North West passage

[Guest]

In June 1977, sailor Willy de Roos left Belgium to attempt the Northwest Passage in his 13.8 m (45 ft) steel yacht Williwaw. He reached the Bering Strait in September and after a stopover in Victoria, British Columbia, went on to round Cape Horn and sail back to Belgium, thus being the first sailor to circumnavigate the Americas entirely by ship.

 

New Zealander Graeme Kendall, who last month became the first yachtie to sail solo through the treacherous Arctic Northwest Passage, arrived home today after his epic voyage.

 

Anyone know what the truth is?Did Willy de Roos have crew on board?So far I cannot find any mention of this.

[Fusion 0]

http://www.astralexpress.com/index.htm

[Guest]

spent a quite amazing evening with Willi on "Williwaw" in Punta Arenas Chile tied up at the town wharf april 1988, remember some of it through the mists of time though nothing with regard to crew, oh and he was solo at that time

[Guest]

"non stop and record 12 days".

What a bullshit claim for that particular situation.

[Guest]

"non stop and record 12 days".

What a bullshit claim for that particular situation.

 

Having fished commercially north of 60 deg north as well as cruised south of 60deg south I think firstly the bullshit tag should be dropped and secondly a "good on you bloke"for making it back home, Thirdly possibly the nastiest part of the voyage would have been in "the square wave sea" south of the diaomedes.....no place for the fainthearted tubthumpers believe me

[Guest]

Ok,fine.But the Northwest Passage is obviously becoming easier over time.So claiming time records doesnt seem right to me.

[wheels 543]

I am not completely sure if the passage is getting easier or not. It seems to vary greatly. One season a path opens up and another season you won't get through. If think what is making it easier is having sateliite views of the area. They can now see a passage and see what direction ice is moving etc. That is a massive help. It seems the passages have always been there to a point, it is being able to predict the path that has been the problem. It is a constantly changing maze.

But does the technology mean the records being broken are fair?? well the same applies to sailing any route today. Better weather views of the world and prediction programes mean that any of the round the world events have a slight edge over the year past.

[Guest]

Well my reading tells me the ice everywhere up there is receeding and its thawing earlier and the waterways are staying open longer.And the Russians are planing to drill for oil in the arctic ocean.

[Guest]

I read a Time magazine article about the impending battle over ownership of the arctic oil reserves. The Russians are sabre rattling over it.

[wheels 543]

The ice seems to be melting closer to the Pole. But it is not really clear if that is Global warming, although all the ones pushing that barrow are saying it is. It is much colder down closer to the continents.

When they discovered that the Pole had melted, it was because an Ice Breaker with some Tourists aboard headed into the Pole. What they encounterd when they got there was open water and little ice. But what has never really been said is that no one has actually been into that area in the Summer period before. So it can not be said for certain that this is not a common type of event. One interesting point is, the North Pole gets nowhere near as cold as the South Pole. Plus the North Pole has no Land mass under it, where as the South Pole does.