Northwest Passage - 2015

[cwyckham]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

Hawk went thru - had ice in greenland, but very very little in the NWP.

Nice! Did you manage to find a buyer, then? Or were you on her when she went through?

[estarzinger]

^^ buyer (sold almost a year ago) -he lives in Alaska - he motored +65% of the way (not really a surprise).

[cwyckham]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

^^ buyer (sold almost a year ago) -he lives in Alaska - he motored +65% of the way (not really a surprise).

I get the impression that you don't really "sail" the NWP much, though there should be decent sailing up to Greenland, anyways, I would think?

[estarzinger]

^^ not much wind in N Greenland during the summer. Occasional storms come thru but in between its often very calm.

[SailOar]

Arctic Ocean World Record challenge completed by GuoChuan Racing

(September 15, 2015) – After 13 days of racing on the treacherous waters of the North East Passage for 3240nm, Qingdao China, led by Chinese skipper Guo Chuan, finally crossed the finish line on the Bering Strait at 16.48 UTC September 15, 2015. Skipper Guo Chuan and his five crew from Germany, France, and Russia completed the journey. For the very first time in history, a racing trimaran sailed non-stop successfully through the Arctic Ocean Northeast Passage from Murmansk to Bering Straits...

Benoit Cabaret, designer of the Qingdao China trimaran (former IDEC) said: “As the boat’s designer, I was surprised to learn that an Ultime trimaran was going to attempt this tricky passage. New challenges are not that common today, which makes Guo Chuan and his crew’s accomplishment all the more remarkable.”

The Arctic Ocean Northeast passage non-stop sailing world record is the second world record Guo Chuan has achieved. In2013, he set the world record of solo non-stop circumnavigation in a Class 40 monohull. And maybe he has made one more...

[SailOar]

NorthwestPassage2015.blogspot

...I doubt there are any other vessels (icebreakers included) making a late season transit in 2015 as the sea ice curtain lowers while the Fat Lady sings her aria. Its over for another Arctic minimum ice season... with all seven (7) Northwest Passage routes having opened in 2015. It was an amazing minimum ice season.

Below are the known vessels to have complete an official Pacific Ocean Arctic Circle to Atlantic Ocean Arctic Circle NW Passage (or vice versa depending on direction of travel) in 2015.



2015 Northwest Passage Vessels
=======================
Vessel Name - Direction Route No.
=======================

M/V ANDROS - East 7 and West 1 - NW Passage Round Trip (Demonstration Project Only)
S/V AVENTURA - East 6
S/V BAGHERRA - West 3
S/V CHIMERA - West 6
M/V EQUANIMITY - West 5
M/V FENNICA - East 3
S/V GJOA - West 6
S/V HAWK - West 4
S/V NECTON - East 6
M/V NORDICA - East 3
S/V PHILOS - East 6
S/V SALTY KISSES - West 3
S/V SNOW DRAGON II - West 3
S/V SELMA - West 6

All of the vessels accomplished a NW Passage without a loss time incident - KUDOS!

[SailOar]

Partial Opening of the Northwest Passage | NASA Earth Observatory

This satellite photo was taken about 11 days before the 2015 minimum ice extent.

The top image above shows the Northwest Passage as it appeared on August 31, 2015, to the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi-NPP satellite... Note that much of the white covering the Northwest Passage in the VIIRS image is cloud cover, not sea ice...

But even as Arctic sea ice declines, the opening of the Northwest Passage is not necessarily a sure bet in any given year. “The Northwest Passage does not always correlate with the overall sea ice because it is dependent to some degree on ice drifting into and out of the channels,” Meier said. “You can have a relatively high ice year overall when the passage clears out, and you can have a relatively low ice year—like this year—when the passage still has ice. There is less ice in recent years than there used to be and the passages are more easily navigable than they used to be, but specific conditions from year to year can vary substantially.”

A new paper published in Geophysical Research Letters notes that a warm and mostly ice-free Arctic will not necessarily mean smooth sailing through the Northwest Passage any time soon. The ice that forms in these channels and bays is often some of the thickest in all of the Arctic. That makes it more likely to survive through the summer at a thickness that could harm ships.

Republicans outraged over NASA earth science programs… that Reagan began | ARS Technica

Oct 29, 2015
Perhaps the biggest budget battle this spring in NASA policy concerned earth science, and after slumbering this summer, that fight could soon return to prominence thanks to the new Congressional budget deal.

Whereas President Obama sought to increase NASA’s budget for earth science in this fiscal year, Republicans in Congress sought to slash it by hundreds of millions of dollars. From a historical perspective, the staunch Republican opposition to studying climate and weather changes on Earth is surprising. Both Presidents Reagan and the first George Bush supported robust plans to study Earth from space, and the fleet of satellites in orbit today are one of the main space legacies of their terms in office...

[SailOar]

Polar Cruises - Northwest Passage

[jdazey]

Thanks for the update. Soon it will be time to start a Norwest Passage - 2016 thread

[cradlemountain]

I am looking to have experience crewing the north west passage in 2016. Is there anyone who would take on a female cook, cleaner and experienced tiller...hehehe! I just love to really sail my life time DREAM! I am professional photographer, artist who is researching environment of Alaska.
I just posted new group to help me understand the voyage a little better. I have been over to Alaska 3 years now looking at sail boats but Australia and US money transfer is too hard for me to lose money when buying there so crewing is my only option. I am able to contribute to food and help out.