- Sailor trip
-
by Ian Green
Sophie Parry
Deciding I needed to get out of the Solent in 2024, I signed up for an offshore sailing trip from Scotland to Iceland. There were various reasons for doing this trip- I am currently working on the qualifying passages for my Yacht Master Offshore qualification, which also requires a personal log of at least 2500 NM, mostly tidal, before applying for the exam. The other reason is that I just like adventures and pushing personal boundaries.
So I signed up with Go West Sailing, who have amongst their fleet Global Surveyor, a purpose-made steel hulled 66 foot yacht. I asked in advance if I could do some qualifying YM OS passages on this trip and get them signed off if I made the grade. I was in luck, Danny of Go West Sailing was on the trip and able to support my requests.
I was the only one working on qualifying passages for my YM.
The initial task was to prepare a passage plan from Ardrossan- St Kilda- Vestmannaeyjar- Rekjavik, which equates to c900 miles or 10 days sailing. The trip was set for June, which is apparently a good time to make this trip, by North Atlantic standards.
Complete with passage plan, I arrived at Ardrossan harbour, about 20 miles SW of Glasgow. That evening, met over dinner with the 2 staff crew and 11 other guests. The plan was to depart the next morning. My next role was as First Mate. The first task was to create a watch rota. After a boat familiarisation & safety brief, the first leg of the trip was a 2 day sail to St Kilda.
The first thing to know about offshore sailing is that once the passage starts, the sailing is a 24/7 operation, hence the rotating watches. My crew were of mixed ability, ranging from never sailed before to Day or Coastal Skipper & made up of 5 different nationalities. During the first two days, my crew were all sea sick to varying degrees, but had found their sea legs by the time we arrived at St Kilda.
St Kilda
Is a small island out in the Atlantic & that has not been inhabited since the early 1930’s due to the harsh conditions.
Nowadays there are a few scientists who spend the summer there researching wildlife and a few defence contractors who maintain an early warning radar installation. There is a small bay that constitutes a harbour & with a fixed stone jetty. We anchored in the bay and went ashore in a RIB. We spent about 6 hours exploring the Island before it was time to depart.
St Kilda to Vestmannaeyjar
This was the main leg of the passage and just over 400 NM or 4 days.
Vestmannaeyjar is the home of the Icelandic fishing fleet, located on the Island of Heimaey. Heimaey also holds the record for the strongest winds and lowest ever barometric pressure ever recorded in Europe.
For this leg, my role changed from that of First Mate to that of Skipper. Danny announced that he was going to retire to his berth to catch up on sleep and DVDs and I was only to disturb him if we were (a) sinking or (b) there was something wrong with the engine.
So, I briefed the crew, we all agreed that the initial watch rota worked for everyone, and that when not on watch, I should be woken up if the watch leader felt there was a boat-related problem I needed to know about.
It does not really go dark north of Scotland in June- just a sort of eerie twilight for 2-3 hours at best. The winds were variable up to about F9, and sailing vs motoring time was about 50/50.
For me, this was an interesting aspect of leadership- to keep a mixed-ability multi-national crew engaged for 4 days & where we lost count of the different shades of grey you can encounter this far north. Another interesting challenge that came my way mid-Atlantic, was the day all the electronic navigation equipment failed. The engineer in me took over, and I managed to discover a fault in the 24vdc supply and to make a temporary repair.
6 days into the trip, as expected, we ran out of bread- but we had all the ingredients on board and one of the crew cooked some fresh bread and which was probably the best bread in the world at the time.
Early one morning, I came on watch to find the retiring watch quite excited. They could just make out land to the north. Iceland ! and with snow still on the mountains in June. The sighting of land lifted everybody’s spirits as we prepared to enter Vestmannaeyjar port.
Then it got windy. We only planned to spend one night in Vestmannaeyjar, but the winds picked up, the mercury headed south and the local fishing fleet stayed home. It was 2 days before the winds dropped enough for a safe departure.
Vestmannaeyjar to Rekjavik
For the final leg, Danny skippered the last 120 miles to our destination. This allowed me some time to practice with the radar and other navigation aids as the coastline and increasing shipping activity made for interesting targets. We arrived in Rekjavik harbour and marina one the planned day, which was useful, as I was flying home early the next morning.
This was the end of leg one for Global Surveyor. A new staff crew and guests were due to take over in the next few days as leg two prepared to sail from Iceland to Greenland.
Conclusion
This was the trip of a lifetime, one I can recommend and one I would do again. The other benefit? I now need just one qualifying offshore skippering passage and to log another 300 miles, and then I will have all the pre-requisites to go for the YM OS practical exam.
