This blog post was first published on 14 June 2024 and has been updated and reposted today. The old URL still works.   Q: You will be rowing the Northwest Passage this summer? A: Yes, I will be part of an expedition team that will attempt to row the Northwest Passage this summer. WHY? Q: Why on earth would you want to do that? A: It sounds awfully corny, but ever since I was a little boy, I dreamt of joining an expedition to a faraway, dangerous place. Q: How long did you have to wait? A: Quite a while, actually, I’ll be turning 50 this September.   Feature logo and all pics of boat (c) Northwest Passage Expedition, rest royalty-free stock photography from Pexels WHAT IS THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE? Q: For those who didn’t major in geography, what is the Northwest Passage? A: The Northwest Passage is the sea […]

Very long night. Started out with a bit of a choppy sea, then flattened completely, then a few small, gentle rollers and the odd breaker again, then some weird ultra-slow frequency, pretty high but very spread out (“flattened”) rollers came in for the last four hours before dawn. SOME WAVES Some of the waves looked like they were going to wash over deck, if you looked at them from a low seated position inside the front cabin with eye levels not far above the deck level, but they never did. A few of them hit an inch or so below the gunwhale/gunnel line (deck level). UPDATE FROM THE SKIPPER At 8am, Leven updated the rest of the team about the plan for the day. Instead of deteriorating, the leak situation had actually further improved. Less water came in and less bailing needed to be done. Good for Mike and me. […]

Almost burned down our little windstop around the campfire with all the gear and clothes in its proximity, when at around 3am, a massive random gust pushed over the half of a rusty oil barrel that we had repurposed as windshield, and with it most of the log fire pyramid. Ambers ranging in size from mosquitoes to tennis balls were flying and rolling everywhere. Too much stress in the middle of a pitch black night, while on my own on polar bear watch shift. My shift partner had chosen to do his shift simultaneously from the deck of Hermione, which is perfectly fine. PUSHING, PULLING, HEAVING From 8:30am we were all at it again, pushing, pulling, heaving. We worked even harder than during the previous sessions, knowing that with strong winds forecast from tomorrow morning, we would not get much of a chance to put some distance between ourselves and […]

In the morning at high tide we spent another two hours pushing, heaving, pulling Hermione a good two metres (7ft) in the back and perhaps just under a metre (3.5ft) at the bow closer to the sea. With waters now almost perfectly calm and flat, there no longer were those big rollers and breakers that had previously assisted us with our work by at least for a few seconds here and there flooding the area around and below the hull. As a result, this high tide, despite being four inches higher than the previous one, seemed altogether lower and very lacklustre. It was shocking to see how a complicit sea hid almost every last one of those devious boulders under its seemingly peaceful surface. Without our cheerful, energetic, always bantering and actively motivating skipper, who always works at least as hard as the next guy, on top of his skipper […]

Got up at 9pm. Had some porridge, some hot chocolate, some granola, and vast amounts of peanut butter. PREPARATIONS, WORK ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE HULL At 11:30am we started the preparations for the repair works process. At 2:30pm, about half an hour before the lowest tide, we started the actual repair works. Leven spent more than half an hour under Hermione’s hull, while she was held up on the bow side by a beam of driftwood. We had used a shovel to dig out enough space for a human to move under the hull and use tools and materials. WORK ON THE INSIDE OF THE HULL When we had finished the work on the outside of the hull, by around 3:30pm, work on the inside of the hull began and took until 6pm. DINNERTIME, PREPARING FOR THE LAUNCH We all cooked ourselves some expedition rations for dinner. Then, at […]