Berri Does It
24.8.08
Donald Burfitt-Dons

Highlighting in dramatic fashion our shrinking ice fields, yacht Berrimilla has just cleared the dangerous North West passage and is heading to Nuuk on Greenland’s West coast. With a courageous crew of three and at just 33 feet in length, the tiny boat has sailed through the melting ice unscathed, illustrating just how quickly our world is changing.

For centuries, mariners, explorers and commercial shipping have longed to open up a passage which would cut more than 3500 nautical miles off the route to Tokyo from London.

Many have died in the process, their ships crushed by the ice packs. The most infamous of all was a well prepared attempt by Sir John Franklin in 1845. His two ships disappeared and 134 men died in the process. But the ice has been thinning for the past quarter of a century as oceans warm, and summer transits are now clearly a reality. Canadian ice has been melting nearly twice as quickly as Artic ice in general. This is logical, in that the island land masses around which it forms will reradiate more than the sea to increased temperatures.

Skipper Alex Whitworth and his two crew members Corrie McQueen and Kimbra Lindus have joined the elite group of sailors to make the passage and made themselves a part of the colourful history of this daunting region of the earth. Their adventures have been recorded in the ships daily blog, and include the sort of events it is better to read about than experience at first hand. Having to cope with everything from shredding shrouds and a failing engine gear box to a whale surfacing directly under their stern, their monumental voyage is in the long tradition of extreme human endeavour.

From Greenland Berri will cross the Atlantic to Falmouth in Cornwall in the United Kingdom, to be greeted by their many friends and supporters. Sail on safely.

Read their blog