Round the World racer sails in uncharted waters

Skip Novak is best known for taking part in four Whitbread Round the World Races and when he decided on a change in career he decided to combine his love of sailing with his other skills, notably mountaineering.

He now works in the high latitudes, although he lives in South Africa, running Pelagic Expeditions and says he has witnessed at first hand the effect of global warming and a rise in popularity of the area with more and more people visiting.

“I sailed down in the high latitudes when I was doing round the world races and used to go past the islands. You can only reach some of these places by sea, so if you want to move around, you have to do it by boat. I also have a climbing background and have done a fair bit of mountaineering. I wanted to combine all of that and had the opportunity to build a boat very cheaply in 1987 in Southampton,” said Skip. “I went to the Antarctic on an expedition to South Georgia and also went again in 1991. It was then that I saw an opportunity down there for chartering as virtually no-one else was doing it back then. There was just myself and five other French boats down there and we all knew each other. I went down to have an adventure and decided to stay and make a living.”

He has now spent 15 seasons in the Antarctic, supported by Raymarine’s instruments and equipment.

Skip says there are many more people and boats going down to the Antarctic, now around 36,000 visitors a year with 98 per cent of them arriving by cruise ship where there has been an exponential growth in numbers.

The effects of extra people and activity in the Antarctic with regard to the impact on wildlife is currently being discussed, in particular the effects on the penguin and albatross colonies.

And Skip says he has seen signs of change, in particular with regards to global warming. “The ice shelter is breaking away. The first time I went down there was in 1988 and I can see it’s definitely warmer now. Maybe it’s only by one degree but it’s had a pretty dramatic effect. There’s more water running off the glacier during January and February and there are lots of feature changes. The ice cliffs are changing shape, there’s much more melting of ice,” he said.

Each year, his two boats undergo an annual refit in Cape Town and this year, Pelagic has also had a major equipment upgrade from Raymarine with a new E Series multifunction display and radar among the items.

The relationship between Skip and Raymarine began in the mid-1990s and Skip and his team aim to give as much feedback on the instruments as possible.

“The instruments give us navigational capabilities for the places we go to such as depth soundings. We sail mostly in uncharted waters so use the depth sounder a lot. For us it’s even more important as we’re operating off the chart. We have to be careful and look at the trends at the bottom. That’s where the fish finder comes in otherwise is could be quite dodgy sailing in these waters. It’s very valuable being able to look at what’s ahead. Radar is extremely important for us as often the charts are non-existent. If there are charts, they don’t correspond to GPS positions. Inshore we use radar fundamentally to measure distances and bearings off land features. We use it independently of the chart survey,” Skip said.

“We regularly sail in high winds – 30-40 knots is not unusual. For most people, this would be a really big storm. The visibility is often quite bad – often it’s thick fog and it’s a very cold sea and there is an iceberg risk below 50 degrees south. It’s a very demanding place to sail.

“We have to pay close attention but one thing there isn’t is a lot of traffic, although a lot more people are going down to the South now than when I first started going here.

“Working down in these environments, I have to choose something that will work all the time. So far we’ve done four years or 90,000 miles. We still have the original wind vane and the original fish finder. The kit has lasted very well and done a lot of miles.”

More Information:

• Raymarine website