Beaufort Sea Journal: 1981

This is a transcription of journal notes made during the Dome Petroleum, Beaufort Sea shallow seismic marine
survey with Geomarine Associates, from Aug 24th - Sept 7th 1981. Ian Watson

August 24, 1981

Trip to the Beaufort
Monday, Aug 24/1981		 Weather: Calm, the best it has
been in two weeks
Left Calgary on Dome's 737 at 8AM for Edmonton. After picking up more passengers we continued onto Tuk Base. Stayed in Tuk only long enough to sandblast one of my lenses and get fine dust in all the others. (This was by filming a helicopter taking off.)
Got onboard a "76" which would take me to a work barge first and then to the Canmar Explorer III. Just before we took off however, I found that the "fresh" batteries I had put in my movie camera were not. It refused to work.
Reluctantly I shot some slides on my SLR until we arrived at the work barge. Upon arriving I asked the copilot to allow me to retrieve one of my packs from the hold so that I might install some fresh batteries. I also asked the copilot to get my two duffel bags which I had seen carried below (by mistake) with the others.
Not having any success with "fresh" batteries, I desperately wiggled one of the battery posts, thinking that perhaps dust had worked in far enough to have cut off the circuit. Well, whatever I did worked and with seconds to spare I caught our takeoff from the work barge.
The weather is surprisingly good along the route. There was some loose ice in the water around the work barge. I spotted a whale in the open water halfway to Explorer III. Upon arriving at the drill ship, I was taken aback by the sheer magnitude of everything. Apparently they were just replacing bits when I arrived and when I left nine hours later they had tripped in over 2 miles of pipe and had started drilling. The ship was fascinating and I wandered over most of it and watched a lot of the activity on the floor.
The crew are treated well on the boat. Great food, video movies, video games (golf being very popular) and a foosball table. Not to mention the fact that the radio operators are women and both very charming. Just the presence of women on the boat must make it more tolerable for long stints. In fact there are about six or seven other women employed as housekeepers.
I kept informed of the whereabouts of the "Mary B" by my frequent trips to the radio room. The sun actually set around 11:00PM and treated us to a long twilight. From the deck of the Explorer III you can see two other drillships, Kopanoar 2I44 and Gulf Issungnak. As it got darker Tarsuit Island became visible as did one other distant rig. Explorer III was on Koakoak O-22.
Kopanoar was 24 miles away and Issungnak was 18 miles away. The Mary B arrived about midnight and we (Frank H. and I) were slung over by crane onto the back deck. The stability of the Explorer III was soon apparent, with its eight(8) anchors it might as well have been in dry dock. I took 2 Gravols just in case. I was welcomed aboard by "Rusty" Rushton, shown my bunk and soon after collapsed into it to sleep 6 hours.

August 25, 1981

Tuesday Aug 25 Calm: picks up towards afternoon,
fog, ship rolls noticeably
Got up at 9AM. Have looked all over the ship. We are on Miterk I-44 grid survey. Talked with some of the people working on the survey. Each seems to have his own specialty. The system as a whole is quite complicated and will take some time to get used to.
The weather has picked up somewhat with 1-2ft waves and with fog rolling in this afternoon. All the primary seismic equipment is located on the starboard trailer on the aft deck. There are usually five or six personal in the trailer during runs. One navigator running the ARGO, 2 HP computers and HP real-time Grid Plotter (HP-9825B HPL extended basic), a Side-Scan operator, a V-fin sparker or Huntec Boomer operator (V-fin run on N-S lines, Huntec on E-W lines), and a DFS IV observer and operator.
The V-fin interferes with the Side-Scan record while the Deep tow Huntec or Sub tow Boomer does not. They are using a 24 trace cable with the following configuration.
123456789 10 11 12 || 13 14 || 15 16 || 17 18 || 19 20 || 21 22 || 23 24
600 - 16 2/3m in length.
They use a 400m Run in and a 600m Run out on each line. This way problems which often occur at the start of a line can usually be picked up in time.
After dinner discussed Quality Control methods with Rusty and Dan. We looked at a few examples of near trace records where the Argo or the HP9825 or the DFS IV had missed the fix marks and lost the navigation/shotpoint sync. Some of these might have to be reshot.

