New Search for Erebus and Terror

As we are approaching late July, I started wondering how Parks Canada's search for the Erebus and Terror was progressing. At this time of year Lieutenant Schwatka's expedition witnessed the ice break up in Victoria Straight. Expedition member Heinrich Klutschak wrote that on July 24 the ice near Erebus Bay began to fracture and pile up on shore. However Klutschak does not make it clear how much, if any, water was opened at the time.

The bad news is that Parks Canada's search has been called off since the designated ice breaker is needed elsewhere (understandable and somewhat expected). The good news is that a private search expedition Finding Franklin 2009 (pdf file) is scheduled to start shortly and will try to search the bottom of Victoria Straight, to the northwest of Victory Point. The area is known as "Larson Sound." The search team plans to use side scan sonar and forego any metal detecting.

There seems to be a good probability that one of the ships went down somewhere West or northwest of Adelaide Peninsula to the South of KWI. This ship is sometimes referred to as the "Utjulik" wreck. Over the span of decades, the Inuit told and retold a story about boarding a deserted ship in this area. This would account for the location of one ship with the other generally presumed to lie somewhere in Victoria Straight.

Robert Grenier, leading the (now stalled) Parks Canada search, outlined a plan to estimate the drift of the ships down from the north of KWI and towards the RGS Islands. This estimated drift path would then be used to define a search area. This method has always been my first choice though it is expensive.

If the second Franklin ship was crushed by the ice what traces could we expect to find? Would it be nothing but a debris field? Or more intact like the Breadalbane (side scan sonar image)? Or perhaps somewhere in between?