"Our fleet is outdated, Stopudovo"

Underwater Odyssey Hydrophysics Vadim Paki

Once, talking with the director of the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexei Sokov about global warming and the problems of the scientific fleet, I looked at the model of a scientific vessel in his office and remembered a long-standing dream to participate in a trip by the sea.

-Is it possible, theoretically, someday, in any quality ...

- Can. There is a schedule of our expeditions, choose a convenient one, ”the director interrupted my torment.

And now, after a year and a half, I am on board the research vessel “Academician Boris Petrov”, which will have a flight from the Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea-around the Danish Island Bornholm and back.

“Petrov” (displacement of 2700 tons) is one of the six largest scientific vessels in Russia, which is currently managed by the Center for Marine Expeditionary Research. The exit to the sea, even on such a short flight, is already a big event for the institute. Only one fact: for more than a year, Petrov stood at the pier, and his only exit to the sea in 2020 lasted only these five days.

The head of the expedition, junior researcher Alexei Kondrashov, introduces me to “science” (the so -called scientists who go on the flight in addition to the team) and highlights a very cozy cabin. In the morning, a tangible trembling runs around the ship - the old man “Russian diesel”, working on “Petrov”, has started since its construction in Finland in 1984. The measured rumble of the engine will accompany us all the following days.

The ship is left by the border guards. After a couple of hours, we go out into the Gulf of Gdan and leave the Baltiysk on the horizon with its ruins of the Western Fort.

“Monitoring of the spatio-temporal changes in the abiotic components of the Baltic Sea ecosystem” and “The introduction of promising means and methods of studying the meso- and micro-industrial structure of the Pride layer”- this is how the goals of our expedition sound in the stationery. And if with monitoring it seems to be clear, then “promising means” is the latest invention of Vadim Paki, the scientific director of the flight, whom I finally meet in a swinging stern.

Pak is a man of interesting fate, the author of many inventions, about whom legends are composed. “There is no sea in which Pak did not visit, and there is no device that he could not raise from the bottom,” the student of the Baltic Federal University, participating in the expedition, is not the first time for the first time.

The new invention of the oceanologist is a device that allows you to solve a long -standing problem still facing scientists.

To solve a large number of hydrophysical tasks, it is necessary to shoot (the so -called cuts) of the sea on the go of the vessel using multi -parametric probes that can measure many water indicators - temperature, salinity, oxygen content, etc. In some cases, it is necessary to affect the tributary layer where the most interesting processes associated with the spread of water with different salins occur.

Different firms are offered probes that allow you to make cuts on the go, but not to the bottom - either to the bottom, but not on the go. This is due to the danger of damage to expensive scientific probes when hitting the bottom, where there may be stones and other dangerous irregularities.

Today, the classic hydrological survey looks like this: the ship is in full swing from point A to point B and there it falls into the drift, while the interval between points is about 10 km. The problem of such a shooting is not only in a low spatial resolution, but also a purely technical one: a large vessel to transfer the engine from the full speed mode to idle speeds, it takes about 40 minutes.

The last fact is surprising, but it is confirmed by the mechanic Alexander, who for an hour and a half patiently drives me around the machine department and answers the most tricky questions.

To the bottom

Vadim Pak began the first experiments with measurements on the go back in 1985. He saw the solution of the problem in a freely falling probe, which is not damaged if at the very bottom it is sharply pulled to the surface.

The problem here is mechanical: instead of a winch, a freely rotating drum with a cable and the mechanism of its sample are needed.

The trigger, including a plywood drum (vyushka), blocks and a friction disk with a V-shaped groove for pulling the cable with a motor, is installed on the stern and must be tested in our flight. Its non-Vodvodskaya nature is given out a bicycle brake, a screwdriver for laying a cable-three cable and a belt from a car generator for a plywood drum drive.

The main thing at work is not to miss the bottom. Here, the responsibility falls on students who follow the testimony of the probe in the laboratory and shouting the “bottom!” Team into the radio. On this team, you need to urgently stop the drum and start a cable view.

As a probe, scientists use the Italian company Idronaut.

“There is no good hydrological probe in Russia; The available alternatives are weak, ”Paka explains. Italian probes measure the temperature, electrical conductivity, oxygen, acidity, pressure. By the way, acidity is an important indicator when searching for chemical weapons, since it increases sharply in water during the decomposition of poisonous substances.

