Shelf life

Outside the base, a maintenance person puts down a hammer. UV light cuts through the ozone-depleted atmosphere, the hammer quickly heats up and sinks through the ice. There's no ironmonger's shop to go to for another one and there are only two supply shipments a year. A headache for the on-site facilities engineer? Maybe, but it's also something the facilities team at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) needs to anticipate.

Don Taylor, head of BAS Building Section, leads a team of facilities engineers and maintenance people who work year round to keep Britain's five most remote scientific stations running.

Facilities at the bases need to run exceptionally smoothly. The Antarctic is the coldest, driest, most inhospitable continent on earth. Mistakes could, as BAS staff say, be a 'showstopper'.

So why have people working there? Because it's ideal for scientific experiments. The isolation means there is less pollution than anywhere else in the world, and this means near laboratory conditions. It was at Halley that the ozone hole was discovered.

Now it's winter in the Antarctic and, at the moment, Taylor and the facilities engineers are back at BAS headquarters in Cambridge, planning maintenance work, while down the maze of hallways the procurement division is planning the re-supplying that needs to be done during the Antarctic summer.

The procurement team only has two chances a year to drop off supplies of food, clothing and technical supplies. Everything needs to be thought of and provided. As Taylor says: 'Anything that doesn't go on the ship just doesn't go'. But, over time, he adds, it has become a 'slick operation'.

Britain has maintained bases in the far south since World War II and in 1962 they were renamed the British Antarctic Survey. Presently there are four that are staffed year round; Halley, on top of the Brunt Ice Shelf, and three dotted around on islands.

Rothera, on Adelaide Island, is the hub of the deep field operations, with up to 130 people and its own airstrip. There is the small base at Bird Island and a newly built facility at South Georgia which replaced an old base there — coinciding with the withdrawal of the small British garrison.

A scientific base at Signy is operated in the summer only, as are two supply bases. Halley base is the closest that the supply ships for British bases can get to the South Pole, says Taylor. In winter temperatures of minus 45 degrees centigrade are 'normal', but in the summer they can get what are known as 'Dingle Days' of between -5 and -10 degrees with sunshine and no wind, when, Taylor says, it's quite pleasant to wear a t-shirt outside. He should know, he has been to Antarctic 12 times.

Condensation biggest problem
Surprisingly, the biggest problem building-wise is not the cold — it's combating condensation. The vapour barriers need to be well designed and there have to be no thermal bridges.

With the high wind and snow so dry and fine it can literally go through the eye of a needle, even a nail hole can provide enough of a gap for a pile of snow to form inside, Taylor says.

Other design considerations have also been made. Doors open inwards. If they didn't they would be ripped off in the high winds or made impossible to open by snow forming outside.

Supplying heating is not always as difficult as would be expected. At Rothera, sometimes staff don't need the heating on because UV heat gain at the base warms it up sufficiently.

The bases use oil-fired boilers that run on marine gas, the same as the ships and the vehicles, so that fuel is interchangeable.

Different energy generation is also being used. At South Georgia, solar panels are used to provide hot water, and wind generation is also employed. Wave-generated power may be suitable at Bird Island.

Taylor says morale at the bases is generally high. He puts this down to the staff: 'the kind of people who go are the sort that will get on and enjoy it', and the conditions provided by BAS: 'If people are dry, warm, and well fed, they will be happy'.

The clothing supplied to staff is the best in the world, Taylor said.'We don't mess around with any cheap clothing. It could mean the difference between life and death in the field.'

Accommodation is also of a high standard. At the base in South Georgia the rooms are en-suite. 'It's like a hotel room', Taylor proudly states.

Laboratories are also the best that can be provided: 'We try to create an environment as good as (the labs) at Cambridge. If you want good science then you need good facilities.'

The four facilities engineers spend six months of the year on the bases and the other six back at Cambridge, preparing for the next winter and recruiting new tradesmen.

Facilities engineer for Halley, Mark Godfrey, has been doing the job for a year. He was in the electrical contracting industry, but is now in charge of the smooth running of the Halley station.

Godfrey got back from the base in early-March, he is now preparing for the next Antarctic summer.

While at the base, Godfrey's working day would usually start 8am. He would check the PPM (Planned Preventative Maintenance) software before helping the different trades people and dealing with technical problems such as power downs and fuel leaks.

Chilling out
During the winter 16 people live at the base — including a carpenter/steel erector, an electrician, a heat and ventilation technician and a generator mechanic. The summer base population varies from 40 to 70.

Contact is via email and satellite phone — with emails sent and collected once a day.

Godfrey said the new technology helps a lot. On the day TheFB visited him in Cambridge, he was emailed pictures showing possible sites where a new transformer could be installed.

On the base Godfrey would finish work at around 7pm. It's a short and intense season that sees staff work six days a week. The seventh day is a 'chill out' day where staff will use the time to write to friends and family and to play football and volleyball.

Ian Collinge handles the bases' procurement. Currently BAS uses an indent system with a reserve built in, but aims to update the system, he said.

Collinge said the cyclical nature of supply means that it is easier to determine what goods are needed by looking at previous years, but the 'peak' of demand makes it hard.

International law means nothing is grown or taken from the environment for the bases so everything must be shipped in — structures, domestic supplies, scientific supplies, boats, vehicles and mechanical spares. For Halley, BAS ask suppliers to provide them with goods with the longest shelf life possible.

While there are two deliveries a year, BAS can really only count on one because the ice quality on the shelf can often make delivery impossible.

Food is dried, tinned and frozen. Much like a canteen in the UK, Collinge says. Packing the goods is outsourced to commercial packers. The ships doing the the re-supplying are specialised ice-going vessels, which are not fitted out for containers. So the goods — from snowcats to drums of aviation fuel— have to be loaded loose. In all, 10,000 packages weighing a total of some 1,100 tonnes are sent each year.

Building work and new construction has been outsourced recently. A new base at South Georgia was finished last year. The Swedish design was three years in the planning. The £3.5m tender was won by Morrison construction and they subcontracted to Top Housing of Sweden.

While the continent and conditions may turn many people off working there, all those you speak to at BAS seem to be in awe of Antarctica.

Taylor puts it simply when he says: 'Antarctica is a beautiful place'.