The 200 kg winch system were broken down in 12 parts weighting between 4 kg and 25 kg. The generator weighted 108 kg, lifting this from the vessel was not any issue - we did this 8 times! Nevertheless, there would not be any issue transporting this generator when the surf was small, belive me. But that is not the kind of conditions we had. Bringing gasoline onto a vessel is for most cases not possible due to risk of fire/exploison, few if any captains want to do that. You don't want to be in a burning vessel, at least not on Bouvet - the standard is diesel fuel. Again, this was a decision we made long time ago due to Safety. We did try to purchase smaller Yanmar diesel generator, but due to Covid we had to cancel the order and get slightly heavier Hyundai generators. At day 13 of the DXPedition another 60 knot storm were predicted to arrive 5 days later (day 18) and that is the reason why we decided not to bring more equipment onshore. That would be the second 60 knot storm hitting the camp in one week.
Thus we made a thorough evaluation of several scenarios that could happen, in addition considered
- the available predicted weather window
- we developed a list of equipment that should be transported (500 kg)
- how to do it sucessfully and under what conditions.
Based on a risk assessment we made a decision to not proceed getting more equipment onshore, but pull out. Reason being that it would be extremely difficult to pull this equipment out in a safe and reliable way 3-5 days later in 3 to 4 meter waves! Decision to pull out had nothing to do with us running out of gasoline. It was the two 60 knots storms passing through the camp during the DXpedition that impacted the conditions too much. We could risk personal and equipment injuries, and we could risk losing equipment or have to leave equipment behind in the nature reserve. Leaving equipment behind would be a disaster. Another alternative was to stay through the storm but that could easily add 10 to 12 days to our schedule - we ended up on 50 days in totalt which was more than enough for most people : ) When you make decisions you have to evaluate all these aspects before deciding. When we arrived on the vessel the followng day we again measured 62 knot wind! You can see a vide on our facebook group. We also had to stay 2 days on the vessel in these conditions before we could proceed to Cape Town.