After departing Newfoundland on July 1, I’ve reached the first milestone on my attempt to complete a solo circumnavigation of the Arctic. At 260713.1310Z I crossed the Arctic Circle northbound. I’ll remain north of it until I cross it again sailing southbound in the Davis Strait. At this point I turn substantially east to my next stop is Vardø, Norway, about 1,200 nm away for final refueling before crossing the Russian Arctic to Barrow, Alaska, which must be done non-stop. Barrow most likely will be my next refueling stop.

It seems that fuel shouldn’t be so important with a sailboat but this circumnavigation is a voyage with an expiration date. The Northwest Passage will re-freeze in October and become impassable. It’s essential to keep moving even with no wind, a common occurrence in the Arctic. Motoring is also essential to carefully navigate around sea ice that will certainly be encountered.

To provide some scale to the map, it’s about 3,000 nm from Vardø to Barrow along the shown route. From the western boundary of the Northern Sea Route Area (NSRA) at Cape Zhelaniya to its eastern boundary in the Chukchi Sea is about 2,000 nm.

My blog posts have been scarce since I’ve been busy sailing in surprisingly rough conditions, 25 – 40 kt winds and 3-4 meter short-period seas for much of the last 3 days, a very rolly ride with the boat periodically getting slammed by waves breaking right against the hull. I’m expecting easier conditions for the next several days, at least, that’s what the forecast is telling me.

The weather has also been dominated by overcast skies and fog. I think I’ve had only 2 sunny days during the 13 days since I left Newfoundland. Other than the dolphins I saw leaving Conception Bay and the ubiquitous sea birds, I haven’t seen any wildlife. I hope to see whales crossing north of Iceland where apparently they like to hang out, but the fog’s reducing visibility to 100 meters right now. Hopefully it will lift later.

ETA at Vardo is July 24.

A sublime minute in the evening. Music from Lonesome Dove soundtrack played through the cockpit speakers.

In the first three parts of this series of posts I described the equipment problems I was having in some detail. In contrast, the sailing side of this shakedown passage was relatively trouble-free.

I had a rigging contractor at HHN inspect the rig, completing the deck level things while Phywave was still in the boatyard and going aloft once it was in the water. Other than a few chafed lines to replace, they found the staysail furler was very hard to turn. I rarely use the staysail; in fact, couldn’t remember the last time I used it, so I wasn’t aware of any issues.

The problem was in the drum mechanics. Getting replacement parts from France would have taken weeks but the riggers managed to find a complete new furler, the same model, already in the US so I told them to replace the whole thing, which they did. Overall, the furler replacement, rig tuning, and various line replacements didn’t delay my departure. HHN put Phywave in the water on Monday, June 1, and I sailed away from HHN early on the morning of June 5.

Skipping the C-D canal exit at the north end of the Bay, I sailed and motored south under the Chesapeake Bay bridge to the open ocean, with one overnight stop in Little Bay. Once on open water I quickly got back into the rythmn of working the boat and sails and wind, generally sailing east and north toward Newfoundland until engine problems and other issues interrupted my progress, as decribed in Part 1.

One unexpected issue occured with the anchor. I had replaced my rusty Spade anchor with a new Rocna Vulcan anchor, which is a Rocna anchor without a rollbar. Because of the wide, curved anchor shank, it doesn’t fit well under my bowsprit. It hangs very low compared to the Spade anchor I had before. I didn’t think this would matter much but I was wrong. As soon as I got into rough seas with the bow plunging into a wavefront, water caught the anchor and dragged the chain a bit out of the windlass. Eventually this became great enough the anchor was free to swing and bang around on the bow. This clanking was a new sound I’d never heard before and quickly realized it must be a loose anchor. Using the windlass to reel it back in only worked temporarily. I set the chain hook on the chain to hold it but that eventually bounced free. Finally, I took a short piece of line and tied a link in the chain to the strong cleat in the anchor locker. That solved the problem but isn’t a very elegant solution. Normally, I can drive into an anchorage and drop and set the anchor from the helm using the chain counter without ever having to go to the bow. Now I’ll have to go to the bow and undo the supplemental line first. I wish I had my Spade anchor back.

So that’s where things stand on the afternoon of June 25. Phywave is in berth 96 at the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club with no firm departure date set yet.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had replaced the Webasto heater and associated fuel filter, pump, and fuel line. Before I removed the old heater I verified that it was sending the correct pulsed signal to the fuel pump and that the fuel line was delivering the metered fuel to the heater end of the fuel line.

Once I installed the new heater unit and had everything connected in the boatyard, I should have fired it up there to make sure it all worked, but I didn’t. Big mistake.

