Explorer sets sail to polar icecaps on carbon neutral mission
Polar explorer Dr Geoff Wilson is no stranger to peril, but even by his standards his sea and land mission to the Antarctic and Arctic is high stakes adventuring. Australian Wilson, 53, his 22-year-old son Kitale, first mate Alistair Crusty Burton, and sailor and drone pilot Jordan Pearson left Nelson Marina on Monday for the first of seven journeys planned in the next two years to Patagonia, Antarctica, and above the Arctic Circle in an odyssey across icecaps and oceans. As a polar explorer with seven records to his name, Geoff has previously travelled to Antarctica, Greenland, and the Arctic through carbon costly means, such as chartered aircraft. His Project Zero mission this time is designed to get himself and his crew to the polar regions without any carbon footprint. His boat Nanook X has wind, power and hydropower installed, all of which feed into a lithium energy bank. We need to explore, but explore responsibly, Geoff said. As outdoors people we can no longer impact the very environment we seek to protect by our ins and outs. We must at least explore carbon neutral. The first leg got off to a difficult start while crossing the Tasman Sea from Queensland two savage storms smashed the boat within two days of each other, one from the north, and the other from the south. Waves crashed over the vessel flooding the ignition system. A crew member would have been washed away had he not followed strict procedures and made sure he was clipped on. His life vest deployed as if he were underwater. But Geoff and the crew regard the bashing the boat took as a blessing in disguise it affirmed her resilience, and the stop in Nelson was a chance to get the boat to 100% capacity before heading into some of the roughest seas on the planet. A months worth of repairs were sorted in just four days, thanks to the help of Nelson Marine Servicing, with a replacement for the anchor winch, a new engine control panel and a heater swiftly installed. On their journey, the crew will be documenting good news stories to generate hope about solutions for global warming, meeting leading climate scientists and advocates, while Kitale captures images showing the impact global warming is having on these magnificent, yet endangered, landscapes. Nanook Xs next stretch, crossing the Southern Ocean to Patagonia, is the longest on the planet without sight of land between 30 to 40 days, covering 4600 nautical miles to Puerto Montt in southern Chile. Having his son on board, heading into the notorious Roaring Forties, brings a lot of nervousness. The reality is, we cant pretend not to get smacked out there, the low pressure systems are coming through with such regularity. But Geoff said he had lost more friends from depression, anxiety and despair than he had from avalanche. We do take risks, but we're very, very good at risk mitigating. In South America, Geoff and Kitale will attempt to do the first father and son crossing from west to east across the Patagonian icecap and back again. Geoff described it as a phenomenal piece of ice, but its also rapidly changing. Aside from the usual polar challenges such as crevasses, avalanches, distance and cold, there's an added element of unstable weather patterns because of the climate change in the Southern Hemisphere. The pair will also be attempting several other firsts, including the first father and son crossings from the Ross Sea to the Weddell Sea in Antarctica, and crossings of Iceland and Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Geoff said his wife Sarah was particularly concerned about the trip, with not only her husband and son on board but crew member Pearson, who was like a family member. Scrubbing winches hours before Nanook X set sail, Pearson said what was ahead was daunting, and exciting, but he had confidence in the boat after enduring brutal storms across the Tasman. She handles big swells really well, he said. I know she will just take care of us.