Early on the first leg of the AMERIEZ winter cruise (June-July'88) we
were attempting to do a set of Tucker trawls by towing the net through
leads in the winter pack ice.  The Tucker trawl was 2 m square at the
mouth and about 8 m long, not a big net by pelagic net standards, but
big enough to swallow a whole lot of ice.  After a couple of stumbling
attempts at deployment we figured out that a reasonable way to go was
to launch the net in the usual way, but to tow with the A-frame in
instead of out,  so that the wire was in the shadow of the vessel.
That way, growlers spinning off the stern of the vessel would miss the
wire.

Apparently, trawl wire - sea ice - boat motion interplay was something
I hadn't done nearly enough thinking about before attempting to trawl
in the ice pack.  It is just those sorts of lapses that can come back
to bite you on the butt.   We had planned on towing between 200 and 400
m at a 2.5 to 1 scope so we were oscillating between 500 and 1000 m of
wire out.  The Duke's new marine tech, Jamie (photo), was on the winch
and since he hadn't much experience with net tows, he assured me that
he would call the lab at the first problem.  So, Joe Donnelly and I
went down to the lab to prepare for the catch.  We were communicating
with Jamie every 15 minutes or so and were assured everything was ok on
the fantail.  During one of our conversations I asked what the wire
angle looked like and he said "it's not much of an angle, looks like
the net's way out there, I can still see it though, it's ok. " OOPS!
We zoomed to the back deck and found that our net probably had been
towing along the top of the ice pack for awhile.  Two items immediately
hit home.  First, 500 m is not as much distance horizontally as you
might think.  I had been blinded by "vertical bias":  500 m seems like
a pretty long way down.  Second, small ice floes make wonderful
fulcrums.  As the ship moves forward, if the wire catches on one, it
will pull the net up to the surface as effectively as a main trawling
winch.  I figured we had at least a ton of ice in the net.

When the net arrived, we managed to get it on board (a bit of a
struggle, that).  It was pretzel-like in appearance (photo).  The crew
of the Duke straightened out the bars, Shorty repaired the net, and we
were back in business by the next day.  Jamie of course is now a
grizzled veteran and even then was a terrific tech.  We did help him
season the old trawling eyes, though (photo).

I had another trip aboard the Duke in '93 and brought a whole bunch of
newcomers along as a field team.  Every one of them said that the Polar
Duke was the best vessel they had ever sailed on.  I agree.  We will
miss the Polar Duke and wish her well.  As Stig, the engineer on the
'93 trip said, "Every ship has a soul, and the Polar Duke has a good
one, she has a good soul".  Tusentuk, Polar Duke.