August 26, 1981

Wed Aug 26 low clouds, No fog, light rain
1-2ft waves
Spent most of the morning in the Operations trailer. Finished off the Miterk grid at 17:00 hrs after reshooting the following lines. All the gear was loaded up on the deck. V-fin, mini-flexichoc (mini-sleeve exploder), Side Scan Sonar, and the 600m streamer.
41A EW
45A EW
32A NS
38A NS - skywaves knocked out ARGO

We are now steaming back to the ExplorerIII for groceries and personal change.
21:30 We are now sitting about 3 miles upwind from the Explorer III with the engines idle. When we arrived at the drill ship we found out that a supply ship was docked next to her and that we would be unable to come alongside for two or three hours. Rusty is very annoyed that he was not informed of this since we could have spent the time at Miterk reshooting lines. I am re-reading Spandau Diarys.
I just found out an old B&W Sony Video recorder is aboard. Dan shot 1/2 hr of operations that we watched on a portable TV. Very crude transition on/off glitches.
23:50 We are now steaming towards Kopanoar H-85, our next site survey. Upon docking next to the Explorer III we took on passengers and groceries. We formed a chain gang to shuttle the boxes forward; great fun. Only one casualty, 1/2 box of chocolate milk that got dropped on deck. We also got some movies and magazines.
The sun came out between the only crack in the clouds on the horizon and treated us to a majestic pastel sunset. Steaming away from the Explorer was very exciting and almost surreal from the back deck as the twin props churned up jade green water against the enormous backdrop of the Explorer III that receded into the background, lit up by its deck and rig lights.
Apparently, the Tarsuit site is now covered with 9/10's of its first year ice. The MaryB was only there a week ago.

August 27, 1981

Thurs Aug 27 Windy cold, 3-4ft waves
Got up at 9:00. Stayed up too late watching James Dean movie. Streamer had a bad trace so most of it was coiled up on the back deck. We are now shooting a NS Regional line past Koakoak. Finished line 81-10 this morning. We are now steaming a regional line towards Kop H-85.
There is a unique loss of temporal reference on this boat. Things I may have done this morning I later find, when I try to recall them, that I can't remember when they occurred. No conventional time references.
We are abeam to the waves so the ride is very rough. The boat rolls alot and makes it hard to stand for very long. It has also gotten quite cold.
21:00 Line 81-5B Regional was aborted about 1/3 the way through it when it was found that the computer was giving extra pulses between shotpoints (>12). The problem seems to have been solved although the cause is still unknown. We are reshooting the missed SP's and the rest of the line tonight.
Teledynes repair job on some of the streamer sections apparently leaves something to be desired. Some of them are faulty right out of the wrapping.
N-S lines V-fin
E-W lines Huntec