On passage, when it eventually got cold enough to use the heater, I turned it on. It went through it’s normal startup sequence successfully but came up with the same “no fuel flow” error as before. For a new startup unit it may take several tries to prime the line and get the thing going. After doing that, I realized I never heard the fuel pump pulsing as it sends fuel to the unit. I open the floor panel so I could put my hand on the pump and feel whether it was pulsing during startup. It wasn’t. The new unit apparently was not sending the pulsed voltage to the pump, or the pump is bad. I thought the former because this same pump was new and had been pulsing correctly when connected to the old unit. I’d need an oscillscope I don’t have to see if the unit is really sending the correct pulsed voltage to the pump. I don’t know where to get one here in St. John’s.

Calls to Webasto tech support didn’t lead to a solution for why the pump was not pulsing. Since the heater unit itself is new, they could only conclude the pump is bad. I swapped in a second pump I got with the new replacement unit but that didn’t solve the problem so I’m back to thinking the unit isn’t sending the pulsed voltage to the pump.

At this point, as I write this, I see the problem as impossible to diagnose and fix given my current location and tools at hand. There are no competent Webasto service people around here. I may have to sail to the Arctic without a working heater which has been done before, like winter camping on a boat. I have warm clothes and a great sleeping bag. I can also get a small ceramic electric heater to provide some relief from the cold. That would turn diesel fuel into electrical power into heat. Super inefficient compared to the Webasto heater but it’s something. Still working the problem.

After my solo voyage to seven continents and around the world, I wanted to upgrade my battery capacity and recharging speed to avoid using the generator so much. With the available space for batteries on Phywave, the only way to do that was to replace my existing AGM batteries with lithium batteries and associated monitoring and control equipment.

I was reluctant to make such a major change in the electrical system ahead of a demanding Arctic voyage. I gave the contractor a strict deadline of June 1 to complete the work which actually included replacing all the battery boxes. Even though the lithium batteries were advertised as the same Group 31 size as the AGM batteries they replaced, because of the lifting handles they actually aren’t. I had them install three 300 Ah Epoch heated batteries for a total new capacity of 900 Ah compared to the 440 Ah capacity I had before with the Victron AGM batteries. I also had them install two new dual use 125 Ah AGM batteries as start batteries but with a crossover switch that would allow me to use the start batteries for the house loads if the lithium battery bank failed for some reason.

In addition, they replaced my Victron invertor with a Victron Multiplus that serves as an invertor and a battery charger. Since this is now basically a Victron system, they installed a Cerbo GX communications hub and a GX Touch 70 display/control to monitor and configure it all. To their credit, they completed all the work the Friday before my June 1 deadline.

After I got underway I noticed some quirky things. The Epoch batteries have their own internal Bluetooth connection to an Epoch app. The state of charge shown on the app was much lower than on the Victron GX. Fortunately, the Victron system can also be remotely accessed, in my case, via Starlink. When I explained the problem to the contractor, they were able to remotely adjust the system so the state of charge shown on the Victron more closely matched (within a few percent) the charge shown on the Epoch app. That problem was resolved.

The second problem arose when I tried to charge rhe batteries with my generator through the Multiplus. My 6 kW Northern Lights AC generator essentially mimics shore power in my system. It was only charging at about the 100 Watt level, not nearly enough to recharge the batteries. It should be charging at the 2 kW level, essentially all the charge current the Multiplus is capable of sending to the batteries. When the generator wouldn’t charge the batteries I tried to turn the engine on to charge them. That’s when I discovered there was no seawater flow cooling the engine (as described in Part 1) so I had to shut down the engine. I was far offshore in the fog with no effective way to charge my batteries and keep the navigation system, radio and auotopilot running if the battery charge got too low. Not a good thing.

Thankfully, by remote control the contractor was once again able to step in, assess the generator charger problem, and come up with a fix a day later by having me go through a sequence to completely reset the Multiplus.

So as I write this the new lithium battery installation appears to be working OK, but given the problems I experienced, I’m wary of it. At least the installers are able to remotely help if new problems arise.

The passage from Chesapeake Bay to Newfoundland was meant to podition Phywave at a decision point where I could attempt a solo Arctic circumnavigation along Russia’s Northern Sea Route (NSR) or sail solo westbound through the Northwest Passage (NWP). It was also meant as a shakedown sail to test whether Phywave was really ready to take on either of these very demanding voyages. The test turned up several problems with Phywave, some fairly serious.

Many maintenance tasks and new equipment installations were done while Phywave was in the boatyard at Herrington Harbour North (HHN). These turned out to be sources for problems on this passage. I’m going to discuss these problems across a few blog posts because there’s a lot to say.

