Pirates of the North Pole pt 2 · 4:52am May 31st, 2016
Someone suggested to me having a convoy of smaller sleds, that clip together at night, and have traps/poles that can form into a large tent. Here's my response.
Let’s suppose you and I both have 300 well trained dogs, and about 2 dozen mushers. I opt for 1 massive sled, while you make a convoy of 20 sleds pulled by 15 dogs each. We are competing to bring supplies up to a volcanic island about 1,500km off the northern coast of Russia, over the artic sea.
In summer the ice is cracked and inaccessible even by a small dog-sled. You might try kayaking through the narrow gaps in the ice, but you could only do it in a small boat, where you’d be vulnerable to colossal squids, artic sharks, and miscellaneous scary sea monsters. In winter though, cold air comes down from a huge artic mountain range, that covers the sea in constant, -60c winds which rapidly freeze and thicken the ice. We must make our journey in darkness, and navigate by the bright starts, like the elves of the very first age of middle earth.
Each dog weighs about 20kg, can pull 80kg, and eats 1kg of food per day. They can run a total of 6-8 hours per day, but need to stop and rest every few hours.
I have a sled about 12 m wide and 10 m long. On it I have one triangular tent which is about 6 meters wide at the base, and 10 meters long. It’s 3 stories with the second story being 4 m wide, and the top about 2m wide. The rest of this is outrigging to distribute the weight, and so the front is wide enough to hitch 6 teams of dogs together.
I hitch 6 teams of 25 dogs, (150 total) to the front of my sled, and when they get tired I rotate with my second team that’s in my sled; allowing me to move non-stop for about 16 hours per day, when I crowed everyone inside my tent which on its first two floors has about 100sq m of floorspace, enough for everyone to snuggle up nice. (Frame is made of whale bone and-or wood. Floor are mostly crisscrossed strips of fabric to save on weight.)
I am less maneuverable than you are. You can turn and brake much faster than me, but if we are heading in one 1,500km straight line; maneuverability/ breaking is not a usually an issue.
Let’s say with the added help of my triangular sails I can move a 15 ton sled. 150 passenger dogs = 3 tones. Human passengers = 2 tones. Food for the dogs = about 1.6 tones. If the sled weighs about 4 tones, (guestimate); then I have 4 tones for cargo space. I make the journey to the volcanic island in 3 days, trade my goods for a chest of diamonds, and now since my weight is lessened significantly, it can be pulled by 100 dogs, meaning I can rotate my dogs in shifts and get home in 2 days without ever stopping. A round trip for me is 5 days.
You have 20 sleds of 15 dogs each in a convoy. Since you can only travel 8 hours per day, it will take you 6 days to reach the island, and 6 days to return. Suppose my dogs need 1 day to rest before going out again, and yours need 3; then I can make my rounds 2.5 times faster than you, so you need to take at least 10 tons of cargo to break even with me. (500 kg per sled.) You also need to proportionality bring 2.4 times as much food at the start of each journey, 180kg. Plus 2 humans with food for 12 days, let’s say that’s another 200kg. Then there’s the sled/ harnesses of course, and then the big tarp/poles ets that you need for your tent. Maybe you can pull a little bit more than me, but it won’t be much.
I don’t know how your dogs will fare lying down on ice, in -60c winds every few hours when they stop to rest. Maybe you can manage to pitch your tent(s) quickly enough that they are worth setting up for a 2 hours stop, but I doubt it, and tents that could be set up that fast won’t be as warm as my permanently established sled.
Getting drinking water in tempts this cold could be a big problem without using a lot of body energy to melt ice. I plan to stack ice in the top floor of my sled, and the rising body heat of 300 dogs and 20 humans is going to melt it into drinkable water which will collect in buckets. What are you going to do?
