Yachting Monthly - April 2016

ADVENTURE

42 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com APRIL 2016

Sailing a small

boat in the wilds

of Greenland

isn’t meant to be

easy. Weather,

ice and breakages

put Bob Shepton

through his paces

M

y ribs throbbed as I lay on the

ground. Checking myself, I

reckoned nothing was broken

and gingerly got up. Sailing

in Greenland isn’t meant to

be easy, but the start of this expedition

seemed to be tougher than most. My

Westerly Discus, Dodo’s Delight, had

wintered ashore in the small but friendly

boat yard in Sisimiut, on the west coast.

I was standing on a pair of oil drums to

clean her topsides when I’d reached a little

too far. The drums went one way, I went

the other, landing painfully on my side on

some loose rails lying on the ground.

The next blow was to my wallet. Two

new heavy-duty batteries were needed to

make sure the engine would start reliably,

and at Danish prices, nearly £500 was

gobbled up in a single bite.

On the bright side, there was now plenty

of power to run auxiliaries and electronics

Put to the test

in Greenland

and we launched safely with the first fresh

coat of antifouling on the hull in three

years, having relied on the cold Arctic

water to keep us clean till now.

The first half of my crew, Patrick and

Trystan, arrived in early June. As neither of

them had sailed before, I put them through

some preliminary sail training in the fjord.

Then, having bunkered with food, water

and diesel, we set sail for Evighedsfjord to

the south. There had been no wind at all in

Sisimiut for days before our departure, but

a pleasant following wind built steadily. To

the relief of the crew, the skipper was on

watch when it blew up to 28-30 knots. We

charged south under mainsail alone.

Things were looking up, and we were

soon settling into a rhythm of sailing,

exploring, anchoring and looking for routes

for the boys to rock-climb. For the most

part we were following the excellent Arctic

and Northern Waters Pilot (Imray, £60),

but I was also working on a supplement

for the pilot and was keen to discover new

anchorages. Putting in for a rest at the start

of the 50-mile long Kangerlussuaq fjord,

we found a convenient anchorage behind

Cruncher Island not described in the pilot.

A wintry start

Rock climbing in Greenland at this time of

the year wasn’t expected to be a problem

and we were looking forward to getting

going, but when we reached the dramatic

fjord of Evighedsfjord with its Alpine-

looking mountains, it became increasingly

obvious that it was still winter here. Snow

sat on the ground right down to shore level,

so climbing rock would be difficult.

In Evighedsfjord we put into Bill

Tilman’s anchorage of Tassiussaq and were

surprised to find a luxury motor superyacht

from Bermuda, with attendant helicopter

parked ashore. This was a first for me.

Greenland seems to be getting busier, as

we would later discover. Further on, a

vast glacier debouched dramatically into

the fjord and we carried on. 25 miles in

we reached the end of a subsidiary fjord,

where I re-learned a valuable lesson. At the

head of fjords there are often huge, hidden

silt banks from past glacial activity that

uncover at low water. This isn’t an issue if

you lay your anchors accordingly, but when

the wind goes round you can suddenly find

yourself on the silt bank. We were turning

and drifting rapidly towards it, so I threw

another anchor over the stern, which just

stopped us crunching onto the silt bank.

Winter’s grip was still in evidence

when we reached Hamborgerland and

Maniitsoq, further south. The manager of

the Maniitsoq Hotel told us ‘This year in

PHOTOS: BOB SHEPTON UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED

Dodo’s Delight wintered ashore in Sisimiut rather than in Scotland

Dodo’s Delight is dwarfed by the

Finnefjeld, anchored securely in

sand, with plenty of cod around