On the very first night, scientists distribute the shifts that carry two or three people, and make the first incision on the way to Bournholm. In the morning it turns out that the probe requires a small repair in the laboratory. By the way, it is in the laboratory that the expedition participants spend most of the time: here the probes are displayed on the screens of computers in real time, equipment is repaired, and operational decisions are made.

The powerful figure of the scientific director, something common in his features with Kousto, an iron (for 84 years) handshake will certainly pay attention to themselves. Even in hot disputes in the laboratory or at the dining table about who is to blame for the breakdown and what to do, it retains emphasized judgment and some kind of aristocratic politeness.

Do not “hold this thing”, but “pose to me,” Pak addresses me, licking the power cable when you need to hold the Italian probe. “During the descent to the bottom, the cable ranges from side to side, and this is fraught with copper veins,” he explains. Then it takes a grinder, cuts off a wooden block with a confident hand and hugs it with a special tape to the place of fastening for stiffness.

"What is this?" - the next morning colleagues are surprised by finding a piece of wood in the attachment of an expensive sensor. The name of Paki sounds, and the question is removed.

In the evening of the second day, the team is reviving. We reduce the move and go to the place where in the summer the scientists installed on the bottom of the incklinometers - devices for measuring speed and direction of currents. By the way, the Academician Nikolai Strakhov vessel was engaged in the installation-this name thundered throughout the country in 2015 after the liberation of the ship on Sri Lanka, where it was captured for debts.

We approach the searches, all the “science” gathers at the stern. There is a hook! The cable rises, and we see that they only broke both cats - they were on the surface with curved and torn fangs.

“Stones,” Paka explains everyday. We try to hook the stations for the second time, and at that moment we notice from the deck a owl flying next to the ship. What does she do 70 km from the shore? There is no time to speculate about this, since the second hook is successful - both stations are intact, they are instantly disassembled in the laboratory and read the collected information. And the ship is in full swing to Bournholm.

Pack's incklinometers are simple and original at the same time. The steamed water pipe made of polypropylene with a sensor inside is attached to the bottom at one end and can be freely tilted with the flow. The sensor, soldered by Alexei Kondrashov from penny chips and other elements, measures the tilt of the pipe and writes data on the memory card.

Hello from Hitler

The third day of the expedition promises to be the most interesting. Near the island of Bornholm, we approach the place where the Swedish Scientific Station was left “insurance” two years ago at the bottom of the sea. The station was installed for monitoring of the traffic flow in the very center of the burial of German chemical weapons next to the ship, flooded here after the war.

The device was equipped with an acoustic blur, which, when applying a signal from a passing vessel, was to free the station and let it come up. But the batteries sat down, and there was the only chance to raise the station - cats. The sea storms in the morning; We approach the place and begin to catch the station. The first call is to no avail. In the second, when trawning, a strong jerk occurs - and the cable tears the entire design of the pack with me and the drum from the place, while the plexiglassed gear, on its axis, spreads from the blow to the pieces.

At the time of separation, a high wave is hit on board and douses everyone on the deck with cold water - for the first time in three days of the expedition. It seems that the forces of nature do not want to give people a dark past.

Both lost cats become a tribute to the sea - at first everyone thought that the cable was simply wrapped in a screw. “I think they hooked the ship,” Pak says and asks the ship to be drift for two hours to repair the equipment. -There are several flooded vessels on the frames of shooting, some sheets of metal, half-rotten cables and cables. Counting that we can pull the cat 400 m and not catch on anything, it is hopeless. ”

It is impossible to carry out further diving of a probe without a gear wheel. We decide to glue its fragments and strengthen them with a metal frame. Superwood, a grinder, self-tapping screws and a holey metal plate found in a drawer are going on. An hour of work - and an enhanced wheel collected from miserable fragments of the former, is attached to the place.

Repairs are completed; “Petrov” goes on, but in memory of Bornholm, the Danish Baltic twice twice the wave of the stern, scattered boxes, instruments and left wet who did not manage to jump higher.

That same night I participate in the shift on a new section - we have to monitor the operation of the pack of pack for three hours, quickly eliminating the problems. Someone joked that the many-armed god Shiva would have an ideal operator on him-after all, here it is necessary to hold the motor control panel, brake, and radio to hear the laboratory commands, and straighten the cable to the cable, if he flies from the rollers at speed.

