Astra-nomical feat for Aviemore's global conqueror!
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
The Strathy can confirm that Aviemore sailor extraordinaire Iain Macneil and his crew have made it.
MV ASTRA, their customised 23.3m polar vessel, finally docked at Lanzarote in the Canary Islands on Monday night having become the first of its kind ever to circumnavigate the world the ‘wrong’ way round.
The Scottish marine publisher was convinced the craft was up to the task and on December 1, last year, he and his team departed from Puerto Calero, in Lanzarote, to attempt the record.
It is officially to: “Round the world circumnavigation via the capes on an owner/skippered full displacement motor boat of less than 24 metres”.
The voyage involved crossing the equator twice and travelling through 360 degrees of longitude at a minimum distance of 26,600 nautical miles.
The route took the vessel around all of the capes in the Southern Ocean, passing the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa; Cape Leeuwin, Western Australia; South East Cape, Tasmania; South Cape, New Zealand and Cape Horn, Chile.
Captain Macneil told the Strathy after he had celebrated his achievement with a chilled champagne: “Initially I was only looking to get round Cape Horn.
“Then I realised that a complete circumnavigation of all of the capes in the Southern Hemisphere had never been completed on a motor vessel of less than 24 metres – and so the chase was on!
“Five and a half months, 31,500 miles, big seas, watches all around the clock, five people and a boat originally designed to break ice and go out on short rescue trips in the Baltic Sea?
“I’d call that a challenge and I am very glad to have gotten myself and my crew home safely to such a brilliant welcome.”
The news was celebrated on social media with his landlubber staff at Witherby Publishing Group, which happens to be the leading player in operational guidance and technical standards for shipping.
Strathy headlines
