One Waypoint at a Time

sailing life | sailor profile
One Waypoint at a Time
Fueled by a young man’s incredible determination and resilience, an
unlikely solo odyssey takes shape.
I
t’s crazy to think that I’ve
been alone at sea and sailing
nonstop for nearly 100 days.
Yet I still have 200 days to go
before I’ll be able to tie off to a
dock and finally get some rest.
Circumnavigating the Americas on a
27-foot boat takes time. My plan is to
sail through the Northwest Passage,
then round Cape Horn.
The journey really started in the
spring of 2010. I was delivering a boat
to Antigua with my friends Simon
Edwards and Al “Tag” Hunt. I was telling Tag about an idea I’d had during
my second singlehanded transatlantic
passage. During that trip, I was thinking about trying to start a nonprofit
group in Annapolis, Maryland, to
make sailing opportunities available
to the disabled.
“Have you ever heard of CRAB?”
Tag asked me.
“What’s CRAB?” I replied.
And that’s how everything began.
CRAB, which stands for Chesapeake
Region Accessible
With a doBoating, is an Annated 27-foot
napolis-based nonAlbin Vega
profit that’s helped
and a cause,
people with develthe author
opmental, physical,
prepared
and financial chalhimself for
lenges to go sailing
the challenge
for 20 years.
from Annapolis, Maryland.
After that delivery, Simon and I
flew from Antigua to Puerto Rico,
jumped on another boat, and delivered it to Annapolis. While in Annapolis, I called Don Backe, CRAB’s executive director, and found out more
about the organization.
The next few months were busy. I
did another delivery, then brought my
own boat, a Pearson 323, home to Annapolis from St. Thomas, in the U.S.
Virgin Islands. I had a little money
saved up, so when I got back, instead
of getting a normal job, I did volun28 map by david norton
teer work for CRAB. CRAB’s program
By Day 14, I’d settled into the rhythm
director, Karl Guerra, would pick me up of life at sea, but then disaster struck and
at 8 a.m. We’d get bagels and coffee, then nearly ended the trip. I can’t store 300
off we’d go to do a bottom job or try to get days’ worth of water, so I rely on a manual
some old funky Atomic 4 engine started. watermaker. I was pumping my waterOne day after looking at a 25-foot Folk- maker and getting ready to cook dinner
boat that CRAB had for sale, I told Don when the pressure-release valve failed and
that he should let me take the boat up my watermaker popped like popcorn. For
to the Northwest Passage to
a moment, I thought the trip
raise money for CRAB. (See
was over. I called my delivery
23,000-nautical“Help
and CRAB” on
friend, Simon, on a satphone.
mile journey led
page 35.)
I was desperate for any ideas.
him through the
I thought he’d laugh at me,
He told me to call back in 24
Northwest Passage
but he liked the idea. Then
hours. When I called again,
and past icebergs
two CRAB volunteers hapSimon said he’d found a
as big as office
pened to read a story about
watermaker and a guy to
buildings.
me and my sailing plans in a
bring it to me just south of
local magazine and suggested
St. John’s, in Newfoundland.
that instead of taking the Folkboat, I take The trip was saved, and a few days later
their 27-foot Albin Vega.
I met a small boat a mile offshore whose
Now we had a good trip and a good boat. helmsman gave me the watermaker and a
Then we began the huge task of raising the bottle of Screech, a Newfoundland rum.
money for the trip and outfitting the Vega.
The fog around Newfoundland is inIt was difficult, but we pulled it off.
credibly thick and wet. Normally, on the
ocean, I can see three miles in any direcChallenge from the Start
tion. The endless horizon makes me feel
The trip officially started on June 13, like I live in a vast and open world. The
2011, when I sailed past the Chesapeake fog restricts that world to a few hundred
Bay Bridge Tunnel, out into the Atlantic feet, and after being trapped in the fog for
Ocean, and headed north. I knew this a couple of weeks, I start feeling claustro24,000-mile journey would take about phobic. I thought the fog would dissipate
300 days, and in the beginning I didn’t north of Newfoundland, but it continued
know how I’d make it. I quickly decided to be a major factor.
that thinking about the trip as a whole was
I had my first taste of heavy weather
too difficult, so from then on, I’ve been liv- in the Labrador Sea, four days north of
ing one waypoint at a time. Whether the Newfoundland. I watched my barometer
waypoint is five miles away or 500, I only drop 14 millibars in six hours. I thought
focus on the next one.
the world was coming to an end.
Annapolis, Maryland
Departure, June 2011
Location as of press time
Luckily, it was a summer gale. It came
for breakfast and left after dinner. As I
sailed farther north, my luck started to
improve, and I flew through Davis Strait,
having several 140-mile days in a row. I
was still surrounded by fog almost every
day, but I was starting to get used to it.
Intimidating Majesty
At 65 degrees north, I saw my first iceberg. It looked like a white mountain off
in the distance. I was closing in on the
pack ice; navigation soon became much
more difficult. To the north was an area
of pack ice measuring 600 miles north to
south and 400 miles east to west. Most of
Baffin Bay was still covered in ice. It was
impossible to head directly toward the
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sailing life | sailor profile
Help
and CRAB
This solo adventure is a fundraiser for Chesapeake Region
Accessible Boating. For details about donating, log on to
website, Solo Around the Americas (www.solotheamericas.org), or to the CRAB site (www.crabsailing.org).
Elaine Lembo
Northwest Passage; I would’ve had to haul the boat over the ice.