The main problem of the experimental installation is a constant struggle against the so-called pegs, that is, the ruptures and fractures of metal threads of the cable-three, which occur due to the slack when lowering the probe.

When pegs appear, the incision is interrupted, and we urgently need to weave metal threads. All this occurs with strong pitching, wind, spray, roar of an electric motor and a ship's machine, so you have to scream each other into a walkie -talkie and constantly be on the alert.

“This is a science! And you tell me - stars, exoplanets ... ” - screams, repairing the cable, George Malafeev, a senior laboratory assistant, and we burst into a nervous laughter.

In this section, the main task of the expedition is completed. A few hours of sleep - and I decide to streamline everything heard, what I saw and felt on the flight, talking with the scientific director.

Device fate

“In general, I am not a device, but a hydrophysicist and is forced to provide the possibility of an experiment. And if you work with urgent tasks, then our equipment is not enough to solve them. Therefore, we must look for new opportunities for conducting an experiment, although I do not have any engineering education, ”says Pak.

He came to the oceanology in his third year in the distant 1953, when, walking on the base of the physical faculty of Moscow State University, he entered the department of physics of the sea. It was created during the war years by the famous Soviet Oceanologist Vasily Shulekin, the founder of the domestic school of the sea physics. Back in 1929, Shuleykin organized a Black Sea hydrophysical station in the Crimean village of Katsivilles, and in 1953 he built a large stormy pool there for studying wind waves - it, all peeling, still stands on the territory of the Marine Hydrophysical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and fascinates curious tourists with its cyclopic dimensions.

Here, on the dashboard, the packs of packs with the Black Sea and the first exit on the scientific flight took place. Soon, a young specialist began to engage in "special tematics" associated with the small-scale structure of the ocean, which only not so long ago it became possible to talk something. For example, it was necessary to learn how to discover a turbulent trace from surface and underwater ships at sea and learn to leave this trace.

“It was an era when the main tool of oceanology was a research ship. We had many times more ships engaged in science than that of the United States. There was an academic fleet, there was industrial fishing intelligence, there was hydrography of the Navy, ”the oceanologist recalls. -Even in the era of the Vityaz ship, Soviet science discovered and described living creatures in the ocean more than any other. ”

Today, the efficiency of using the Russian Scientific Fleet has nothing to compare with the Soviet times, he is sure: “In the old times, the shortest flight was three months. Over the year, the ship was obliged to execute three flights, gain nine months - only then it was believed that the costs of it were advisable. Now, if the ship is gaining one and a half month in a year, it is believed that it is not in vain standing at the pier. The vessels come out only so that the crew that is still scattering is still running away. ”

Paku has been engaged in Park flooded in the Baltic of German weapons since 1997. This is a trophy weapon that Germany produced until 1945, but did not use, since the authorities were afraid of the ultimatum of Churchill, who threatened to fill the country with andPatitis in this case.

It is known that the reserves of military poisonous substances were imported with the participation of Finland in the Leningrad Front area to attack Leningrad, but this weapon disappeared, it was not found, and its search is one of the urgent tasks. At the Potsdam conference, the question was raised what to do with the German chemical arsenal. A unanimous decision was made to immediately eliminate ground arsenals, since there were enough explosions to fill Germany with its own chemical weapons. Each winning country was instructed to eliminate its part of the arsenal.

For flooding weapons from the American and British occupation zones, the old Liberty vessels were collected, on which 150 thousand tons of chemical weapons were sent to the Norwegian basin, the depth of which reaches 3.9 km.

However, during a strong storm, the caravan of battered ships drove to the Swedish shores. In the deep Strait of Skagerrak, connecting the Baltic Sea with the North, it was decided to flood them. The arsenal from the Soviet occupation zone through the port of Volgast was taken to the area of ​​the island of Bornholm, where 32 thousand tons of chemical weapons are now resting.

The USSR was ongoing this weapon in bulk - prisoners of war were hired, who dropped ammunition overboard. Later, scientists found that all the way from the port of Volgast to the flooding area east of Bornholm is dotted with bombs, shells, barrels, containers.

Fortunately, in the area of ​​flooding of weapons in the water, a low concentration of oxygen, and there are little fish. But during the large poles of fresh water, the cod rushes there, and fishermen rush at it - and together with the cod, clots of the andprete take out. To date, 17 tons of wiped chemical weapons have been delivered to Bornholm.