August 28, 1981

Fri Aug 28 cool and calm, low clouds
8:00 Finished regional line 5B up to Kopanoar last night. Some ice was spotted so we are doing a drift test while waiting for it to get light enough to see. Explorer I is visible about 3 miles away as is a Supply boat and Kigoriak ice breaker. Big bergs are visible in the distance.
10:00 Toured H-85 site. Lots of ice over area. May be able to shoot southern lines.
12:00 Shooting central lines over Kopanoar H-85 site with only Side Scan and V-fin. There is much ice over the area. Explorer I is now surrounded by ice. We can't use the Flexichoc due to the danger of wrapping the streamer around an iceberg doing a turn. I find I don't have much of an appetite on the boat possibly due to the relatively sedentary workday we perform, I also lose it in rough weather.
3:00PM Site survey at Kopanour called off due to ice. Jerry F. called and recommended the next priority be steamed for which is Kaglulik. We will be shooting a regional line along the way until we get there. There is still much ice in the area. Side Scan wasn't working properly and the connector cable was changed which made an improvement.
9:00PM Haven't yet started regional line 7B due to streamer problems. Having trouble with line leakage and getting it to stay at a certain depth. They have to add or take off weights (or drain kerosene) and then let the streamer out to full length before they can determine how high or low it will ride in the water. (Problem can be caused by air bubbles, salinity).
In spacer sections it is noticed that air rises to high points along streamer, when winched is stopped for example, and this would cause high points, however this is not supposed to affect anything since it "only occurs in neutral sections".
Also, since it appears that it is small changes in salinity that causes the streamer to vary from neutral buoyancy, it may be helpful to take regular salinity readings and correlate these with cable depths. Then it might be possible to predict the cable conditions before it is deployed without having to rely on trial and error.
We are presently steaming in circles along E-W line 7B while the streamer is repaired so that we can start on it (line 7B) to tie with N-S line 8A. After this line is complete we will steam to Kaglulik for a site survey.
Shot some more pictures of equipment being deployed, V-fin, Side Scan, Minichoc streamer, but not the flexichoc itself since the streamer cable cratered after supper and so did I.

August 29, 1981

Sat Aug 29 cold cloudy and occasional snow
windy and high waves
7:00 We are now steaming for Kaglulik which is about 5 hours away. We have been seeing lots of birds up here, mostly ducks. Sometimes one, sometimes two or sometimes fifty. In large flocks they fly very close to the water (~1m) and in small groups they fly higher.
10:30 The mini-sleeve detonator connector plug developed a fault which apparently has been getting worse over the last couple of days. It turns out that on the 50 pin connector, a 400V input is wired in next to a ground plug of which there are 10. They are technically supposed to be connected moisture free by blowing them out with freon first, which is always done. However, it seems that ideal conditions are not always possible in this environment and indeed a shorted out carbon track has appeared across some of the connector surfaces.
To rewire the entire connector umbilical on the mini-sleeve would require at least 2 days and maybe longer. In the meantime Rusty is going to run three separate wires through the umbilical (from the end of the umbilical within sled) to the detonator, and a complete job will be done on Monday of so when we refuel.
This problem appears to be an oversight on the part of Exxon. Rusty and Dwight are currently working on the mini-sleeve sled on the back deck under a "Cape Breton cottage", which consists of a sheet of polyethelene draped over the service crane and tucked underneath.
21:00 Repaired the flexichoc and tested it. Side Scan, Sub-bottom profiler and minisleeve deployed. The weather is very rough, the highest seas since I arrived. The boat occasionally lists 25deg port to starboard (50deg). We are still shooting the line. Noisy data is better than no data.
I couldn't eat supper tonight. Straight to my bunk. Cigarette smoke I'm finding very offensive. Hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow.

August 30, 1981

Sunday Aug 30 high wind and waves
8:00 Weather still rough. They haven't shot anything since 23:00 last night. Missed breakfast this morning.
19:00 Supper tonight was the first I've eaten in 30 hours. All we had were ham and cheese sandwiches. The boat had been on course for Tuk since noon today but the water has been so rough we are "tacking" our way there. Dwight informed me about our destination around noon today as I lay crashed out in my bunk unable to move. Dwight says, "Good buddy" he says, "I've got some good news for you, we're going to Tuk", he says... "But the bad news is, it's going to take us another ten hours!"
At supper tonight we finally turned our stern to the waves so I was able to get up. Sometime this afternoon the hotwater tank broke one of the pipes and flooded the shitter which in turn flooded the galley and most of the cabin rooms.
Ours was spared because we are the farthest forward. This was why we only had sandwiches for supper. Everyone was in a good mood though, telling "shit" jokes and describing over and over again that first tidal wave of brown water that careened down the hallway carrying boots and coveralls into the focusle (the hatch which is right outside our door) which is also the food locker in the lower hull of the ship.
All the food down there will have to be thrown out. We are expected to arrive in Tuk at midnight.