Last Fall I had a contractor at HHN winterize Phywave which essentially mesns draining any systems with water (whicj could freeze) and and replacing the water with non-toxic anti-freeze. In the Spring the process is reversed, called commissioning. I did the commissioning myself which went well. However, it appears the winterization contractor also drained most of the coolant from the engine. There’s no reason to do this since it doesn’t freeze. They didn’t tell me they did it so a few days into my passage during a stint of motoring the engine overheated and I had to shut it down. Given where I was, the nearest place to get help with it was Newport, Rhode nto MarinatheIsland, some 180 nm to the north. I had drift around in calm conditions and wait until the wind picked up that evening to sail there. I was able to do that over the next 30 hours or so. I poured all the coolant I had on board into the engine in hope I could run the engine long enough to make it into the marina at New England Boatworks in Portsmouth where I had arranged for a technician to investigate the problem. I also bought morecoolant and a replacement thermostat in case that problem. The tech concluded it was just a low coolant problem. We topped up the coolant. I bought 10 more liters to take with me and I thought all was good. It wasn’t.

Most marine diesel engines have a cooling system that consists of a so-called fresh water loop which is really filled with a 50/50 mix of coolant and fresh water. That coolant mixture itself is cooled by passing it through a heat exchanger along side cold seawater which is drawn up from the ocean with a seawater pump. After passing through the heat exchanger, the seawater is ejected overboard with the engine exhaust gases. For the engine to be properly cooled, it must have seawater flow.

The seawater flow we were getting in Portsmouth was correct; no indication of a problem. However, once I was underway again from Portsmouth to Newfoundland a problem emerged with the seawater flow. It was intermittent. At one point I successfully ran the engine for 17 hours during forecast dead calm conditions with no problem. The next day I started the engine – no seawater flow. I started investigating, thinking first the seawater inlet was clogged by something I picked up in the water. To confirm it was clear, I back-flushed it using the washdown pump I have at the bow to wash mud off the anchor and chain. No difference. I confirmed all the hose connections and the lid on the seawater strainer were tight – an air leak would defeat the engine seawater pump from developing the suction needed to start the flow of seawater. No difference.

I was sailing at the time and knew I could at least make it to St. John’s on wind power where I could get a technician involved to help resolve the problem. I didn’t suspect it was the impeller in the pump because I just had it replaced in the Spring by the same maintenance company that apparently screwed up the coolant.

I was able to limp into St. John’s and tie to the commercial wharf. A tech came the next morning and started investigating. Although the impeller didn’t look that bad to me (no broken or missing fins) he said it was worn and trashed and replaced it with a spare I had on board. The seawater flow starting working again so I guess he was right. He also said the water pump housing itself and the impeller cover were worn and recommended replacing the pump as well. The pump I have is obsolete but Volvo-Penta has a new drop-in replacement pump. I asked if he could get one quick and install it this week. He managed to find a new pump and order it. In the meantime while waiting for the pump, and with the engine running again, I sailed and motored 40 nm around to the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club (RNYC) in Conception Bay South where there is a marina and facilities for yachts, unlike the commercial wharf in St. John’s.

Today the tech came out to install the new pump. Once the old pump was off it was apparent the seals were in bad shape so it would have started leaking at some point. Replacing it was the right move.

Given the remote places where I want to sail, I don’t mind spending the money to make the boat as perfect as a five-year old boat with 40,000 nm of worldwide sailing can be.

On June 4 I received word that my application for a permit to transit Russia’s Northern Sea Route Area (NSRA) has been approved.  The permit allows me independent navigation in ice-free waters in all 28 “water areas” of the NSRA except 21 (not relevant to my intended route). The permit is valid from August 1, 2026, to September 30, 2026.

To make the most of the time allowed, I will try to cross the western boundary of the NSRA at Cape Zhelaniya as early in August as possible, leaving me the maximum amount time to make it through to Baffin Bay before the Northwest Passage starts to re-freeze in October.

I left Chesapeake Bay yesterday sailing northeast to my circumnavigation departure point at St. John’s, Newfoundland.

As some of you know, my original plan for this summer was to sail solo westbound through the Northwest Passage to Alaska and eventually back to my home cruising grounds in the Pacific Northwest.  However, last summer I got interested in the bigger idea of completing a solo circumnavigation of the entire Arctic, something that’s never been done before. The route necessarily goes through the Russian Arctic, requiring a permit from them for the transit. I started communicating with the Russians about this voyage last September. The discussions progressed to the point where I submitted my formal permit application document package last week. From their intermediate review of my plan, I think what I submitted is acceptable.  However, they’ve told me there is currently a technical problem with their ability to process applications for foreign vessels. Hopefully, the problem will be resolved soon. If not, I’ll revert to plan B – westbound through the Northwest Passage. I’m preparing Phywave for either possibility.

