Harken, Other Marine Companies Working On Yacht Race Through Arctic In 2017
Opportunity! Excitement! Entrepreneurship! Extreme Sports! Extreme Melting!
This year, we’ve seen yet another Arctic milestone — sea ice covering the top of the world reached the lowest maximum extent yet observed in winter, when ice is at its peak. That means that in the last four years, Arctic sea ice has seen a new low both for its seasonal winter peak (in 2015) and for its summer minimum (in 2012).
We often hear about how damaging this will be to Arctic ecosystems and cultures — but many people see new opportunities in a less icy Arctic. It’s not just shipping and industry, it’s also competitors and adventurers. One case in point: Sailing the Arctic Race, an “extreme yacht race” that is being proposed for the summer-fall of 2017, when crews would race 7,700 miles through the fabled Northwest Passage on a trip from New York to Victoria, British Columbia via the top of the world.
“The more ice that’s being melted, the more free water is there for us to be sailing,” says Robert Molnar, a lifelong sailor, entrepreneur, and the founder and CEO of the race. “Normally we should not be able to do that, but we can.” The race lists, among its partners, Harken, a major U.S. based maker of sailboat gear. But it’s also drawn skepticism in sailing circles – Mark Pillsbury, the editor of the sailing magazine Cruising World, recently called the idea “ambitious and improbable.”
For now, then, Sailing the Arctic Race would seem to have a considerable burden of proof resting on its shoulders. Yet even if not this particular race in the particular year of 2017, the core premise — that the Arctic is changing rapidly, and that one principal effect of this change is to make it more easily navigable by boat — is tough to dispute.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/04/08/the-arctic-has-melted-so-much-that-people-want-to-race-yachts-through-the-northwest-passage/
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