There are calculations that show that pollution can reach the surface of the sea, but these concentrations do not have toxic properties. “However, these substances are carcinogens and mutagenes. We were with you in the center of a chemical landfill, next to the ship, allegedly loaded with chemical ammunition, - we caught on it, ”says Paka. Despite the failure, he leaves no hope again to try to raise the Swedish Dona station, however, for work in Danish waters, it is necessary to submit an application for six months.

“My task is to clarify the situation with environmental risks associated with the presence of chemical weapons in the Baltic. I will prove that weapons need to be neutralized in one way or another. I am an opponent of lifting poisonous substances, for they still need to be buried. I will offer to create special hydraulic engineering, the size of a gold mining drag, which crawls along the tundra, passes the breed through itself and mines gold. ”

From tsunami to cod

During our expedition, it was possible to make cuts of the sea of ​​super -high resolution - at a depth of 100 m, the probe sank to the bottom about each kilometer, almost without stopping.

Such profiling is necessary to solve a wide class of tasks of operational oceanography - from studying the climate to the predictions of the tsunami. It will help in theoretical oceanology - for example, when it is necessary to verify the models that, by the nature of the winds and the topography of the bottom, calculate the currents in the ocean. Правда, делать такие разрезы надо быстро — в течение нескольких часов.

Для нереста балтийской трески, чья икра плавает в толще воды на скачке плотности, необходима соленость 11 промилле, а также достаточный уровень кислорода, которого часто не хватает. Проблема в том, что большие затоки богатой кислородом североморской воды в Балтику происходят нерегулярно, примерно раз в 10 лет. И этот непонятный пока механизм — единственный источник кислорода в придонных слоях Балтийского моря.

Поэтому в будущем высокоточное профилирование моря будет полезно для прогнозирования продуктивности и планирования вылова рыбы, выработки квот. «Мы видим теплую интрузию, вошедшую в Борнхольмский пролив. А значит, был заход соленых вод через датские проливы в Арконскую впадину — это первый бассейн, куда попадает вода из проливов», — говорит Пака, глядя на результаты вчерашних ночных измерений.

Из пушки по воробьям

Помимо испытаний оборудования, в ходе трех разрезов ученым удалось получить уникальный массив данных, отражающий гидрологическую ситуацию in situ, а не по результатам моделирования. В этом районе Балтийского моря не так часто проводятся экспедиции, и каждая из них — крайне полезный материал не только для океанологов, но и для биологов, экологов и других ученых.

Однако к концу экспедиции меня стал мучить вопрос: почему для испытания устройства площадью от силы четыре квадратных метра мы гоняли по Балтике огромное судно ледового класса с тремя десятками членов команды и сожгли больше половины железнодорожной цистерны солярки? «Это как использовать старый КамАЗ для поездки в булочную», — соглашается Георгий Малафеев.

«Наш флот устарел, стопудово, — и физически, и морально. Он стал дорогим из-за того, что не хватает автоматики и надо держать большой экипаж, — считает Пака. — Нам нужны не конкретные типы судов, а возможность экспериментального исследования океана. Для этого требуется научный флот „от мыши и выше“. Для нашей задачи вполне подошло бы судно в пять раз меньшее, но его у нас нет. Без маломерного флота не может быть морской науки».

Эта проблема тревожит и директора ИО РАН Алексея Сокова: «Мы говорим об этом 30 лет, но нас не слушают. Ни о какой экономике и правильном управлении флотом тут речи не идет. Это крах всей системы. Подобные региональные исследования в морях должны выполняться на малых, экономичных судах, которых сейчас нет. Начинать строительство новых судов надо с них».

…Зайти в каюту к Вадиму Тимофеевичу может быть опасно. Начнешь разговор после завтрака, а выйдешь, когда по судовой связи объявляют полдник, ведь по богатой биографии исследователя можно изучать историю отечественной, да и мировой океанологии.

« А что касается Кусто … В 1966 году в первом рейсе судна „Академик Курчатов“ нами был организован заход в Монако. Мы были у Кусто в гостях, я сделал несколько фотографий, стоял рядом с ним, — вспоминает с едва уловимой грустью Вадим Тимофеевич. — Правда, представлен не был ».

Павел Котляр
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