Introducing Gjoa

Hi All! Although we won’t be posting regularly until we get underway in mid-May, we wanted to announce the location of our new blog. We hope you enjoy the map above showing where we’ve been since we set off on this voyage in June 2010. We’ll be able to update our progress on the map once we are moving again.

As most of you know, after the initial intense 1-1/2 years of cruising, we stopped in the UK to top up our cruising kitty, recover and reflect on our choice of the cruising life. We decided we wanted to continue, but, needed to make a few changes. We’ve cast off our land ties almost entirely now and made another big change, a ‘new’ (to us) boat, Gjøa. The original ‘Gjøa’ was the boat that Norwegian Roald Amundsen used to make the first successful transit of the NorthWest Passage in 1903-1906. The boat was named for the wife of the original owner/builder. As a Canadian-registered boat, we weren’t able to register the proper Norwegian spelling,so it is Gjoa.

I’ve written in the past about the fantastic year we spent living on our previous boat in Norway and the part that the Norwegians played in early Arctic explorations of Canada. We’ve long had the Arctic ‘bug’ and the Norwegian visit inspired us to finally plan our own Arctic explorations and transit of the NorthWest Passage this summer. It is hoped that our new boat’s name, along with its illustrious sailing history will bring us good luck on our passage.

Gjoa was first named ‘Asma’ and was built in Germany,  in 1989, specifically for a circumnavigation of the Americas by Clark Stede, a journalist and photographer. Published in 1994, Rund Amerika: Die erste Umseglung des amerikanischen Kontinents’ (only in German) documents his successful voyage along with Michelle Poncini. If we are successful in our transit of the Passage this summer, it, will be the boat’s second time through!

After ‘Asma’ she became ‘Taonui’. As ‘Taonui’, she provided sixteen years and 100,000 miles of adventures for her owners Tony and Coryn Gooch, including visits to Antarctica, South Georgia and a single-handed, solo, non-stop circumnavigation in 2002/3.

We feel privileged to own a boat with such an amazing history and hope some of her sailing success will continue with us. We plan to travel to many places she’s already been and many new ones as well. Pictures and postings to follow…..stay tuned.

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Cowes 29/3/2014 20:51 50°45.07'N 001°17.32'W