August 31, 1981

Monday Aug 31 Ice alert
8:00 Watched us dock at Tuk last night at midnight, then had a shower in the 2nd deck can which still works. This morning after breakfast I found that during the night the Canmar Supplier had slipped between us and the dock so we have to clammer over it to reach shore. The Canmar camp is quite a model of northern elegance.
Reading room (with fireplace, the size of two trailers), games room, stereo room, pool room, gym, weight room and a huge kitchen. They also have satellite TV. I phoned home from the "phone room" to let everyone know I was still alive. It has started to snow here and its beginning to look like winter has arrived for good. Rusty says we will be tied up here for awhile since the weather is still pretty rough.
14:00 Still in Tuk harbour - May leave at 6 or 7:00PM
Midnight: Sometime this afternoon the Canmar Teal supply ship pulled up along side us pinning us against the Canmar Supplier. This didn't last long however and we were asked to move away from the dock and anchor in the harbour which we did and much prefer for we are at least back in the open water and drifting gently, a feeling that you grow accustomed to.
While walking around the camp this morning, I was still a bit wobbly and walked around with the curious sensation of being on a gently rolling ship. It could have been from half expecting the floor to heave up at any moment but at any rate it is much more pleasant to be floating in the open water again.
Some of the crew have shuttled back to the camp in the Mary B's 15ft aluminum dorry which uses a 10hp Evinrude. The trip is apparently quite wild even in the "sheltered" harbour of Tuk. The wind is still blowing strong and the seas outside of the harbour are very high. One barge broke free and was blown onto a sandbar and had to be pulled off.
Details are sketchy, but two boats tangled anchor chains and propellors near the harbour entrance and are visible in the distance through binoculars but we still don't know what really happened. Some of the drill ships are on Ice Alert 3 and when we were in Camp today we were shown aerial photos of the ice movements and one particular piece 2 miles wide and 5 miles long that was being attacked by Kigoriak and some supply ships since its course apparently was straight for Kopanoar.

Sept 1, 1981

Tues Sept 1  
8:00 Still in Tuk. Weather not getting any better. Rusty busy working on the mini-sleeve exploder.
14:00 No change in weather. Starting to snow. Major work still being done on the mini-sleeve exploder.
19:00 Left Tuk harbour. Weather has gone down somewhat. Our destination is apparently Issungniak.

Sept 2, 1981

Wed Sept 2 Cold, ice forming on rails,
calm seas
10:00 Doing drift test. Arrived at Issungniak at 2:00AM. We're basically just chasing a conspicuous ice burg around to see how it's drifting. We all keep our cameras ready in case we drift a little "too close" to the berg. The weather is surprisingly calm with lots of scattered pieces of ice. All of them huge. The drill ship on site is Explorer II.
12:00 Earlier they called to ask us to come in closer for another drift test and in the fog a rig appeared which we steamed towards. Well we were about 4 Km away from it when they called up again and said they had lost us on their radar, and the radio man couldn't figure out how we were supposed to do a drift test when their was no ice in the area, until we discovered... we had found the Explorer III instead. (radio jargon: "right barn, wrong stable" ...)
There was a good crowd in the wheelhouse at the time and they had a good laugh. We did an abrupt 180deg and are now steaming back for the Explorer II about 15-20 miles away.
16:00 Kevin from Tuk base called to inform us of the reason for being here. Apparently their excuse is that they had to pull a supply boat off of the Explorer II to help in caisson placement at Tarsuit Island, and since two boats are always required to stand by any off shore rig, we were grabbed since we were in the area.
To make ourselves useful in the meantime we are chasing a big iceberg (at ~1.0 knot) in a drift test. This 3 million dollar boat is being used as a radar reflector. The weather is very calm. Perfect seismic conditions.
21:00 We were finally pulled off of the Explorer II drift test and maneuvered in close enough to take on a man and then again to put one off (Kai H.). Earlier this afternoon I was up on the second deck looking out over the remarkably calm waters of the Beaufort Sea under an overcast sky.
Just to the stern of us (20 feet away) was an enormous iceberg that we were drifting with. Off in the distance was a supply ship and the Explorer II. Along with this menagerie floated by the leftover yorkshire puddings that we had been treated to for supper. It was an interesting contrast.
23:00 It turns out that this survey we are about to do on our way to Kaglulik is to compare field systems. One of the systems is an EG&G Sub-tow Boomer run off of Gulfs Arctic Sounder which will be using a CES (Caufield Engg Services) computer analysis to build up profiles of subsurface sediment which will be correlated with coring sites along the route (about 8). We will be running the Huntec DTS for comparison. Since there is still some ice in the area we will probably wait until daylight before running the minisleeve.

