high latitude sailing – 70th parallel

Water, not plastic

Everyone will agree over the fact that single use plastic is one of the main challenges for our ocean’s sustainability. Over the last two generations, the world has produced over 8bn tons of plastic, and it piles up, since it takes an average 450 years to decompose a plastic-made bottle. Therefore, we pay lots of attentionContinue reading “Water, not plastic”

Insulation and ventilation

Nanuq is a 60 feet Grand Integral launched in 2014 and designed to minimize environmental impact while accommodating a crew of up to 12 in high latitudes, including during winter. Built with the same insulation standards as a passive house, one of its first scientific projects was to prove that its crew could live throughContinue reading “Insulation and ventilation”

Heating

Winter and Northern sailing plans require lots of thinking about thermal efficiency. And since energy is one of the scarce resources on a boat, trying to limit heat loss is as much a priority as producing heat in an efficient way. When Skip Novak goes along with his Pelagic and Pelagic Australis introduction, he insistsContinue reading “Heating”

Autonomy

There will be as many autonomy approaches as there are sailors to describe it. It starts with the Skipper who is able to perform any repair in any system of his boat, electrical or mechanical, all by Nigel Calder‘s finest standards. On the opposite, there would be the one who’s best ability would be toContinue reading “Autonomy”

Seaworthiness

It has been the IRC goal for thirty years to calculate how seaworthy were the boats engaged into races all around the planet. Their Safety and Stability Screening (SSS) method was define to rank all participating boats from a stability and safety perspective. The higher the SSS number is, the more seaworthy, in regard withContinue reading “Seaworthiness”

Rugged

It’s obvious that off-beaten-tracks will come along any high latitude sailing plan. Although there seem to be places where every sailor going after this sort of adventure would gather (Ushuaia in the South, Reykjavik in the North for instance), at some point the anchoring will be in uncharted territory. Grounding or hitting a rock onContinue reading “Rugged”