The hydrographic and oceanographic vessel (BHO) Beautemps-Beaupré, currently deployed in the North Atlantic, called at Nuuk (Greenland) at the beginning of June.
After leaving Saint John’s (Canada) in mid-May, the BHO carried out hydrographic surveys for around ten days off the banks of Newfoundland, before heading north into the Labrador Sea and the Davis Strait to stop in Nuuk .
The presence of numerous icebergs on the route made navigation demanding. To cope with this, the bridge teams were reinforced, with in particular two permanent lookouts on the outside, responsible for detecting, in the harsh cold, iceberg fragments, called growlers , or bourguignons . The latter, composed of hard ice, are particularly dangerous. They drift close to the water, at the mercy of the winds (unlike icebergs which, 90% submerged, drift at the mercy of the currents) and can escape radar. The human eye therefore once again becomes the main detection tool to avoid collisions.
This first stopover of the BHO in Greenland offered the crew some much-needed rest after two weeks of intense sailing. The crew was able to discover the fjords of Nuuk , still snow-covered and filled with icebergs.
The Arctic, an area of growing strategic interests, catalyzed by global warming, is an important deployment area for the Navy and its allies. The BHO, a pioneering vessel, deployed more than 300 days a year, plays a pioneering role in the deployment of air-maritime forces in the area.