Sailor set for solo loop of Arctic Circle

A British woman is preparing to set sail on a solo loop of the Arctic Circle to complete a challenge made potentially possible by melting sea ice.

Ella Hibbert, a sailing instructor from Portsmouth, will leave the Haslar Marina in Gosport on Saturday afternoon.

She will travel towards Iceland and Norway, where she will officially begin the 10,000-mile (16,093km) journey alone on her boat Yeva.

The route, expected to take five months, passes over the north of Iceland, down around southern Greenland, up through Canada and across the north of Alaska before a long leg through Russian waters back to Norway.

Ms Hibbert is thought to be the first ever person to attempt a solo circumnavigation of the Arctic Circle, completing both the north-west and north-east passages in a single trip.

While the 28-year-old said the prospect of making history is "exciting", it goes hand-in-hand with the disturbing reality that the journey should not be feasible.

"It will be a bittersweet record to achieve because if I make it all the way round in a single season, it will prove that the Arctic no longer has the ice covering that it is supposed to," she said.

"I'm trying to achieve something that I don't actually want to be achievable. It's a hard one to wrap your brain around.

"I will not be sailing over the finishing line popping bottles of champagne."

Reflecting on scientific projections that there will be no Arctic ice during the summer months by 2050, Ms Hibbert said: "I could circumnavigate the ice this year but before I'm 50 years old, I could hypothetically sail a straight line almost from Scotland to Tokyo in summer.

"The North Pole physically would no longer be there, which is harrowing, crazy stuff.

"I wanted to see it for myself before we lose it."

It has taken the sailor three years to prepare for the voyage with training, fundraising and finding sponsors.

Ms Hibbert plans to auction off the boat once she finishes the trip, donating proceeds to conservation charities as a way to give back to the Arctic for the time she spent there.

To showcase the impact of climate change, the trip is also being used as a research opportunity - with endorsements from the British Scientific Exploration Society and the International Seakeepers Society.

Ms Hibbert will be recording depth soundings of the sea bed as she travels, gathering data on areas that currently have no depth readings for the Seabed 2030 ocean mapping project.

Documentary production firm Ocean Films has also installed cameras on the boat to help Ms Hibbert capture the highs and lows of her journey and shoot the decline in sea ice she encounters for a feature.

During the voyage she will likely face severe sleep deprivation and will only be able to sleep for 20 minutes at a time once she hits the Arctic Circle.

Other challenges she has prepared for include hostile wildlife such as polar bears, unpredictable conditions, huge waves, wind chills down to minus 30C, snow build-up on deck, icebergs and fast-moving sea ice.

"It's not something that you can prepare for until you're there in it, and there's all sorts of weather around the Arctic," she said.

"It's both unpredictable and and extreme."

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