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I saw a youtube video of a single mother who job it was to cut out the ice from underneath the ships to create space to do the repairs. Apparently its a very dangerous job because you can easily end up frozen to the river if you're not careful. Must be the same one mentioned in the article.

youtube.com/watch?v=Lu9P3VaMCho

I'm reminded of the worker in this bit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U3g-h1rxQw

Absolutely loves her job. Screams a little bit every time she swings the pickaxe below a certain depth though. As one does.

There is a good YT channel I subscribe to from a person in Yakutsk who makes interesting videos on life there:

https://www.youtube.com/@KiunB

Interesting choice of tourism destination, but quite cool (no pun intended...) regardless.

One of the most annoying things about working with anything metal at those temperatures, is that your tools will pretty much instantly become stuck to whatever it is you're trying to manipulate, making a propane burner an indispensable addition to your toolbox.

no propane burners. propane freezes solid at minus 60°, and you need heaters to get any flow long before it gets that cold, to the point that you can set propane out in a bucket, which I have some experience with in useing it, to supper cool transmission shafts, so that they shrink, and press fit bearings slip right on. so yes they have propane, but they use it in other, less well known ways.
Propane freezes long before -60C.

The recent cold snap in the Yukon had smaller tanks useless just past -35c, and bigger ones not doing much past -40c.

We don’t take it on winter adventures for that reason.

I am not understanding this.

Propane does not freeze anywhere near -60C. Wikipedia [1] says it freezes (liquid to solid) below -187C and boils (liquid to gas) above -42C.

Propane is probably unusable as a fuel below -42C because there is no vapor leaving the tank [not within my experience]. That is different from the propane being a solid.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propane Melting point −187.7 °C Boiling point −42.25 to −42.04 °C

Well, locals called it propane, but I didn't exactly "send it to trace for analysis."

Generally, you (and your toolbox) only spent a few minutes out of every working hour outside. And your toolbox would definitely be room-temperature initially and not cool down to anywhere near ambient temperature while out.

No, that's when you use your propane burner burner to heat up your propane burner.
Maybe butane?
Butane stops vaporizing at -1C (31F), isobutane at about -10C (10F). Propane's boiling point is even better, at about -40C/-40F, but it self-cools and doesn't develop the required pressures to run a torch.

I know this because my otherwise dependable camp stove is a 3-season affair. For winter camping, you basically need a white gas system (liquid fueled, manually pressurized or gravity fed).

I suppose I'd reach for an acetylene torch in a cold workshop.

Ewan McGregor and his friend Charley Boorman was also in the area, 20 odd years ago, when they did a montorbike trip from London to New York, "The Long Way Round" (Crossing Europe, Mongolia, Russia, Canada and USA): https://youtu.be/6kajsHTy3hA

Man, looking at the map it feels like one of the last wild place on earth. I was wondering if this shipyard is on the Arctic Coast, but not really. If it were, it'll be relevant in the near near future. At the moment it's connected by a river to the Arctic Ocean, it's probably booming with business.

> The Long Way Round

It was a neat series, but the start where they whinge about not getting free bikes from their brand of choice was so incredibly entitled and such a turn off.

That's right. I wonder if the decision-makers at KTM regretted that afterwards.

Addendum: Considering that the GS has been a bestseller ever since. It feels like every other motorcycle enthusiast in Germany rides one. It has been the best-selling motorcycle almost every year since then. In Italy, many also seem to prefer riding GS bikes over Guzzi/Ducati/Aprilia.

They offered KTM a 10 hour advertisement series, which would go on to become a classic for motorcycling enthusiasts worldwide. KTM's response was "eh no you could never pull that off, and will make us look bad". It had nothing to do with the cost of the bikes.
Interesting observation and I have to relate - today I've measured ice thickness with classic stainless caliper - -3 celsius was enough for it to immediately glue to ice it was even barely wet.

Working such temperatures must be real hazard to skin, anything metal will glue to it immediately.

Let the metal cool down to the the temperature of the ice and try again. The problem isn’t generally that the ice is sticky per se; the problem is that the surface of the ice will melt if something warm enough touches it and then will freeze again and stick.
Skip the dry dock, just chainsaw the river until it freezes deep enough, peak yakutsk engineering
hahaha.
I don't see the wheels on the boat with wheels - is it the "paddle wheel in the next shot?
Unrelated: is there a delay on HN between submission and publication? I posted that article a few days ago and the header is now "3 hours ago".
Some postings get a second chance if they're considered interesting but didn't get much traction the first time around.

More info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308

Thanks! Digging into your link I found the explanation:

> There's one glitch that occasionally confuses people. When the software lobs a story, it displays a rolled-back timestamp—not the original submission time, but a resubmission time relative to other items on the front page. If you see a timestamp inconsistency on HN, this is probably why. Edit: if this is the kind of detail that interests you, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19774614 for a more recent explanation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380

HNs system can be hard to figure out. I posted an ~identical article to one that hit #1 on top page a few hours before the other guy. My own posting only got like 8 votes. I have no idea what I did wrong. I think there is some randomness in the beginning; if a couple people notice it in the first 15 or 20 minutes then it stays high enough other people notice it and then it snowballs.

