Brendan Prize: could it all become a mess?

Almost by chance this morning, I came across a forum post on the QRZ.com page, which is a part of the internet I generally avoid for its suffusion by angry, opinionated white men with a very large axe to grind.

The claim made was that the Brendan Prize was available for a QSO between "Europe and the U.S.", a claim that is clearly incorrect.  

The prize rules are, from the IRTS web site itself that the Brendan award is:

'to each of the operators of the two amateur radio stations which first establish two-way communication in the relevant category between the continents of Europe and America (North or South) within the Two Metre Amateur Band [a],'

and 

 
'The two stations involved must be located on land or non-tidal waterways within the continental shelves of Europe and America as defined [b].  Note that the limit of the continental shelf of Europe is deemed to lie along the line of maximum depth between the European land mass and Iceland, while that of North America is defined to lie along the line of maximum depth between Canada and Greenland.'

Note [b]refers to the Times Atlas as the reference for where the continental shelves lie.

This all seems perfectly clear enough.  But this week, John, EI7GL, reports and provides excellent recordings by others of strong Greenland radio signal reception in Ireland.  Over coming days, a fairly persistent pattern of weather will provide for potentially good tropo conditions between Ireland, the UK and Norway to the north Atlantic regions of Iceland and Greenland.  There is at least some chance of a prize-winning QSO.

This all set me thinking about the precise meaning of words for the Brendan rules, and why those words might have come into being.

Let's take it one step at a time, starting with the Iceland-Europe bit.  The boundary is to:

"lie along the line of maximum depth between the European land mass and Iceland"

Here's a map to help us figure-out where this "maximum depth" point might be: 

Hmm.  We see that there is a problem of sorts.  The "on land/non-tidal waterways" bit of the Eurasian plate is all that bit in orange on the right.  The "maximum depth" between the Eurasian continental shelf and Iceland is, erm, well, we can say a bit to the right of the mid-Atlantic ridge and to the SE of Iceland, roughly between Iceland and Scotland.  And/or we can say that much deeper bit between Norway and Icleand.

But geology comes to highlight the arbitrainess of this Brendan rule.  Scotland goes under water to the north, doesn't go very deep, then rises again as the Faroe islands.  You can fairly say, in both geological and bathymetric terms, that there is a barely-submerged continuum - and not by any stretch of the imagination the "maximum depth" - extending from the North Sea part of the Eurasian Plate, projecting towards and including Iceland - or at least the eastern half of Iceland, which is part of the Eurasian side of the mid-Atlantic ridge - a geologically divided country.

Part of the division between continents near Reykjavik.  Eurasian plate on the left, NA plate on the right.  (C) MW1CFN.

 

In other words, there is no actual division, in anything other than political or surface-map terms, between Iceland and Europe.  In ever other way, they are one.

We can of course take things as written, and identify the actual, deepest part between Europe and Iceland, ignoring the fact that eastern Iceland sits on the Eurasian plate. It's a bit difficult to get an absolute answer, but 'eyeballing it' clearly shows that it's either the Aegir ridge part between Norway and Iceland, or the deepest parts of the mid-Atlantic ridge somewhere south of Iceland and between Europe.

Would it be fair to say this results in this kind of boundary?  If not this kind of line, then it would have to be the deepest part between Eurasia and NA, which isn't the definition used.  I'm being extremely generous in my definition of 'Iceland' here:

 

Turning to the second part, relating to the gap between NA and Greenland, then this must lead to this kind of line:

Now, if you put all this together, still ignoring crucial geological and bathymetric facts, you end up with what we could be forgiven for thinking was the aim: to cut Greenland and Iceland out of the picture altogether, leaving an artificial construct that is based on a Ireland/UK => eastern Canada/US perception of how the Brendan Prize would be won.  The white lines are what we can reasonably infer from the definitions given, and the orange line is what we can approximately assume must connect them.  

I have no idea where that leaves Iceland and Greenland in terms of which continents they are perceived by the IRTS to be on, if any.  In practice, Greenland is either on the NA plate, or its own, rather disputed 'Greenland' plate, whilst Iceland is split down (roughly) the middle between the NA and Eurasian plates.

 

I have no idea in fact as to why the limits were defined as they were, other than to assume, which seems reasonable given the title of the prize, that it was to create a transatlantic region that didn't include Iceland and Greenland, but did include Ireland, the UK (and the rest of Eurasia), and North America.  

There is no mention of where a southern boundary might lie between Eurasia and, for example, Latin America ("North or South" America qualify for the prize), which can only add to the suspicion that the rules were drawn up with the expectation that the qualifying QSO would occur between Ireland/UK/northern Europe and eastern Canada/US.

In the end, perhaps the Brendan Prize has, in light of recent amazing 2m DX QSOs, fallen into complete irrelevance.  Rare tropo allowed me to make three 2m QSOs with 'just' a 3 ele and 50W with Cape Verde in 2020 - a distance of  4467km, or ~52% further than the minimum Ireland-Newfoundland, transatlantic distance.  So, if there is any purpose left in pursuing the Brendan Prize, that purpose is certainly not based on distance any longer.  It is now, and perhaps always was, just the notion of crossing an arbitrary ocean, with some harking back to the Marconi days, that provides the attraction.

Maybe you'd like to contribute your own take on any problems with these definitions - or that you see none at all?  The more the merrier.  For sure, the whole thing leaves me with a headache!