Position report received from Idlewild, a custom Buehler design, which recently transited the Northwest Passage to begin a circumnavigation: Date/time: December 6, 2005 Position @ noon: 14*35' S & 006*32' W noon to noon: 147 nm Avg. speed: 6.1 knots Course bearing: 150*T Sea state & wx: 3' seas, partly cloudy, 10 kt wind from SSE, headwind 35* to port, water temp. 23 C Crew: Ben, Brad, & Kevin Days: 14 days out of Cape Verdes Goal: fetch St. Helena (15* 55.200' S / 05* 43.270' W) by December 7th To go: 93 nm Remarks: 'Jotun Arctic' was a sailboat we met near Bellot Strait. He and 'Fine Tolerance' left Bellot St. 2 days after us and toured Greenland perhaps too long and had much tougher wx than us in the North Atlantic, which is predictable. What was not predictable is that, although both are very experienced sailors, they still encountered serious problems. The following is a copy of a letter to Peter Semotiuk from Mr. Espen, the father of Knut, the skipper of 'Jotun Arctic' We will send more information on 'Fine Tolerance' when they reach Halifax and report. 'FT' had started out for Portugal, then headed for Halifax after reporting difficulties. "I came back from Stornoway at the Hebrides Islands yesterday. Knut Espen went into a severe storm 250 nm west of the Hebrides Thursday 24.11.2005. The storm increased during the night to Friday. He measured more than 58kts wind Then the instrument stopped working. At the Hebrides wind of up to more than 88 kts was measured, and several commercial vessels in the area had problems and needed assistance. Waves were of at least 12 m height. He was caught by a breaking wave and got two windows broken and 1 - 2 m3 of water into the boat. He managed to normalize the situation, but the situation was not good. The normal communication electronics and other things were destroyed. But he had an additional satellite telephone and he informed the Coast guard in Norway which further on alarmed the Scottish Coast guard for safety reasons, but he needed no assistance. He managed to take the boat into Stornoway without help. I went over to Stornoway last Sunday to meet him and help him clean up and repair the boat. He is in good shape now and plans to leave Stornoway by end of this coming week if the weather is acceptable." ------------------------------------------------- For background on Idlewild, see Trawler News posted at <http://www.trawlersandtrawlering.com/>. --Georgs