Sept 3, 1981

Thurs Sept 3  
Got up with 5 minutes to spare for breakfast. The sea is incredibly calm. How calm is it? Well I'll tell you how calm it is. It is so calm that our boat's wake is making bigger waves than there are anywhere else out to the horizon. There are also no visible icebergs.
Noon. Have deployed the minisleeve and are currently shooting our way to Kaglulik. Weather is still calm with the occasional bit of snow and blue sky. Every now and then a seal pops up for a quick look and then dives under. The water is 0.5deg C below freezing and supposedly starts to freeze over at -2deg below.
14:15 Currently shooting seismic. Weather still relatively calm. Good records. Sunshine. Everything's going well, a bit too well, something's got to give... a call from Explorer II... they'd like us to chase more icebergs for them! Shut 'er down boys.
15:00 Today's been,... well one of those days. It started out with the nicest weather we have had yet since I arrived. About 8:00 this morning Rusty found that the intake lines to the Xorbox (oxygen generator) were plugged full of ice. It took some time to clear their lines with a hammer and air but eventually it started working fine. The mini-sleeve, which Rusty worked on all day yesterday, was deployed this morning about halfway through the Huntec comparison survey.
Only the Sidescan and Huntec DTS had been used up until then. Everything seemed to be going good... nice cool weather, blue sky, calm seas... when Rusty got the call from Tuk base, the survey had to be called off. We had been reassigned ice watch to the Explorer II.
Rusty called off the survey and got the equipment pulled in but refused to move off of the survey line until he had received confirmation from either Jacques B., Jerry F., or Maharam G. Some time later Tuk base called again and said that they had confirmed with Maharam that we were indeed reassigned ice watch to the Explorer II.
Just prior to the mini-sleeve being pulled in, it was noticed that some of the guns were firing intermittently. Once on board, Rusty found that water had leaked into the 55 pin connector and was shorting out across the insulation. This will have to be repaired again before the mini-sleeve is put back into service.
At 15:30, Rusty and I called Jerry F. and asked him what he knew of our being put back on ice watch. He said he had incomplete details at that time but would call us back at 16:30 with more information.
19:00 Went up to the bridge at 16:25 to wait for Jerry's call. One hour later I was still waiting and then discovered that the power had accidently been shut off at the radio. Called Jerry at home and found out from him that our present status called for ice watch at Explorer II until we are further notified.