I’m just thinking I might just sign up for another cheeky little sail with Global Surveyor on the Argentina- Antarctica- Argentina leg in the near future….
So I signed up with Go West Sailing, who have amongst their fleet Global Surveyor, a purpose-made steel hulled 66 foot yacht. I asked in advance if I could do some qualifying YM OS passages on this trip and get them signed off if I made the grade. I was in luck, Danny of Go West Sailing was on the trip and able to support my requests.
I was the only one working on qualifying passages for my YM.
The initial task was to prepare a passage plan from Ardrossan- St Kilda- Vestmannaeyjar- Rekjavik, which equates to c900 miles or 10 days sailing. The trip was set for June, which is apparently a good time to make this trip, by North Atlantic standards.
Complete with passage plan, I arrived at Ardrossan harbour, about 20 miles SW of Glasgow. That evening, met over dinner with the 2 staff crew and 11 other guests. The plan was to depart the next morning. My next role was as First Mate. The first task was to create a watch rota. After a boat familiarisation & safety brief, the first leg of the trip was a 2 day sail to St Kilda.
The first thing to know about offshore sailing is that once the passage starts, the sailing is a 24/7 operation, hence the rotating watches. My crew were of mixed ability, ranging from never sailed before to Day or Coastal Skipper & made up of 5 different nationalities. During the first two days, my crew were all sea sick to varying degrees, but had found their sea legs by the time we arrived at St Kilda.
St Kilda
Is a small island out in the Atlantic & that has not been inhabited since the early 1930’s due to the harsh conditions.
Nowadays there are a few scientists who spend the summer there researching wildlife and a few defence contractors who maintain an early warning radar installation. There is a small bay that constitutes a harbour & with a fixed stone jetty. We anchored in the bay and went ashore in a RIB. We spent about 6 hours exploring the Island before it was time to depart.
St Kilda to Vestmannaeyjar
This was the main leg of the passage and just over 400 NM or 4 days.
Vestmannaeyjar is the home of the Icelandic fishing fleet, located on the Island of Heimaey. Heimaey also holds the record for the strongest winds and lowest ever barometric pressure ever recorded in Europe.
For this leg, my role changed from that of First Mate to that of Skipper. Danny announced that he was going to retire to his berth to catch up on sleep and DVDs and I was only to disturb him if we were (a) sinking or (b) there was something wrong with the engine.
So, I briefed the crew, we all agreed that the initial watch rota worked for everyone, and that when not on watch, I should be woken up if the watch leader felt there was a boat-related problem I needed to know about.
It does not really go dark north of Scotland in June- just a sort of eerie twilight for 2-3 hours at best. The winds were variable up to about F9, and sailing vs motoring time was about 50/50.
For me, this was an interesting aspect of leadership- to keep a mixed-ability multi-national crew engaged for 4 days & where we lost count of the different shades of grey you can encounter this far north. Another interesting challenge that came my way mid-Atlantic, was the day all the electronic navigation equipment failed. The engineer in me took over, and I managed to discover a fault in the 24vdc supply and to make a temporary repair.
6 days into the trip, as expected, we ran out of bread- but we had all the ingredients on board and one of the crew cooked some fresh bread and which was probably the best bread in the world at the time.
Early one morning, I came on watch to find the retiring watch quite excited. They could just make out land to the north. Iceland ! and with snow still on the mountains in June. The sighting of land lifted everybody’s spirits as we prepared to enter Vestmannaeyjar port.
Then it got windy. We only planned to spend one night in Vestmannaeyjar, but the winds picked up, the mercury headed south and the local fishing fleet stayed home. It was 2 days before the winds dropped enough for a safe departure.
Vestmannaeyjar to Rekjavik
For the final leg, Danny skippered the last 120 miles to our destination. This allowed me some time to practice with the radar and other navigation aids as the coastline and increasing shipping activity made for interesting targets. We arrived in Rekjavik harbour and marina one the planned day, which was useful, as I was flying home early the next morning.
This was the end of leg one for Global Surveyor. A new staff crew and guests were due to take over in the next few days as leg two prepared to sail from Iceland to Greenland.
Conclusion
This was the trip of a lifetime, one I can recommend and one I would do again. The other benefit? I now need just one qualifying offshore skippering passage and to log another 300 miles, and then I will have all the pre-requisites to go for the YM OS practical exam.
I’m just thinking I might just sign up for another cheeky little sail with Global Surveyor on the Argentina- Antarctica- Argentina leg in the near future….
