Monthly Archives: May 2013

Our choice of route.

After reading the most recent Globe and Mail article about our expedition we noticed a comment from an individual claiming that what we’re doing is in some way untrue. In a nutshell the comment stated that our expedition is a row between two arbitrary villages rather than an actual transit of the Northwest Passage. Typically, we don’t respond to such comments but believe that this posting deserves to be answered in a more detailed manner in our blog (even though we’ve already provided clarification throughout our website.)

What we’re trying to do this summer has never been done before. We are hoping to row, without sail or motor in approximately 75 days, through the maze of islands and ice sheets of the Canadian archipelago that once represented a closed door for mariners attempting to navigate a sea route over the Americas in a single season. The Northwest Passage was anything but a passage in those days and presented a seemingly impassable route across the top of the world. Read More

Training in Deep Cove

We headed out to the Tuesday night paddle race in Deep Cove on May 28th. A big thanks to event organizer Bob Putnam of Deep Cove Canoe and Kayak for inviting us. Great fun and a super opportunity to showcase The Arctic Joule. We averaged a speed of 6.5km/h (nearly 4 knots) for the training loop…a very satisfactory speed for a boat of the Joule’s size.

Training on the Arctic Joule

The Arctic Joule is now moored down at the Vancouver Maritime Museum. We encourage anyone who’s interested to come down and check her out. Kevin, Paul, Denis and Frank are down daily training in English Bay. This is tweaking time for the team as they row The Arctic Joule and determine what’s working well with the boat and what needs adjusting. On Wednesday May 29th The Arctic Joule heads back to her builder Robin Thacker in Nanaimo for the final adjustments. She’s a beaut!! On Thursday evening the team were happily moving along at nearly 4 knots in their training. Not bad for early days. She’ll get a whole lot heavier when fully loaded but the team will get a whole lot stronger too.

Paul Kevin Frank Denis

Ocean rescue training

We spent a full day doing ocean rescue training with the hugely experienced David Sutcliffe. Check out our video.