My only option was to sail up a narrow, ice-free corridor off the
coast of Greenland. The corridor was free from the pack ice, sure,
but was still full of icebergs of all shapes and sizes. I saw more
icebergs than I could count, from giant growlers as big as office
buildings to bergy bits the size of Volkswagen Bugs.
Icebergs are nature’s sculptures, each one unique; as they melt
and break apart, their beauty changes and evolves. Some are
bleach white, but most have a tint of blue or sometimes pink.
The largest are both majestic and intimidating. They’re amazingly beautifully, but oh, man, it’s hard to sleep when they’re
around. Hitting an iceberg would be like running into a giant
rock, and the ice would sink my little boat in record time. But I
couldn’t dwell on that; I had two days of 15- to 20-knot headwinds in thick fog, and I couldn’t afford radar. Here’s my strategy for sailing through the fog with no radar when surrounded
by ice: I stand in the cockpit with one hand on the tiller. My
eyes stare straight ahead. I’m ready at every moment to dodge
anything that comes out of the fog. Forget about going to the
head or cooking a meal. I stand there until the fog leaves or the
wind dies. You’d be surprised how the time flies.
When the fog lifts and I jump below, I realize that I’ve been
standing out there for 10 hours or more. When I’m deprived of
sleep, time becomes a blur. And just because the fog dissipates,
it doesn’t mean my watch is over. It just means that I can see
how close the next group of icebergs lie. If I have the time, I
jump in the cabin, get out of the wind, and warm up. If I really
want to spoil myself, I make a cup of coffee. Then it’s back on
deck with me.
No Time for Deep Sleep
I entered the Northwest Passage on August 1, 2011, the same day
that the English explorer William Parry did so in 1819. We both
had 25-knot easterlies, which increased to gale force. I’d arrived in
the Northwest Passage, but I was a bit early, and the middle of the
passage, south of Barrow Strait, was still covered in ice. I was exhausted, so I decided to head for Croker Bay to enjoy a couple of
days of rest and relaxation. The bay, which is 900 feet deep, is desolate. The mile-wide glacier at the end of it is constantly calving
off icebergs.
It was weird to drift around on a parachute sea anchor for two
days with the ice. Sometimes I had to fend off a piece with my
boat hook. I was able to collect ice with my fishing net and melt it
by strapping a pot to my engine. I also took the chance to have a
Scotch on the rocks, the rocks coming straight off a glacier. Now
that’s a good drink! I slept with one eye open.
I left Croker Bay and sailed west toward Barrow Strait. Historically, many early explorers made it to the strait, but it was
when they pressed on to the south that things often went terribly wrong. I arrived at the strait just north of Peel Sound, and
there I was again stopped by pack ice. I spent three very pleas30 ant days drifting on my parachute sea anchor waiting for the
ice south of me to melt. My plan was to go down Peel Sound to
Franklin Strait, then along Boothia Peninsula to the James Ross
Strait, around the south end of King William Island, into Queen
Maud Gulf, and on to the west. This is the same route that Roald
Amundsen followed in the years 1903 to 1905, when he led the
first expedition to traverse the Northwest Passage.
I had very little wind for the next 300 miles and slowly motored my way south. My timing was perfect, and I was able to
motor through the worst of the ice without any real problems.
The wildlife along the way was incredible. At one point, I was
surrounded by hundreds of seals, with narwhals swimming past
on both sides of my boat. I continued south of King William
Island and was able to turn west and make for the very difficult
Simpson Strait, an area full of islands and strong currents. The
currents are so powerful that at one point I was going backward
with my engine at full throttle.
Once I passed through Simpson Strait and entered Queen
Maud Gulf, the winds picked back up out of the east. For the
next five days, I made great time sailing beyond hull speed, flying through tricky passages and between rocky islands. All was
well until I entered Amundsen Gulf and was hit by a full gale.
The waves there were erratic. Several times I had a green wall
of water come crashing down into my cockpit, filling it up and
leaving me pooped. The cockpit doesn’t drain terribly quickly;
on the other hand, my boat didn’t seem to care. A couple of
times when the water drained, some
fish would be left flopping around in
WEB EXTRA
my cockpit. Unfortunately, they were
See the icebergs
always too small to eat. The water up
that
saw.
there is so cold that when I stick my
o
hand in it, I feel a burning sensation
instead of a cold sensation. Sailing my
little boat in big seas is like driving an
old Alfa Romeo Spider—you’re only
doing 40, but it feels like you’re going 65.
After the Amundsen Gulf, I had light winds for the next 700
miles. I spent the next seven days motorsailing along the north
coast of Alaska. When I turned south and headed down Alaska’s
west coast, I thought I was in the clear. But Alaska wasn’t going
to let me get by that easy. I spent seven of the next 10 days getting hammered by two storms. On the other three days, I had
to maneuver my boat in big seas to try to redeploy my sea anchor so I wouldn’t wreck on a lee shore. I was trapped up there.
I couldn’t go south during the first storm because all hell was
breaking loose to the south. I couldn’t go south in the second
storm because I can’t beat into 40-knot headwinds on this lightweight 5,000-pound 27-footer.
The moisture is a problem. All my books and clothes are covered in black mold, and some of the wood inside my boat is
turning black, the first signs of rot. As I write this, I’m still sailing
around Alaska, still cold, still wet. At least things will warm up on
the way to Cape Horn. I take heart in Shackleton’s family motto:
Fortitudine vincimus, “By endurance we conquer.”
According to the Scott Polar Research Institute of England’s University of
Cambridge,
has set a new record for the smallest boat to be
singlehanded through the Northwest Passage. At press time, he was on schedule for
a January rounding of Cape Horn. Track his progress at his website, Solo Around the
Americas (www.solotheamericas.org).
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