Are the Catlin propagandists now finding thick ice, but failing to report it?

More from Catlin: Why don't they tell us how thick the ice is in recent days?

The drill he uses is a manual drill. When fully assembled it’s 5.2m long, but Hadow assembles the components piece by piece as he drills downwards through the ice.

“It would be far too tall and unwieldy to assemble prior to drilling downwards”, he points out.
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Each drilling procedure takes about 20 minutes, including preparation and cleaning. It’s the latter process, when Hadow uses a hammer to chip the ice off the drill, that has caused his colleagues to nickname him The Polar Woodpecker.

Climate change research: Weather hampers Arctic mission | Environment | The Guardian

They show the floating sea ice over which the team travelled in the early stage of their expedition is predominantly "new ice", with an average thickness of 1.77m.

Hadow said finding "first year ice" in this part of the ocean had been unexpected, suggesting that the older, thicker ice had either melted or moved to a different part of the ocean.