Position update 11.28 CEST: 59.92304 N, 38.09052 W
Position update 23.09 CEST: 59.81925 N, 35.45367 W – Excellent eastward progress.
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Yesterday, as soon as the wind made it safe, the “Northern Passage” sailed out from the southeastern coast of Greenland. Captain Thorleif Thorleifsson and his crew is steering the boat homeward at last. It was Midsummer’s Eve when they left the Fram Museum in Oslo, in an attempt to sail through both the Northeast and Northwest Passage during one and the same season. In the face of ice and storm, headwind and windstill, they have crossed vast expanses of Arctic seas – and they succeeded!
However, the journey is not over yet. The challenge of this last leg of their journey, in a humble trimaran across the open seas of the North Atlantic, must not be underestimated. In the autumn, these seas are often described as “a motorway of storms”. In fact, it was a forecasted storm that made the “Northern Passage” seek shelter deep within the fjords of South Greenland just a few days ago.
Now they’re sailing the beneficial winds that blow near the edges of this powerful low pressure zone. There is a fine balance to be achieved. If they sail too far south, then the will will be far too strong for comfort; should they stray too far north, then the wind will be too weak to carry them homeward.
The next few days will be a test of good seamanship, endurance – and old-fashioned luck.
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Expedition Report, 18.33:
“We’re finally done with iceberg country! The last iceberg was the one I took pictures of yesterday, and since then we have seen none. The water temperature is now 11 degrees and we are well outside the range of the Greenlandic iceberg lanes. For us that’s another milestone and, equally important, one less danger to worry about. Now we can safely sail at night without any chance of hitting ice. The moon is gone and it is very dark outside, so it’s a huge relief to be this far away from Greenland.
Trygve and I do watches together, and Thorleif’s watch is with Vince. We do six hours watch at a time, which works well for two persons, since we can change steering and working the sails etc. Now we are also get enough sleep in between watches and are not as tired as we were when we did four-hour watches.
Today has been a difficult but rewarding day with heavy seas and strong wind, up to gale force during the night. But the wind has been from northeast so we have had good progress. We also tried our trisail; it’s a small triangular mainsail that adds stability to the boat in strong winds. We sailed with this and the storm jib most of the night.
It is rainy and wet, which is normal for the North Atlantic, but it’s ten degrees, which seems very warm, at least for us.”
Best regards,
Børge

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