If you have a good post though that gets overlooked someone will commonly "steal" it and use a slightly different article and good chance that one will get traction. Surprised no one thought to do that before you got a second chance.

There is something slightly with the system if people are actually even thinking about posts in terms like this. "The other guy stole my spotlight?" Do people somehow make money from their HN post stats? I guess somehwere some how some people probably do.

I do obvioulsy recognize that at a low level it's fundamental human nature to apply those kinds of game/competition thoughts to literally everything in life, but still it seems like this would be a case where the act of thinking about it consciously enough to write it down, is enough to make one realize it sounds silly.

Diddums
Skills that aren't present in sufficient quantities for the US military to be able to invade or hold Greenland. (They have a "Space" base 1000 mi from Nuuk but it consists of 150 personnel, a 10000' runway, and facilities for missile detection.) Furthermore, the ~55k Danes and Greenlanders have 15k-20k large caliber rifles that hit out to 800-900 meters out of necessity. People there sell suppressed .30-06 and larger rifles with enormous optics on FB Marketplace for $600-800 equivalent. US invading Greenland would face 1000+ Simo Häyhäs and the dissolution of NATO.
How bad is it for a ship's hull to get frozen in ice? Are these ships all reinforced? Are there clever mitigations this "drydock" undertakes?
As the ice expands, I think the ship gets lifted upwards slightly. Water freezing and expanding in pipes and enclosed spaces is the real problem. There's several ways to cool a ship engine, I suspect these all use a system where the "radiator" is a hull feature where anti-freeze engine coolant goes through exposed veins in a closed loop to exchange heat with the cold water under.
How about bilge pump discharges? Are those ok because they're open on one end? What about cavities in the pump? (eg. bellows)
So all these ships are immobilized till summer when the ice melts? But winter is the time for repairs etc?
makes sense, doesn't it?
Huh, that actually seems pretty convenient. It's like a subtractive scaffold
I once was extremely proud of myself when I had to change a tire without a jack; realizing that I could move the car so the tire was over dirt/sand, brace the car, and dig out underneath the tire.
The -50 makes it actually easier, because it's you know on top of the river instead on in the river at this point.
That's the crux of it; they aren't.
This looks like real life MineCraft.
It's not okay to casually appreciate the vacation pictures of a corrupt Russian oligarch, even if they overlap with an area of technical interest.

Kapersky is part of a corrupt regime that has killed tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainian civilians and murdered leaders of rival political parties. You can get numb to it, but it is a horrible, historic war crime. He is complicit and his boat pictures can go to hell.

Ooh, are we holding Larry Ellison and Elon Musk accountable for US actions now?
Why not?
Whataboutism.

Are you implying that OP hypocritically supports Larry Ellison and Elon Musk? Are you implying that not supporting Larry Ellison and Elon Musk by not promoting their media or avoiding their products is absurd? Are you implying that people should hold Larry Ellison and Elon Musk accountable for US actions, but don't, and therefore doing it to other oligarchs is unfair or unreasonable?

> It's not okay to casually appreciate the vacation pictures of a corrupt Russian oligarch

This is totally incoherent and nonsensical. There is no moral case for this and you are making a purely emotional remark.

I don't think either of you have made your point very well. "It's not okay to ... appreciate ... pictures..." Isn't nonsensical, but it doesn't really convey the meaning that I'm assuming was intended (so I guess it's incoherent to some degree). That assumed meaning being that it's not okay to support people that support evil regimes. Even if that support is minimal and indirect.

Would you buy an art book by a Nazi officer in 1942? After all, the officer would only receive a very small portion of the proceeds of the book, in reality providing an infinitesimal benefit to the Nazi party itself. Would you recommend said book to people you know? After all, you wouldn't be providing even that tiny amount of material support. And after all, it's simply the creative work of another human, unrelated to the war or atrocities, not representing the interests of the Nazi party itself.

I'm sure that there are plenty of people that will show up to argue that actually, yes, they would gladly buy the book if they liked it and they would recommend it. And some will have the logical devices to show that there are no moral obligations involved. I disagree. Generally speaking, each of us only have tiny levers to pull, and we should pull them.

I feel like this an interesting angle and I want to approach the discussion in good faith..

So why should it be morally ok to show support/better the public image/engage with a party that is supporting/purporting some huge morally bad things?

My reasoning is as follows, I wonder where you wouldn't agree:

A: You shouldn't support people doing morally bad stuff

B: Someone supporting morally bad things is morally bad

B.2: Sharing/Engaging with them shows support and betters their public image

C: Kaspersky is an oligarch supporting stuff that is morally wrong

D: So you shouldn't support him by driving engagement to his site

Thanks for the story!

The pictures of this technique triggers my submechanophobia - especially the photo of the two people working underneath the ship.

Coming back from warm and cozy Oman Al Hajar mountains and Wahiba crossing, this makes my cry. So beautiful and interesting planet we live on !!