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There was once a man who was sure he could bring an iceberg to South Africa.

While the reality of that idea may have gone underwater for a little while, Matthew Birkhold is bringing the idea back to the surface with an excerpt from his book Chasing Icebergs.

The excerpt, which introduces readers to a “colourful cast of characters with wildly different ideas about how (and if) humans should use icebergs”, has been making its way around the internet, including Fast Company and Big Think.

One of the characters referenced is our very own colourful mariner on a mission to transport an iceberg from Antarctica to South Africa; Nick Sloane.

You might remember his name popping up during the 2019 Cape Town water crisis when he passionately tried to convince the city that the plan could work to bring us all some much-needed H2O.

“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”, writes Birkhold.

Image: Simone & Schuster

Born in Zambia in 1961, Sloane spent his youth sailing on the Indian Ocean before becoming a master mariner licensed to captain ships of any size anywhere in the world.

His attention was quickly turned to the more gruelling part of the industry: 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.

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 33 people and causing roughly $2 billion in damage.

Over the 30 months it took to salvage the Costa Concordia, Sloane, with his extremely specialised knowledge and careful planning, organised more than 500 people to get the job done.

So we take his inspirational whimsy – “You need to never give up on your dreams,” Sloane lilts in his languid accent, “go out and try. Whenever you have an opportunity, take it. And never give up, just keep on going.” – seriously as he clearly knows how to make the impossible possible:

Now, Sloane’s gut tells him the future is in icebergs. He is ready to leverage his deep knowledge of the ocean, engineering expertise, and contacts throughout the maritime world to bring freshwater to the country.

But even non-glaciologists know that the biggest challenge of towing an iceberg from Antarctica to South Africa is that the ice will melt before it reaches its destination.

Despite Cape Town being the best geographic location to make this happen, we are more than 3 000 kilometres from Antarctica, with water temperatures in Table Bay up to 10 degrees Celsius warmer than in the Southern Ocean.

There’s a whole bunch of thermodynamics to understand, but basically, the changing temperature in the water and surrounding air, as well as the salinity and currents of the ocean, affect the ice as it is dragged from A to B, causing it to melt way before it reaches the shore.

Many people familiar with icebergs are doubtful the physics can be overcome. Their incredulity is rooted in extensive hands-on experience. They have seen icebergs fall apart mid-tow. They know the amount of work required to wrangle the beasts. They know just how ephemeral these resources are. Such experience, however, may also limit their imagination. Icebergs can be unfathomably big and humankind possesses massive power. Skeptics of long-distance iceberg towing may just need to dream bigger.

Sloane is that person whose imagination was as big as the reality.

Which begs the question, where’s our fresh ice water, Sloane? We’re potentially on the verge of another Day Zero over here.

[source:fastcompany]