A BOATBUILDER from Buckland Monachorum is embarking on his toughest challenge in 15 years of Arctic exploring as he sets out on a 1,000-mile four-month attempt to sail east to west around the north coast of Canada through the ice.

Will Stirling set off from Lunenburg in Nova Scotia at the start of the month, with the first of three teams and enough food for the four-month trip to Alaska.

They are sailing on board Integrity, the wooden boat based on a Victorian gentleman’s cutter, that Will and his wife Sara built in a farm barn in Bere Ferrers.

Sara, who will join the team for the voyage up the coast of Greenland, has just returned from waving them off.

‘I had to do shopping to feed four men for four months,’ she said. ‘We worked crazily for a week to get everything ready because it is a big trip, we have been preparing for a year.’

Sara explained that Will has been exploring the Arctic in their own boat every summer for the past 15 years. 

‘It is the biggest challenge he has attempted and the longest he has been away. It is definitely the biggest and the most challenging and it has taken the most money,’ said Sara.

'I spent £2,000 in food for the trip, I went to the cash and carry in Nova Scotia four times because I couldn’t even carry everything.

‘There will be three crew changes because not that many people can take four months off work. Luckily Will has an understanding wife! I have five children and two boatyards to run and Elizabethan manor house to restore. He is going for the full four months and for each section of the voyage he has three crew. At the moment he is off the coast of Nova Scotia.’

Among the first crew is Tim Marchant, who owns the couple’s first boat, Alert, a lugger to the design they built at Morwellham Quay, which he sails in Plymouth Sound.

Their trip takes them north, at first, into the Arctic Circle, weaving a passage between the ice along the coast of Canadian provinces Nova Scotia and Labrador.

‘In this leg they are going to motor up through the lakes and up out of the top of Nova Scotia and go across the strait to Port Aux Basques to the top of Newfoundland,’ said Sara.

‘Will will go as far as he can up the Labrador coast until he hits the ice and then sail across to Greenland. Then he will go up the west coast of Greenland. That is where I will join them at Ilulissat. I fly out on July 11.  We are going to go in search of Disco Island. I’m packing a disco ball and we going to have a disco on Disco Island!

‘I’m doing a week and then I’m going home. I don’t like long voyages, I get seasick, but  feel like I want to go and see Greenland for myself because the way Will talks about it nowhere else is the same.  Greenland is awe-inspring, the scale of the landscape and the sea and there are practically no people. There are settlements, but most of the time you are alone.’

After Greenland, the crew will head across to the northwest passage proper, heading northwest along the coast of Canada, negotiating a tricky path between the islands and inlets of northern Canada until they head around the bulk of Alaska for their destination port of Nome.

It is a challenge because ice may stop their path at a number of points, but all being well, they will arrive in mid-September.

‘It is not a given because the ice may stop him,’ said Sarah. ‘You can’t say you are going to do the northwest passage, because that sounds terribly arrogant. You attempt the northwest passage.’

‘There are good years and bad years. You look at the ice charts and you make decisions. He can try to plan, but when you are sailing in extreme places you have to be open to change in your plans.

'I think that is what it is all about, it is a challenge because it is difficult and if it wasn’t difficult it wouldn’t be a challenge. It might not be achievable, but it will be an achievement if they get through and an achievement if they don’t.

‘It is about 1,000 miles and by the time they are getting to Alaska the wind is going to be turning and coming from the north. That is the most dangerous section.’ 

‘People ask me if I‘m worried about him, including my youngest one, my daughter Grace is 13. I am very honest with her and I say, everything in life is dangerous and probably the most dangerous thing you will do is get behind the wheel. They are as prepared as they can be and they have enough safety equipment to sink the boat. So I say, no I’m not worried about dad.’

Global warming means there is far less ice to contend with than when Norwegian Roald Amundsen made the first successful journey through the northwest passage at the start of the 19th century.

‘It is worth saying that global warming is allowing this to happen, but of course that isn’t good,’ added Sara.