Sept 4, 1981

Fri Sept 4  
8:00 Still on ice watch for Explorer II.
Noon. We are still hard at chasing icebergs. One other thing happened yesterday that should be mentioned. The Side Scan Sonar which normally runs at a depth of about 20m was "bounced" off of the bottom just before it was brought in. The tail section broke off and sand was sucked in through the pressure equalization holes.
The sand didn't cause much concern and a spare tail section was found but while the electronics were being checked out it seems that the cause of the noisy SS glitches was found to be a bad ground connection between the component sections of the outer sleeve. ie. they wobbled even when tight. Rusty suggests an internal ground wire will solve it.
14:00 Still on ice watch. Some of the hands are doing inventory. John is working on the Side Scan. Rusty is very perturbed about this whole thing. The weather is just like a calm spring day out there. Perfect shooting weather. The problem with the leaky plug on the mini-sleeve turned out to be not that bad and was fixed in a few hours yesterday.
This seismic operation will cost roughly 3 million dollars this summer and the ideal lineage that was to be shot was about 4000 km. So far only 750 km has been shot! If, by the end of the season, 1000 km are shot it will work out to about $3000 / km or $3 / m or about $1 / ft !!
We have also been doing a series of video narratives of some of the various equipment and I have volunteered some time to filming these episodes. The real advantage of video lies in being able to view a scene so soon afterwards and in not being concerned with how much tape you use.
19:00 Wind has picked up. It's starting to get colder. Indian Summer might be over.

Sept 5, 1981

Sat Sept 5  
Summer may be over for me. The new navigator gets dropped off this morning from Explorer II. I might get off this morning as well.
9:00 We are steaming for Supplier II to pick up the new navigator. I may be getting off on the Explorer III later on.
14:00 Just as we arrived at the Canmar Supply boat at Explorer III, Rusty was called from Explorer II who told him that we were being called back to ice watch... Upon arrival at Explorer II we dropped off Alf and took on his replacement and are now steaming in the vicinity looking for a piece of ice to follow.
Since there are no flights out to Tuk until Monday, I am going to stay on board until either Monday morning or until we are called off ice watch.
Rusty mentioned his concern that six months from now it will be asked why Geomarine didn't shoot more kilometers and he was concerned of what alternative reasons might be since he had not heard any reports of data quality from Dome. He also said that the streamer section Teledyne failed to repair were depth and active sections.
Normally for a 24 trace cable they carry on board a complete replacement cable. But since a 36 trace equivalent cable [(600m - 16 2/3) vs 400m] is being used some of the isolation sections from the spare cable have been used.
15:30 Arrived at the Explorer II and they sent us out six miles to a piece of ice, but no sooner had we arrived then we were called back and asked to carry a spare part over to the Explorer III. We're playing taxi now!
17:00 Dropped off part at Explorer III and received word that we were to assist Explorer IV in getting back over the hole since she was apparently pushed off earlier due to ice. But first... we have been told to steam back to Explorer II to pick up cable anchors. The back deck is being cleared of vulnerable cables and tools.
19:00 Have arrived at Explorer II (3-4 kms) and we find that the ice situation has changed dramatically. There is a lot of ice in the area now compared to none 5 hrs ago. I just heard some scrape by the hull.
21:00 We are now firmly "lodged" in the ice pack and drifting with it. There is fog in the area and some of the floes have huge eerie shapes. A very mystical place to be.

