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Ships of science
Video transcript
Rob Bryson (General Manager, Assets and Infrastructure): What it does represent is a significant milestone in Australia's interaction and endeavors in Antarctic history because this ship represents all of the knowledge and all of the technology that has been used over those hundred years.
Jono Reeve (Science Coordination Manager – Nuyina project): Nella Dan got blown ashore in a rapid change of weather that blew the ship ashore whilst it was refueling the station. She was a small vessel with only a single propeller and no thrusters and a dragging anchor in that situation makes it very difficult very quickly.
I was still fairly junior in those days but I know there was a lot of heartache and financial calculation being done and I'm afraid the owners of the ship reached the conclusion that they couldn't tow it all the way back to Singapore for repair, and they had to take it offshore and sink it offshore, which was a sad day for many people. There were a lot of tears shed.
Jono Reeve (Science Coordination Manager – Nuyina project): With Aurora Australis we had an amazing new world-leading capability. All these capabilities that people had dreamed of for some time and all these things we wanted to do, we could now do and plan to do, and work out ways to do new things that we hadn't ever done before. Those early science voyages were just a buzz with people blinded by the science and the interest of what they were doing and the capabilities of the ship to do all this amazing research. It was a very exciting time.
I can remember when Aurora Australis left Hobart for the last time. It was very poignant because a lot of my life has been involved on that ship, and working towards all the things it's done in its life, and now I'm working on the replacement that's coming our way shortly.
Kim Ellis (AAD Director): It's a truly remarkable ship. It's a Swiss army knife of maritime capabilities. It will be the most complete and powerful scientific research vessel in the ocean when it arrives here.
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Birth of an icebreaker
Video transcript
Rob Bryson – General Manager (Icebreaker project): Every ship that is designed for a national Antarctic program is based on what's come before and it takes it to the next level. The Nuyina is probably the biggest ice-breaking research vessel on the planet.
Greg Hunt – Former Environment Minister: Today we are announcing a 1.91 billion dollar lifetime contract for the new Antarctic icebreaker.
Rob Bryson: Today we started the plasma cutter for the first time on the construction process for Australia's new Antarctic research vessel. This is a key milestone because it ends the process of design, which has been going for the last 12 months, but the project itself had its inception in 2008 when we first started talking about this ship, and the need to replace the Aurora Australis over the next decade.
Nick Gales – Former AAD Director: We're here for a very important moment to mark the keel laying of Australia's new icebreaker. We're placing four coins on the keel of the ship today, an Australian coin of course as it'll be the Australian Antarctic Program ship, a coin from Romania to mark where the ship was built, a coin from the Netherlands to mark that Damen Schelde Naval shipbuilders have designed and are responsible for the building of the ship, and also a Danish coin to mark that the original designs from Knud E. Hansen came from Denmark.
Daisy Allen - Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre representative: The word Nuyina was first shared by aborigines with Government agent George Augustus Robinson in August 1831. He wrote in his journal "The natives last night saw an electric spark in the atmosphere...the natives of Cape Portland call it Nuyina".
Nick Gales: Today is all about you guys, it's all about congratulating you for coming up with a brilliant new name for our icebreaker Nuyina.
Schoolgirl: It's just been an incredible, amazing once in a lifetime trip.
Voiceover: Noy-yee-nah, Nuyina
Rob Bryson: The H.A.T. represents the first time that we're powering up all the systems on the ship. The ship finally comes to life.
Hon Sussan Ley MP - Minister for the Environment: Everyone involved in this project can take great pride in their contribution to the development of a vessel that has set a new world benchmark in polar science capability.
Kim Ellis – AAD Director: There's a palpable excitement now in the Antarctic Division and in fact in the whole Antarctic community that this ship is only a couple of months away from arriving in Hobart. It will be the most complete and powerful scientific research vessel in the ocean when it arrives here. And when you come to Hobart the thing you will want to see is Australia's icebreaker, Nuyina.
(ship horn)
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Antarctic Flagship
Video transcript
A very exciting day for Australia and it's a very exciting day for Dutch Australian relations too that it's sailing off to Australia having been built by these major ship builders Damen and I think I'm just thrilled by it.
It's one of our babies, so it will always remain our baby, but she has to go to sea, she has to go and work for the Antarctic Division with Serco.
It's a monumental occasion to take delivery of a brand new icebreaker that's been custom designed and built for the Australian Antarctic Program. It's really special. It's day one in some ways of a 30 or possibly 40 year life span.
It makes me very proud to be an Australian that we've got this vessel, and that we're going to be able to do so much with it, and I just want to wish all those scientists and crew who will be working on it all the best for the future. You will be able to make a great contribution to the world with it.
Everyone involved in this project can take great pride in their contribution to the development of a vessel that has set a new world benchmark in polar science capability.
I'm sure it'll be doing things, you know 20 years from now, that we haven't even thought of yet.
That's the really exciting part, just like there'll be Australian seafarers serving on the ship that haven't even been born yet. It's kind of fun to think of that.
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Hide and seek with giants
Video transcript
It's almost like finding a needle in a haystack, which is unbelievable considering how large those animals are.
We deploy satellite tags onto large whales, and we also take biopsy samples from large whales, and both these techniques can give us data streams that are critical to the conservation and management of whales.
So essentially we wouldn't have to put people in a small boat in the Southern Ocean, we'd simply be flying the drone above the whale.
Three, two, one.
Three, two, one.
So we're going to calculate velocity, force of impact and look at the flight path.
There's only ever two tags been put out on an Antarctic blue whale, so that gives you an idea of how difficult it is. So obviously Antarctic blue whales are incredibly hard to find in the first place, they're an endangered species, there's only a few thousand down in Antarctica.
The work that we do is always challenging, always interesting, so it's not hard to get up every day and do the job that we do, because we work on some really interesting animals, we use some really interesting techniques to answer our questions. So, it's a lot of fun actually.
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