In the wake of Magellan

In 2010 I sold Aventura III – an Ovni 435. At 70 years of age, I felt that the time had come to call it quits. That didn’t last long and by 2013, with accelerating climate change increasingly making the news for those who were prepared to listen, I decided to get another boat and attempt to transit the Northwest Passage. Described by scientists as the “canary in the mine” of global climate, whatever happens there eventually spreads to the rest of the world. I did manage to transit this once impenetrable waterway, now opening up due to the consequences of climate change. I also saw the consequences of global warming affecting the local population. With mission accomplished, in 2017 I sold Aventura IV, an Exploration 45.

But that wasn’t to last long, as three years later, with climate change surpassing the worst predictions, I decided to put retirement on hold for a bit longer and try something completely different. Like sailing around the world on a fully electric boat along the route of the first circumnavigation 500 years previously. Once again, the main reason for this decision was my profound concern for the state of the environment and especially that of the oceans. During my first world voyage between 1975 and 1981, I was fortunate to visit many places in the world whose nature was still in the pristine state it had been since they were settled. I have returned to many of those places in the intervening years and almost everywhere, from Tuvalu to Alaska, have been shocked to witness the destructive processes caused by the change in climatic conditions.

Jimmy Cornell’s Outremer 45 will do away with all engine-driven equipment and will be borrowing some features from the 4X.
The builder is offering this model under the name 4E. Another version fitted with a generator will be christened the 4H.

My concern for the state of the oceans has been strongly influenced by my own observations during 45 years of roaming the oceans of the world, as well as being regularly reconfirmed by my research into global weather conditions when I am updating my various books. For anyone planning a longer voyage now, the worst changes that have occurred are the increase in the frequency of extra-seasonal cyclones, the tropical storm seasons themselves being less clearly defined, and areas of the world being affected by such storms where they had never occurred before.
In the South Pacific the cyclone season now lasts longer than in the past, in the Caribbean Sea a hurricane occurred in late November, and in the Coral Sea extra-seasonal cyclones have been recorded as late as June, July and even September. In the Northwest Pacific both the frequency and the force of the typhoons are on the increase, with some super-typhoons having gusts of 200 knots. In recent years, typhoons have been recorded in that area in every month of the year, making attempts to define a safe season no longer reliable. 

The 500th anniversary of the first round the world voyage ...