Southern Ocean Sketchbook by Claudia Myatt
- an event report by John Hasselgren

This was the title of a fascinating talk at the Cruising Association in December, one of the joint hybrid events run with the Small Craft Group of RIN.

Claudia started by saying how pleasant it was to speak to a live audience as well as those online. By the time of her 60th birthday she decided it was time to undertake a new challenge. Having sailed all her life, mainly up and down coasts but never across an ocean, Claudia joined the Dutch vessel Tecla in the Galapagos to sail round Cape Horn to the Falklands. Tecla is a steel Dutch-built former herring fishing logger (drifter) of 1915, gaff-rigged on both masts, length 38 metres by 6.6 metres beam and displacing 92 tons. Despite bouts of seasickness, Claudia found the passage enjoyable and thought the wildness of the weather and the ocean very beautiful.

Claudia decided against relying on a camera to illustrate the event, saying it was too easy to produce a camera and take the same snaps as everyone else. Instead, she took a sketchbook, pencils and watercolour paints. Sketching views, she said, meant working slower and taking more care. This allowed her to illustrate the log book and sketchbooks, which she completed back ashore, finishing and having the book “Sketchbook Sailor” published in 2020 during the Covid lockdown.

From a friend, Claudia then heard the Scott Polar Institute appointed annually an artist in residence and that they were about to select the next one. Applying for the residency Claudia was appointed and subsequently spent five weeks aboard HMS Protector on a voyage around parts of Antarctica. 

HMS Protector is an icebreaking ship that conducts surveys, delivers loads to various scientific stations and even counts penguins. Showing an Antarctic chart of 1775 attributed to Capt. James Cook’s Sailing Master Joseph Gilbert, Claudia quoted him:
 
“I now reckoned we were in the Latitude 60 degrees south and farther I did not intend to go, unless I met with some certain signs of soon meetings with land. I was now tired of these high Southern Latitudes where nothing was to be found but ice and thick fogs.”

Before the trip, due to the Covid lockdown, everyone travelling to join the ship had to spend 8 days in quarantine at RAF Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire. Claudia’s time there was spent on walks around the airfield and experimenting with the paints that were to be taken south and used there.

Joining HMS Protector in the Falklands, Claudia found it confusing as she couldn’t initially find her way round the ship and was unable to understand language such as “RASON” meaning Remain At Sea OverNight. The crew all seemed extremely young to her but she found them very tolerant of her presence. One person in particular with whom she made friends was the ship’s Chaplain, someone who had some spare time on his hands and who, usefully, was an expert on sea birds.

Regarding sketching and painting, Claudia started by drawing seabirds and discovered that albatrosses don’t flap their wings but just glide on the wind. Going on deck every day she painted seascapes. With the ship rolling and pitching whenever the weather was bad, she had to hold onto her sketchbook with one hand and paint with the other. At times it was an effort to prevent her materials from going overboard. The colours in the area are never the same two days running. One comment on sketching in the Antarctic came from her son, who suggested she leave a blank page in the sketchbook and title it “Iceberg in a Snowstorm”.

The ship’s passage was from the Falklands to South Georgia, to South Orkney Islands, the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetlands, then back to the Falklands. On trips ashore, Claudia sometimes used a camera to record wildlife to use as an ‘aide memoire’ for her sketches. Photographs, she said, are more accurate but a sketch increases the experience, colours can be intensified and can also include maps.

After three days at sea they arrived at Grytviken in South Georgia. This was once a whaling station and its ruins are still evident, all the steel parts covered in a thin coating of rust: it will never rust any further as the climate tends to preserve everything. Although its original purpose was to kill whales, it is now a leader in their conservation. The Governor of South Georgia told Claudia that if a seal comes towards you, you should hold up your hand and tell it to stop. Asked if it worked he said no! With more animals than humans, the King Penguins take no notice of people and just wander around at will. This visit to Grytviken coincided, within a couple of weeks, with the centenary of the death of Sir Earnest Shackleton, so the Captain held a Memorial Service at the graveside.

Next, the ship headed south for the Antarctic. This meant going below 6o˚ South into Antarctic waters, where the Antarctic Treaty comes into force stating that no one owns the continent and none may develop nor plunder it. First call was at the uninhabited South Sandwich Islands where there are areas that needed surveying to update the charts. This was accomplished by the hydrographer in shirtsleeves sitting at a computer while the measurements came in. So different from two centuries ago when using lead and line. A shore visit was laid on to Saunders Island to assess the size of the Chinstrap Penguin colony there. Here there are no alongside berths so this trip, as all in these waters, meant using the Zodiac RIBs, dressed up in survival suits, lifejackets and helmets. 

Next on the agenda were the South Orkney’s, which are about the same latitude south that the Orkney’s are north. Here some inshore surveying was required of the bay used as a base by the British Antarctic Survey team as this is gradually losing its covering of ice. Another job, which meant a shore trip, was to deliver a sack of Christmas goods for the scientists who would arrive before Christmas in the Sir David Attenborough. Signy Island was also visited, where a British Antarctic Survey Research Station is located. Although able to go ashore, Covid quarantine had to be observed to avoid infecting the scientists.

Moving on, Claudia reached the Antarctic continent in the shape of the Antarctic Peninsula. It was only in 1935, she informed us, that the British Grahamland Expedition established that Antarctica was a continent, not a series of islands joined by ice, by using a light aircraft to overfly the area. Today scientists use drones. After a slow approach due to ice HMS Protector berthed alongside the Rothera British Antarctic Survey Station late on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day was spent on board following the usual RN Christmas routine when officers serve dinner to the crew. On Boxing Day they were allowed ashore, but again had to follow quarantine regulations and were unable to mix with the scientists.

Following a visit to Deception Island, a volcanic caldera, where plans to go ashore were thwarted by an incoming storm, Claudia and HMS Protector headed back to the Falkland Islands. Here, Claudia, unlike most of the crew, returned home.

One thought from Claudia: unlike the crew in a sailing ship, who remain fit by working the sails, the crew of HMS Protector spend most of their working day watching computer screens. Off watch, they seem also to watch screens – films, social media etc. To overcome this there is a gym and a Basher (Clubswinger or Clubs in my day) running circuit training to keep them fit.

After a break for refreshments Claudia answered questions and showed examples of her work. Even if, like me who took up the camera due to an inability to draw, you feel unable to illustrate your log books with sketches – fear not! – Claudia can teach you how to do it. Her web site www.claudia-myatt.co.uk gives more information and shows more of her work.

At the end of the evening, Paul Bryans, Chairman of the SCG, thanked both Claudia for her presentation and the Cruising Association for their hospitality in hosting the meeting.

John Hasselgren.
12/12/2023.