This first part does not have any action as it is all about the planning and preparation. Subsequent parts will have all of the sailing and photos. I am not quite sure how many parts this will have, we will have to see how long it ends up. Watch this space for more parts.
This write-up serves two purposes; it creates a permanent record of the trip for me, while also sharing it with the SFTD members who have shown so much interest.
For a long time, I have had the aspiration to qualify as a Royal Yachting Association (“RYA”) Yachtmaster. This is driven by two thoughts firstly it will allow me to go on holiday and charter yachts around the world. Secondly it will allow me to skipper Pride of Mann III.
As Crew master for SFTD I have realised that we are currently short of skippers which is beginning to restrict the sailing schedule, an additional skipper can only help with this. We currently only have 9 active skippers all of whom have other commitments.
I have been working towards this qualification for some time already, gaining my Day Skipper back in 2019. Then In March 2024 I passed the Yachtmaster theory exam.
Before taking the practical exam you need to build up your sailing experience. The requirements are 2,500 miles, 50 nights on a yacht, 5 passages over 60 miles of which 2 are as skipper, and 5 days in total as skipper in the last 10 years. Although I have done a fair amount of sailing over the years since 2017 all my sailing has been on Pride of Mann III. I wanted to broaden my sailing experience and add to these totals.
When I finally went through the logbooks sometime after booking the trip I was surprised to find I had 1,900 miles, 31 days, 14 night hours and 2 days acting as skipper on POM III.
In May 2024 I started looking online for mileage building trips with sailing schools. There were a wide range including trips in the Mediterranean, as well as all around the UK. Sailing on a different yacht in different circumstances to POM III would broaden my experience and knowledge. In the course of this I came across Go West Sailing in Largs operating a 70ft yacht called Global Surveyor. This was doing 4 trips Iceland-Greenland over July and August 2024. before sailing south to spend the European Winter doing trips to Antarctica and around the fjords of Chile and Argentina.
When I discussed it with my wife, Rosie, she recalled a conversation many years ago which I had long forgotten where I had said one day I want to sail to Greenland and Iceland.
The Greenland leg involved a week cruising around Greenland before a 4 day passage to Iceland. Talking to Go West I would get about 650 miles on a 12 day Greenland-Iceland trip. I felt I needed more mileage than this and as the yacht was continuing from Iceland to the Azores, Cape Verde, Brazil and on South to the Southern tip of Argentina. I looked at doing two trips back-to-back Greenland-Iceland-Azores. The Iceland-Azores leg was 14 days 1,500 miles non-stop. They offered me a package price for the two trips together.
After another discussion with Rosie as I was now going to be away for nearly five weeks instead of the initial two, she said to go ahead and book it as I clearly wanted to do it. It was after I had booked with Go West that I ran into a problem:
The issue was the cost and availability of flights to the starting point in Greenland a small town in the southeast of Greenland called Kulusuk, with limited connectivity (there are no roads in or out). The best option was Icelandair though Reykjavik but their flights were all full, I then had to book Greenland Air though Copenhagen. This involved two flights to get to Copenhagen an overnight in Copenhagen and three flights to get From Copenhagen to Kulusuk. It also meant arriving in Kulusuk on Wednesday afternoon even though I was not due to join the yacht until Friday. I booked a further overnight on arrival in the only hotel in Kulusuk as Go West had said I could stay overnight on the yacht on Thursday. I had certainly not anticipated the difficulty and cost of getting to join the yacht in Greenland.
Return flights Azores-Lisbon-Manchester-Isle of Man were far lower cost and straight forward in comparison. It involved an overnight in Manchester as I could not get to Manchester early enough to connect back to the Isle of Man.
Getting insurance was the next item to deal with most travel insurance does not allow you to sail more than 12 miles from land, I had to do a bit of work to find specialist insurers to get cover.
I was leaving on Tuesday 13 August returning 5 week later on Tuesday 17 August quite a trip covering the length of Europe.
With the bookings completed I then started to think about clothing. I was going to encounter quite different weather across the trip a bit of research shows this area of Greenland to be around 10°C during the day and close to 0C overnight in August. Iceland would be a bit warmer and then by the time we reached the Azores it would 25°C , So it was therefore necessary to pack clothing for a wide range of temperatures.
There ended up being an extensive packing list including, sleeping bag, sleeping bag sheet, towel, sailing boots, foul weather gear, hats gloves and fleeces and then some warm weather clothing including lightweight trousers, shorts and short sleeved shirts. Whilst not heavy this was quite a volume of clothing. For the first time in my life, I did a complete dummy pack to check everything would fit and had to swap to a bigger bag than I had planned due to the volume and it still required diligent packing to get it all in. The only thing I forgot were nail scissors! The only item I should have not bothered to take was my laptop as I didn’t use it as much as I thought I would, and it is quite bulky with the power supply.
I did buy a few new items for the trip including thermal leggings, a neoprene balaclava, warm sailing gloves and a new heavy weight fleece. All were used extensively and well worth the purchase
I decided to keep a diary of the trip for myself as the detail was bound to fade with time and it was not likely to be a trip I would repeat. I had my phone and a l camera to take photos on. I took more photos in 5 weeks than I have taken in the last 30 years! Based on the level of interest from fellow SFTD members before I went, I agreed to post regular updates to the SFTD Facebook page when internet access allowed.