Sept 6, 1981

Sun Sept 6 The Ice Men Returneth
cool, very calm, light clouds and snow
5:00AM Pulled alongside Canmar Supplier II to pick up anchor drums and marker buoys. We are now heading for Orvilruk O-03 about 7 hours away for rig placement. That is, we will be dropping markers where the rig anchors are supposed to go.
Apparently the cost of a seismic vessel is small change compared to the costs associated with drilling and this is one reason why we have been pulled for rig duty.
12:00 Have completed bathymetry and Side Scan passes over the rig site. The rig is not here yet. It's supposed to arrive in a few hours. Moral is somewhat better now with the renewed responsibility of helping with this rig placement and in knowing that the equipment on board is perfectly suited to bottom profiling.
The Side Scan easily showed the glory hole and the bathymetry indicated a possible gas leak (just small bubbles). We are now running back and forth alongside a rather large ice floe to see how far it extends below the surface and what if any visible scour is present.
14:00 Presently dropping off anchor buoys for rig placement. Good fun. First buoy disappeared after the weight was dropped in and Damian nearly had a coronary until moments later it reappeared to the relief of everyone.
14:00 The weights are whole or half-size 45 gallon drums filled with concrete. Bathymetry gives us the water depth and a corresponding amount of heavy 2" nylon rope is cut (~30m). The buoy (which consists of a 20' long, 6" wide fiberglass tube which is weighted at the bottom and painted orange) is first deployed and the rope played out.
The ship master, on the ARGO navigators command, gives the signal (ships horn) and the weight is dumped over the side (aft end). The weight pulls the buoy (at an oblique angle) under the water until it is directly overhead and it rises to the surface. The distance between the ships mast (where the navigation antennas are) and the back of the boat is accounted for. The placement accuracy is +- 20m (or less)!!
Since Jerry asked me if I wanted off on Friday, I wonder if he knew we would be called off seismic and put on rig duty.
16:00 All the anchor buoys and ships buoys have been deployed in a flawless operation. The Explorer IV has been visible on the horizon for an hour now and is getting closer.
Myself and two others will probably be going off soon after the Explorer arrives on the site.
I'm going to miss the Mary B.

Sept 7, 1981

Mon Sept 7  
I was dropped off on the Explorer IV last night with Eldin (the navigator) and Leo (the cook) and was then flown to Tuk by helicopter.
Spent the night here and will probably go over to the airport about 12:30. Sold Dwight one of my (audio) tapes for $10 so I have enough money for a taxi.
I took a fair number of pictures while I was up here and in retrospect I have made myself very frustrated by the fact that I missed some very "important" and key shots that could have led to a complete film (Super-8).
In thinking about it, it occurs to me that the whole reason I began films in the first place was to impress upon a friend of mine that talking about something and doing it were two different things. I have also labeled him a typical "idea" man after Pascal.
This last effort to film I made without any thought of setting an example. I became an "idea" man myself, and a "prisoner". I forgot or lost awareness of the subject and medium and may have missed the few key shots that could have tied the whole thing together.

Commentary on Beaufort Journal

April 2014  
This was the first of three trips to the Beaufort Sea that took place during the early 1980's to work as a observer on offshore seismic surveys in the Arctic Ocean.
As it turned out, the initial concern mentioned in the journal over the "missing" key shots from the Super-8 footage, became overshadowed by other events that arose soon after arriving home. When the film was processed and viewed for the first time, it was found that, although the film was of usable quality, it also contained a serious error.
It was discovered that a small piece of lint had become wedged in the film gate and was visible in all the scenes except the last two rolls. It was only near the end of the Beaufort tour while changing cartridges that the thread was found and removed. It was realized then that the thread had most likely ended up there earlier when the film gate had been "cleaned" prior to the trip.
The presence of this flaw on most of the film rolls completely changed the nature of the film and it's perceived usefulness. After a period of "anguish" over what was thought to be lost footage, this led to a literally decades long effort to find a way of removing this flaw from the film and bringing it back to a usable state.
Fortunately, the Super-8 film stock had been properly edited soon after it was processed, but only received one initial viewing. It was never watched again after that.
After considerable effort, it was eventually concluded that removal of the flaw, except in a few rare instances during the film, was either impossible or very impractical, and was the sort of problem that could only be realistically handled by a technically sophisticated digital film studio.
It was then realized and eventually accepted, reluctantly, that the film could not be repaired, it would never be "perfect"... and so as a result, it has subsequently remained unviewed for over thirty years.
However, a copy of the originally edited film had been digitized many years earlier in the 1990's, along with several other Super-8 films, but only after many years had passed was it finally decided to render a finished copy of the digitized film, complete with soundtrack, so that this rather interesting and unique, if somewhat idiosyncratic footage (some might even say... "historic"), could in spite of the flaws, finally be viewed by everyone. Ian Watson