I’ve been reviewing the nautical charts for the Russian Arctic.  It’s really out there, a wild and strange place; it’ll be like sailing to the moon.  I really hope I get a permit to go up there.

I’ve completed the commissioning of Phywave – the engine, generator, watermaker, freshwater and other water systems flushed out and running, replacing the non-toxic antifreeze that was in there to keep them from freezing. They had some exceptionally cold weather here this past winter.

I bought a new 100 meter 10 mm G4 chain and 25 kg Rocna vulcan anchor. 

I’ll be replacing the Webasto heater this week because I still can’t get it to run even after completely redoing the fuel system. The fuel system is now delivering clean, metered fuel to the heater but it still won’t start. It’s likely a problem with the glow plug or combustion chamber. I watched a YouTube video of how to replace these components. Pretty complicated and time consuming – you have remove the heater and basically disassemble the whole unit to replace these parts. And the service kit with the required parts is almost $500. For about 3 times as much I can a new heater and just drop it in. Hopefully that will get it going again. I really want to have the heater working fo my voyage into the Arctic.

I’ll also replace the exhaust elbow on the Volvo Penta D2-50F engine with a stainless steel version. This elbow rusted through in Indonesia causing a lot of problems. I had no choice there but to replace it with another cast iron version but I don’t trust it not to rust out again so I’m replacing it with a stainless steel elbow as many others have.

I’ve installed a new Vitrifrigo 2 drawer refrigerator/freezer combination to replace the 2 drawer refrigerator-only I had before. 

I replaced all the plastic diesel jerry cans I bought in Puerto Montt, Chile, with new ones, and added 8 more. That gives me a total diesel capacity of 860 liters. That may seem excessive for a sailboat but for where I may be going, it may be necessary.

I have many other small projects to complete. I’m also reorganizing the boat and jettisoning stuff I never used and now realize I never would use. I learned things on my 7 continents voyage about organizing and running a boat.

I decided to install lithium house batteries but I’m hedging my bet by installing an additional AGM start battery in parallel with the first and a crossover switch so I can run the house off the start batteries if necessary. The lithium’s have internal battery managment systems (BMS) that with shut the batteries off if it detects an unsafe condition like a too-high charging voltage. That would leave the boat totally dark – no nav, no AIS, no AP, no lights, nothing. So I want to be able to quickly switch to an alternate power source while I address the problem. The battery project also  includes some upgrades like replacing the Victron inverter with a Victron Multiplus that will serve as both charger and inverter. 

Right now I’m more concerned about scheduling. To meet my sailing schedule for this summer, I really want the boat back in the water the first week of June when I’ll be heading north for Newfoundland. The major remaining projects are:

1. Anti-fouling paint. I’m trying to get the hull blasted and all new barrier coats and anti-fouling applied but the well-regarded contractor here is dragging their feet a bit. UPDATE 260512: I met with them and they are definitely committed to having the boat ready for the water by June 1. I explained my ambitious Arctic circumnavigation plans and emphasized the importance of leaving here on time so I can position Phywave to take advantage of the narrow time window when the Arctic passages will be open.

2. Battery project. The gear is here but getting the techs scheduled to do the installation will require some push. I also had them commit to finishing by June 1 before I paid the deposit. UPDATE 260511: I got a call first thing this morning that they will start work today. An ABYC technical is already at Phywave so I gave him the combination to the lockbox so he could get inside and start work before I get down there.

3. Rigging inspection, headsails back on, lubricate everything, etc. I have the riggers lined up for this as soon as Phywave is back in the water.  Riggers will only climb a mast with the boat in the water. On land the extra tipping moment of having someone at the top of the mast could cause the boat to tip out of its blocks. Once in the water, the boat can tip and right itself as it normally does when sailing. I don’t expect any problems here. I’ve already replaced some lines that were chafed and so infused with salt they squeaked going through the winches.

Last Sunday I returned to the Herrington Harbour North boatyard near Annapolis where my boat Phywave had been sitting for a year. I was happy to see everything lit up when I turn on the batteries despite an unusually cold winter here. Many small projects remain, like removing the non-toxic antifreeze from water and cooling systems, and a few big projects like blasting the hull to remove the blue antifouling paint that was poorly done in South Africa and replace it with the original black antifouling paint. Antifouling paint on fiberglass hulls can contain metal, typically copper, to inhibit marine growth but you can’t have copper on an aluminum hull due to dis-similar metal corrosion. Special ablative paint is needed. I’m also considering replacing the AGM batteries with lithium batteries for more capacity and faster charge times. However, lithium batteries on boats require more monitoring and careful use, not as robust and resilient as the AGM batteries I now have so I’m becoming a little reluctant about this project. Reliability comes from simplicity and redundancy, not complexity.