Skip Novak’s beloved boat, Pelagic Australis has been sold. Yes, you read that right. On 17 May 2021, Ullman Sails ambassador Skip Novak handed over Pelagic Australis to Greenpeace International in Cape Town.

Skip Novak gives us the lowdown on why he decided to sell his expedition vessel and what his plans are for the future:

The send-off was a carnival affair for the seller (second happiest day of a boat owner’s life) and the buyer (the first happiest day of a boat owner’s life) complete with Zulu dancers cavorting on the foredeck laid on by Greenpeace South Africa. I was well pleased with my Johnny Klegg impersonation when asked to take part.

Skip’s epic send off to Pelagic Australis

This was of course a major decision, but not a difficult one. The negotiation began way back in October 2020. I was desperately conjuring up a southern charter season based from Cape Town with two trips to Marion Island supporting a film team and two trips to Gough Island for the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Bird’s (RSPB) mice eradication project.

Great wandering albatrosses on display

Saying goodbye to his boat

When Greenpeace contacted me and said they needed a small vessel with a lifting keel and rudder for ‘close quarter campaigning,’ I had an epiphany. I had no intention of selling Pelagic Australis, not least of all as I had a full book of clients from our normal season with nowhere to go, that I was in the process of rolling over 2021/22. This was a dilemma to be solved. But given my age, the vessel’s age, and not least of all the ongoing Covid story where uncertainty still continues through 2021 and will do so into 2022, it was the right thing to do, certainly from a financial perspective. In other words, ‘the handwriting was firmly visible on the bulkhead.’

The great Pelagic Australis at Gough Island

After 20 years filled with memories and the casts of characters we have hosted, the timing was right to pass her on to begin a new chapter – and what better home than Greenpeace for this venerable expedition vessel. Many people have asked, “Was this difficult emotionally to part with Pelagic Australis?” And, “Aren’t you sentimentally attached?” You might make a case in this regard for the original Pelagic, which launched a dream way back in 1987 and awaits me on the hard in Maine for future arctic adventures. But for Pelagic Australis, not at all. She is metal, wood, and fiber (mostly metal). The memories I have are well filed. To steal a phrase, she was, for me, a “taxi to the snowline.”

The adventure continues for Skip Novak

The amazing thing was that after sign-off I went seamlessly from one situation to another (the story of my life, various friends remind me). I joined the new Tony Castro designed Pelagic 77, Vinson of Antarctica. She arrived in my old ‘home port’ of the Hamble on 15 May 2021. I had not seen her since October on my last visit to KM Yachts in Holland before retreating to family in Cape Town for another lockdown. In the interim, I had been working on the fit-out and sea trials with KM and our sailing crew via Whatsapp and Zoom – frustrating? For sure.

Skip’s adventure continues on Vinson of Antarctica

The Pelagic 77 Vinson of Antarctica, owned by my colleague Nicolas Ibanez from Chile, bit off a lot to chew on with her first real offshore sea trial sailing from the UK direct to Tromso. We had to enter Norwegian waters in order to deal with quarantine and then carry on to Longyearbyen in Svalbard. A gamble for sure given a new custom boat straight of the box.

This was our first charter that was seven months in the negotiation – supporting a German government team of geologists in their long term study of the geophysical structures of that archipelago and taking samples for age analysis – what turned out to be 1.5 tonnes of rocks in the forepeak after 30 days in the field. We were in VOA’s polar environment and no show stoppers from our side, so far, a testament to our design and project management team and KM Yachts in Holland. The full suite of Ullman Sails Fibrepath sails on Vinson of Antarctica also stood up to the test. Based on the meticulous recording of the number of hours on the sails from Pelagic Australis for many years, I have full faith in the longevity of this fabric for high-end use in extreme environments.

Vinson of Antarctica looking gorgeous with her full suit of Ullman Sails Fibrepath sails

Sailing in Svalbard

The last time I was up in this region was 2004 with Pelagic Australis and although cruise ships were certainly a feature they were not excessive in number. Pre Covid in 2019 there were over 55,000 tourist visitors, many shipborne, and we were told in normal times we would hardly ever be left alone in any of the fjords. Because of Covid, we had pretty much the archipelago to ourselves.

Peace and serenity in the Fjords

Fooling around at 80 degrees of latitude is interesting. In 2004 we hit 80 degrees, in the fog, and miraculously all our instrumentation went down – a total blackout; no speed, no wind, no GPS, but more to the point no radar and sounder. It was if one of those clever young programmers of these increasingly complex and integrated systems thought no one will be going that far north or south, so why bother extending the algorithm beyond that convenient arbitrary figure. After many reboots, a few anxious Iridium calls to the company who were perplexed and remained so, and some hours with a few nail-biting moments as we untangled the lead line, it just as miraculously came to life. We were on paper charts in those days but without the fundamentals of radar and a sounder we were playing a tricky game, sort of like Willem Barentsz in 1596.

Fast forward to the present and although the electronic chart plotter worked meticulously until about 79 degrees 45’ the folio does end about there. So it was no surprise when we were once again on and off in the fog in relatively shallow waters and back to 1983 techniques of taking transits, back bearings, and using the fundamentals of radar for distance off. All this requires a level of concentration not found when using a chart plotter, at least in well-surveyed areas where you can bring a boat into a quay ‘blind.’

Sailing through the fog

Luckily, I was not phased by this transition into the past, nor was Kenneth, my understudy, and an RYA instructor. One wonders, however (and I am reminded of celestial navigation in the same context) that although you have to learn these first principles on paper at some point in a training progression, how often will you actually use them if the chart plotter works, which it seems to all of the time?

It might seem cavalier to turn your plotter off and spend time navigating in the Solent and English Channel and getting these techniques down pat, but make sure you don’t go aground (especially on my advice!) as you will then be accused of not using the tools available to you. Or, you can do the real thing and sail up to 80 degrees north and literally fall off the end of the electronic chart. It can be a liberating – or sobering experience.

New adventures await on the Vinson of Antarctica