Letter from our crew.
Hamble River, United Kingdom. This is our location on the day the Vinson of Antarctica project website starts its journeys. It's been five weeks since we left the shipyard behind. Equipping a polar expedition vessel for its first voyage seems like a never-ending job. We started half a year ago, searching, buying, receiving, modifying, storing, inventorying, and we will be doing it until the very last minute. That is why we have come to Hamble. The Solent, Cowes, The Isle of Wight are the cradle of sailing as we have understood it for the last century. Here begins the hobby of going out to sea, pushed by the wind with no other purpose than to enjoy being slipped through the waves, without fishing, transporting goods, without working. In these waters, its people began to have fun trying which boat was faster, who was the best skipper, without this influencing at all the biggest or worst profits of any company, simply for pleasure. Their passion and love for the sea were the start point of leisure sailing as we understand it today. So for decades, most of the global nautical industry has been concentrated around these villages, Portsmouth, Southampton, Gosport, Pool, Cowes.
For this reason, Skip Novak, the ship's conceptual designer, our expedition leader, our mentor, our guru after all, impetuously recommended that we spend the last few weeks of ship preparation here. There is nowhere we would find more excellent facilities. Skip is already here with us, which means it is impossible to find a better way to start, for the ship, for the crew, for the project.
But even the most extended and most complex construction and preparation processes come to an end. In two days, the first expedition of the ship begins. It is very significant and exciting that the first navigation of the vessel is already heading for a Pole. To start, we will sail directly to Tromso, a tiny Norwegian city that is already about three hundred and fifty kilometers above the Arctic Circle. This means the boat will no longer see the sunset at its first stopover. It will be a logistical pause. Due to pandemic times, before we can sail through the rest of the country or disembark, we have to quarantine on board. But we are heading further north. We are going to the Svalbard Archipelago. We will get as close to the Pole as much as the ice shelf allows this year. We are taking a geologist's scientific expedition to their samples collecting points.
You can imagine we are eager to get out there. We’ve been preparing everything for a long time. We are sailors; we are hungry for wind and miles. But above all, we are looking forward to seeing the Vinson of Antarctica project journeys and ideas becoming true.
This is an exceptional sailboat. Her design and construction make her spectacular, unique. But the ship itself would be meaningless if it were not for its aim to create and spread knowledge. The value is in the cultural enterprise. We are an instrument at the service of all people who want to know our planet a little better.
We hope you can follow and enjoy all the boat plans through this website. Our work as a crew wouldn't make all the sense without having you involved in everything.
Fair winds to you all!
Kenneth (Skipper)