My final point is quite possibly the most important. We are heading back with chests full of diamonds; and so there are pirates. You are going to be stationary for 16 hours per day, for each of the 6 days of your return journey. For large parts of that, you are going to be stationary in large tents which you can’t move in. If pirates come out of the blackness, you have very little time to respond, and not enough to break your camp. You are probably forced to fight, with dogs that are already tired. There’s a chance you might have a minute warning, and can run, leaving your tents behind but I doubt that since without them you won’t be able to survive the next time you stop for the night.
When I pass through pirate territory, I do not stop. Ever. I am continually moving at high speeds, that will reach home in 2 days; and at any time in that I will have most of my dogs at a rested state. I have lookouts at the top floor of my sled, giving me warning of attackers. If I choose to afford the weight, I could have a ballista/ scorpion on top which can rain down spears at a much longer range than bows, and up close throw volleys of arrows at attacking sled teams.
Also, if I decide to pirate you; you cannot escape. If you get enough warning to mobilize, and then try to run, I just stay a few hundred meters back, and hit you in 2-3 hours when your dogs are tired, and only 1 third of my dogs are tired. Sure you can split up, so I only catch 1 or 2 of your sleds, but that’s still a loss on your part, and it takes you time to re-organize. If I have warning of you pirating me (because of my lookouts), I can turn around and run for 2 hours, then turn and attack you when your dogs are tired.
The only real problem I see for me is if the pirates happen to have trained polar bears. There might be small clumps of snow occasionally, that the bears could hide in, and a team of 20kg dogs, or even 40kg dogs, are going to split if a 500-700kg polar bear comes charging at them. If there were 2-3 polar bears in an ambush coming in from different angles, they could throw my dog lines into chaos, and all those harnesses/ reigns will get tangled.
I imagine me having small sleds that are mounted at the front of my super-sled with the harness tied in a way that they can quickly detach; leaving me with a large, stationary/ slowly sliding forwards fortress, and four mobile/ controllable sleds zipping around it to take out the bears with arrows. I also might have one or two sleds going on ahead with no supplies, just as scouts in case of polar bears.
Your thoughts please?
Your idea is perfectly logical and viable with the points mentioned however there is one thing I would like to address: the pirates.
Yes, there is an aforementioned pirate territory but what comes to mind would be that with a territory comes a base to which I would assume is static and large possibly with some rocky outcrops. This also brings into the question of possible terrain challenges such as narrow pathways that one might be forced to go through. Granted if the area you are travelling in is mostly sea that was frozen over then that would prove little difficulty but what about the start and end points of the open area?
Moving in a straight line is definitely the fastest way possible but in actuality we would have to account for the various obstacles and hazards one would have to face and adjusting the course.
If any aforementioned narrow spaces come up it would probably be wiser to either make a larger and longer detour for your larger craft or possibly construct a craft that is perhaps half the estimated size of your current one but of course removing some few add ons that don't work with a smaller frame but can be used for some extra cargo.
Any kind of raid would need a home base to return to be it to resupply or stash the pirates goods, that is an inescapable fact. Another argument would be having a massive mobile base to fit that criteria but again mobility, weight, durability and so on will be brought to question.
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I admit a large part of this story was liking the image of a huge dog sled, but knowing it would be less all-terrain, slower, less manuverable and harder to brake etc then little sleds and carry slightly less cargo proportionately.
The riddle was finding the advantages to going big, (not freezing in very cold weather, being able to run non-stop.) And then finding the senators where these advantages are essencial, so the big sled is practical.
As for the pirates; I see a chain of mines in the north, and various tribes of 'escimos' competing to trade cheap supplies for rare diamonds. You might think it's easier to try ambushing a sled then making the journey yourself (plus the cost of supplies).
More probably it's that since the more sleds are in operation, the higher your cost to buying diamonds and the lower your sale prices will be, so some tribes might try eliminating competetion.
No one is sure which tribes also pirate and if most of the sleds look the same and don't fly flags identitying the culprits could be difficult. The pirates are the other traders.
'Pirate territory' might just be defined as the areas around the frozen bay where you buy the supplies for the mines and sell your diamonds. It's simplest to set up there.
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And in summer every one moves south to hunt moose etc.