Icebergs are an untapped source of freshwater. Whether an iceberg will survive the journey depends not just on its size and the distance it will travel but also the water and air temperature, the amount of wind, the ocean currents through which it is pulled, and the salinity of the water surrounding it.
In this Big Think book excerpt, the author introduces the “maritime Indiana Jones” who wants to tug icebergs to places facing severe water shortages.
Maritime Indiana Jones
Nick Sloane may just be the visionary we need if iceberg towing is to become a reality. His desire to find a solution for the water crisis in Cape Town has convinced him the risk of seeming laughable is worth the reward of collecting these freshwater jewels. Luckily, he is also one of the smartest and bravest people sailing the oceans today.
Sloane was born in the British protectorate Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, in 1961, and spent his youth sailing on the Indian Ocean. After becoming a master mariner licensed to captain ships of any size anywhere in the world, Sloane turned his attention to salvage operations. When a vessel goes down, whether an oil tanker, ocean liner, or container ship, Sloane knows how to recover it.
He has worked across the globe, from Papua New Guinea to New York Harbor, in some of the harshest conditions imaginable: aboard crumbling ships sometimes on fire, often sinking, and spewing chemicals and oil. Sloane is like a maritime Indiana Jones who has rappelled from a helicopter onto a burning ship and battled armed pirates.
In 2013 he became famous for salvaging the wrecked Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia, which made headlines when it struck a rock off the coast of Tuscany and capsized, killing thirty-three people and causing roughly $2 billion in damage. For his work, Sloane was awarded the prestigious Deutscher Meerespreis from the German ocean research organization GEOMAR and Deutsche Bank.
Salvaging a ship like the Costa Concordia, three football fields long and over one hundred thousand tons, requires extremely specialized knowledge and careful planning. Over thirty months, Sloane organized more than five hundred people to get the job done. In addition to his own bravery, the salvager is a master of logistics and diplomacy. Still, an unquantifiable component is crucial to Sloane’s success. According to GEOMAR, it is due to his being a “born optimist.” Sloane agrees that his sunny outlook is important but also emphasizes the importance of his intuition.
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Source: Big Think
