Singlehanded Canaries back to UK?

For your future plans, please be aware that the Governor of Svalbard imposes quite stringent requirements on visitors who expect to go anywhere but Longyearbyen. I'm not current, but these used to include evidence of having sufficient supplies, and certainly include carrying a rifle suitable to see off a polar bear. Also, be aware that there is no organized SAR in the archipelago. Although Svalbard is part of Norway, because of the Svalbard Treaty, it has a completely different setup to mainland Norway. Until the 1990s, the first question you were asked on arrival was "Where are your supplies?" and if your answer wasn't either "Here!" or "I've got a contract with SNSK" then you were denied entry and sent straight back. Things have loosened up - Longyear is no longer the company town that it once was, and there are stores other than those run by SNSK - but it is still a very small society with limited resources.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
For your future plans, please be aware that the Governor of Svalbard imposes quite stringent requirements on visitors who expect to go anywhere but Longyearbyen. I'm not current, but these used to include evidence of having sufficient supplies, and certainly include carrying a rifle suitable to see off a polar bear. Also, be aware that there is no organized SAR in the archipelago. Although Svalbard is part of Norway, because of the Svalbard Treaty, it has a completely different setup to mainland Norway. Until the 1990s, the first question you were asked on arrival was "Where are your supplies?" and if your answer wasn't either "Here!" or "I've got a contract with SNSK" then you were denied entry and sent straight back. Things have loosened up - Longyear is no longer the company town that it once was, and there are stores other than those run by SNSK - but it is still a very small society with limited resources.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this... appreciated. We've been prepping the boat over the last couple of years for some decent high latitude sailing with the aim of the Baffin, NW passage and Alaska in the coming years. I intended to do a winter in Plymouth also adding additional solar, a taylors heater, improvments to the webasto system and additional insulation. Svarlbard will be a good "warm up" :)
 
A very relevant difference between 2-day passages and longer ones is sleep management.
Up to two days, one can pull from the body hidden resources, basically coping with being more or less deprived of sleep, and recovering here and there with some very short naps, say the usually mentioned 20min periods.
Beyond that, it is not possible to remain into a constant sleep debit situation, the body will react by first 1. lowering the level of consciousness, one may be "awake" but with totally insufficient cognitive capabilities for safely handling the boat, then 2. fall deeply asleep for several hours, with no alarms or anything strong enough to wake you up.
Managing sleep means first of all knowing the duration of one's sleep cycle, usually between 1.5 and 2.5 hours, and knowing which times of the day one feels the "call of the sleep", those instants when eyes tend to shut and one is ready to take a nap.
These 2ish-hour period sleeps must be distributed during the day to add up to the daily sleep need, depending on navigational needs and personal chronobiology. I usually need 4 daily cycles, sometimes one is corrupted/interrupted by sudden things to do, but even after 20+ days at sea the first night I am in port I sleep the usual 5-6-7 hours, so no sleep debit accumulation at all.
Equipment: active radar transponder with alarm and AIS transponder always on, occasionally radar.
In coastal areas if at all possible I do not go beyond 24 hours, it will often be a sleepless night.
There are of course people saying they wear their pijamas at sunset and enjoy a full 8-10hour night sleep, good for them, each to his own.


(ps personal singlehanded long passage experience is two return transats, plus a number of 500-1000M passages; if I add the "false singlehanding" i.e. family onboard but no one contributing to sailing and navigation except myself, long passages about double that. Btw it's a lot easier to be a real singlehander than a false one :D )
 
LadyInBed said:
The longest Biscay crossing I have done was my first, it took me four and a half days, but I found that I settled in quite quickly. I was making progress in the right direction, all be it slow, I had plenty of food and drink and was getting good naps, I didn't set an alarm. I reached a point where I didn't want the passage to end as things were so tranquil. The other side of the coin was a bumpy crossing and I was glad when it was over!
I do enjoy sailing solo, no one to please or worry about except yourself.
Click to expand...
Think we're talking about different things here and everyone's experiences are no doubt very different as well. Takes me a good few days to *really* get into the groove, more of a "moitessier mode" where everything becomes more instinctive in the moment with the past and future seeming a bit irrelevant, then a few days before landfall the spell is broken and you get a bit more on edge with the shelf looming with its pots and traffic. :)
Many more resources theses days to help, marine traffic density can show you where the traffic is, opencpn watchdog with alarms for off course, high windspeed and more. :cool:
I'm really not happy with no radar and guard zone alarms set to do a sweep every ten minuted or so even if all it usually picks up are squalls. Why wouldn't you?
Also, a good long distance passage isn't measured in how quick but how much broke :) keeping the boat happy is way up the list underway even it it means pointing a bit in the wrong direction sometimes, imho.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top