I saw a youtube video of a single mother who job it was to cut out the ice from underneath the ships to create space to do the repairs. Apparently its a very dangerous job because you can easily end up frozen to the river if you're not careful. Must be the same one mentioned in the article.
youtube.com/watch?v=Lu9P3VaMCho
There is a good YT channel I subscribe to from a person in Yakutsk who makes interesting videos on life there:
How bad is it for a ship's hull to get frozen in ice? Are these ships all reinforced? Are there clever mitigations this "drydock" undertakes?
I don't see the wheels on the boat with wheels - is it the "paddle wheel in the next shot?
Unrelated: is there a delay on HN between submission and publication? I posted that article a few days ago and the header is now "3 hours ago".
Some postings get a second chance if they're considered interesting but didn't get much traction the first time around.
HNs system can be hard to figure out. I posted an ~identical article to one that hit #1 on top page a few hours before the other guy. My own posting only got like 8 votes. I have no idea what I did wrong. I think there is some randomness in the beginning; if a couple people notice it in the first 15 or 20 minutes then it stays high enough other people notice it and then it snowballs.
If you have a good post though that gets overlooked someone will commonly "steal" it and use a slightly different article and good chance that one will get traction. Surprised no one thought to do that before you got a second chance.
There is something slightly with the system if people are actually even thinking about posts in terms like this. "The other guy stole my spotlight?" Do people somehow make money from their HN post stats? I guess somehwere some how some people probably do.
I do obvioulsy recognize that at a low level it's fundamental human nature to apply those kinds of game/competition thoughts to literally everything in life, but still it seems like this would be a case where the act of thinking about it consciously enough to write it down, is enough to make one realize it sounds silly.
It seems like human nature that if you attach a number or score to something, people are going to try and get the most they can.
Which is kinda the point. Nobody wants to lose score, so they don't post horrible comments (usually) and they try to find the most interesting articles to post. That's good for everyone. But it does have the side-effect of people complaining that their karma was "stolen".
Diddums
Interesting choice of tourism destination, but quite cool (no pun intended...) regardless.
One of the most annoying things about working with anything metal at those temperatures, is that your tools will pretty much instantly become stuck to whatever it is you're trying to manipulate, making a propane burner an indispensable addition to your toolbox.
Ewan McGregor and his friend Charley Boorman was also in the area, 20 odd years ago, when they did a montorbike trip from London to New York, "The Long Way Round" (Crossing Europe, Mongolia, Russia, Canada and USA): https://youtu.be/6kajsHTy3hA
Man, looking at the map it feels like one of the last wild place on earth. I was wondering if this shipyard is on the Arctic Coast, but not really. If it were, it'll be relevant in the near near future. At the moment it's connected by a river to the Arctic Ocean, it's probably booming with business.
> The Long Way Round
It was a neat series, but the start where they whinge about not getting free bikes from their brand of choice was so incredibly entitled and such a turn off.
That's right. I wonder if the decision-makers at KTM regretted that afterwards.
Addendum: Considering that the GS has been a bestseller ever since. It feels like every other motorcycle enthusiast in Germany rides one. It has been the best-selling motorcycle almost every year since then. In Italy, many also seem to prefer riding GS bikes over Guzzi/Ducati/Aprilia.
Oh yeah. It’s very commonly accepted in ADV circles that the GS is THE bike of choice because of long way round.
It could, and probably should have been KTM. The GS is stupidly big and heavy.
Similar: During pandemic Ewan and Charlie did an electric bike ride from Argentina to the US and the support crew were in Rivians along with the Rivian CEO or head of engineering or something, as an extended QA run before full production. It was my introduction to the brand and sufficiently impressed me such that I think it’s the only option I’d look at for an EV.
I don’t think it was entitlement, but enthusiasm about brands (hobbyists tend to get that way).
You’re probably right. It seems far more likely to be left in of they were trying to show brand enthusiasm.
Interesting observation and I have to relate - today I've measured ice thickness with classic stainless caliper - -3 celsius was enough for it to immediately glue to ice it was even barely wet.
Working such temperatures must be real hazard to skin, anything metal will glue to it immediately.
Let the metal cool down to the the temperature of the ice and try again. The problem isn’t generally that the ice is sticky per se; the problem is that the surface of the ice will melt if something warm enough touches it and then will freeze again and stick.
no propane burners. propane freezes solid at minus 60°, and you need heaters to get any flow long before it gets that cold, to the point that you can set propane out in a bucket, which I have some experience with in useing it, to supper cool transmission shafts, so that they shrink, and press fit bearings slip right on. so yes they have propane, but they use it in other, less well known ways.
Propane freezes long before -60C.
The recent cold snap in the Yukon had smaller tanks useless just past -35c, and bigger ones not doing much past -40c.
We don’t take it on winter adventures for that reason.
Maybe butane?
Butane stops vaporizing at -1C (31F), isobutane at about -10C (10F). Propane's boiling point is even better, at about -40C/-40F, but it self-cools and doesn't develop the required pressures to run a torch.
I know this because my otherwise dependable camp stove is a 3-season affair. For winter camping, you basically need a white gas system (liquid fueled, manually pressurized or gravity fed).
I suppose I'd reach for an acetylene torch in a cold workshop.
You're right. I misinterpreted my little butane torch's apparent high pressure in relation to my big propane torch.
Canned ethane or ethyne ("acetylene") then.
Huh, that actually seems pretty convenient. It's like a subtractive scaffold
I once was extremely proud of myself when I had to change a tire without a jack; realizing that I could move the car so the tire was over dirt/sand, brace the car, and dig out underneath the tire.
Skip the dry dock, just chainsaw the river until it freezes deep enough, peak yakutsk engineering
So all these ships are immobilized till summer when the ice melts? But winter is the time for repairs etc?
makes sense, doesn't it?
Thanks for the story!
The pictures of this technique triggers my submechanophobia - especially the photo of the two people working underneath the ship.
The -50 makes it actually easier, because it's you know on top of the river instead on in the river at this point.
That's the crux of it; they aren't.
It's not okay to casually appreciate the vacation pictures of a corrupt Russian oligarch, even if they overlap with an area of technical interest.
Kapersky is part of a corrupt regime that has killed tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainian civilians and murdered leaders of rival political parties. You can get numb to it, but it is a horrible, historic war crime. He is complicit and his boat pictures can go to hell.
> It's not okay to casually appreciate the vacation pictures of a corrupt Russian oligarch
This is totally incoherent and nonsensical. There is no moral case for this and you are making a purely emotional remark.
Coming back from warm and cozy Oman Al Hajar mountains and Wahiba crossing, this makes my cry. So beautiful and interesting planet we live on !!
I'm reminded of the worker in this bit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U3g-h1rxQw
Absolutely loves her job. Screams a little bit every time she swings the pickaxe below a certain depth though. As one does.