Private and corporate sponsors, this is my opening  campaign for my new 2019 summer North West Passage

My new “gofundme 2019” campain

 

 

Hi, my name is Olivier,

Why your help again this year?

1-  For a short story:

Ice jammed the North West Passage in 2019.  The quick warming of the Arctic and the climate induced changes in these hight latitudes prevented any crossing. With “Breskell”, I was waiting right in the front door. The gates stayed closed all summer. Later, the Canadian Coast Guard prohibited sailing north of the 70 North. 

Retreat didn’t go well with the indomitable spirit of my Brittany’s seafaring ancestors!

I had to try again.  And to repair my boat.  And to stay confident.

It’s why I am asking again your help for this journey of a lifetime, my sailor’s  “Himalaya”.  

I want to bring back Breskell home, in beautiful Port Townsend.

A long journey !

Thanks again for your support.

Want to read the full story? 

2-  Let ‘s talk about 2019 with my new GOFUNDME campaign .

North West Passage with a sailboat in 2018?   Only by transforming “Breskell” into an arctic sled hauled on ice by a team of husky dogs…  I did not make it.  A set back?  Yes!  This didn’t mean I had to give it up… Retreat didn’t go well with the indomitable spirit of my Brittany ancestors!  Ask my wife: I inherited all of it… Even with too much of it she would add…  

I had to try again.  And to stay confident. And to patch carefully my damaged boat.

It’s why I am asking again for your help.  

https://www.gofundme.com/2019-northwest-passage

I have no personal fortune, no huge inheritance, no money coming from corporation’s bottomless pockets.  I build my Arctic expedition like I built my boat.  One penny at a time, one drop of epoxy after another. 

In 2019,  we will cross over the last floating hurdles before returning “Breskell” home to beautiful Port Townsend,  just in front of the “North West School of Wooden Boat Building “. Let me reaffirm again that I am not an adventurer. I don’t need a rush of adrenalin for barely escaping death in some harrowing adventure for my Facebook followers. The front page of newspapers doesn’t give purpose to my life. I am just an hardcore sailor, a good boat-builder and an educator.  I simply bring home my hand-made yellow wooden boat enjoying the ride!

 I want to add also the simple testimony of an honest witness you helped send north.  I plan to join my voice and my own “ Himalaya’s climbing” to the concert of all those deeply worried by the present climate changes.  I saw it first hand at work in the Arctic during my past two summers there.  Climate change has influenced me personally.  Some of our political leaders deny this reality.  This voluntary stupidity makes me really angry now.  With your support ,  I intend today to be another noisy and restless ambassador for the right of the next generations to enjoy the northern wonders of our planet.  A planet we have borrowed in good order from our ancestors and that we need to preserve for our kids.  Thirty years from now and they will have no idea what the North Pole was about .  All kind of boats will go through without anymore restrictions .  The next fancy destination for a few fortunate one’s.  Sad!

If I belong to the old traditional sailing and boat building school, I discovered last year the importance of all the modern communications medias.  To the best of my new abilities, I plan to use them today to alert and mobilize  generations of new outdoor enthusiasts to the clear and imminent dangers that our beloved “ocean  planet” faces. 

Thank to you, this blog, Breskell.com is today coming to maturity with almost 9000 views.

Your renewed support will help me report the “Breskell” daily position via a “SPOT” linked to my  blog.  An added map positioning done each day by my team will illustrate our safe progress toward home. 

Some intimate details of our daily life on board will be regularly added .  Pictures taken on a daily basis will be joined to an even more lively “Breskell” diary.

I plan also an innovative experience.  The testimony of a simple seafarer like me integrated into the already growing evidence coming from the scientific community. Sitting at their desk, researchers use hard data, graphs and advanced statistics to analyse climate changes.  In the northern latitudes, hardcore sailors like me behind their wheel of their sailboats use their navigational skills, their eyes, their anchors to feel the seas, watch the weather or poke the ground.  We also share  personal sea stories with the local inhabitants. Different tools and different goals.  I plan to integrate them in one single more complete story.

I expect also in 2019 to increase our visibility with added followers on my neglected Facebook.

Our best communication tool?   May be another award winning documentary…

After the public release of Dominic’s new “Breskell”,

I plan to contact some local schools around Port Townsend and naturally our school of traditional boat building.  I expect to create with them all a “buzz” around our 2019 Arctic expedition with the day to day updates of our progress toward my home-port.

Based on my past blog and our two documentaries, I intend also to interest some local, national and international medias, sharing with their readers the story of our safe home return.  I already have an interview scheduled with Radio Canada next summer.  We had an article in the Telegram NF and one of our story appeared in the last “Voile Magazine” in France.  I intend also to participate to two important international festivals. One in Quebec, another in France.

With an “one hundred percent guaranty” to make it through ?  

Certitude doesn’t exist playing with Mother Nature up there.  You know it.  First, before leaving Newfoundland, I have to patch my wounded boat myself.  Don’t worry.  I know how to epoxy my broken hull.  With your indispensable support, our knowledge and experiences from our previous two Arctic seasons I plan also to better outfit “Breskell” for our challenging journey ahead.

For added safety features , an aluminum shield protecting the bow from the ice and a stainless steel stem working as a spur are already in the making.  For a personal touch of class, two artists are decorating it! 

A totally unexpected addition to the original 1985 naval design of my father.  So long ago, no mariner in his right mind would even have considered sailing a wooden home-made boat from Brittany to the Pacific through the North West Passage.

Breskell, my wooden boat,  will sail tomorrow safely through it.  She will bring another clear proof that global warming is just behind the next melting iceberg.

ANOTHER CLEAR SIGNAL  THAT’S IT IS TIME TO TAKE EVEN MORE RADICAL ACTIONS TO MAKE OUR PLANET GREAT AGAIN.

Thanks again for your support.

As usual , we will display logos with all private donor’s names on Breskell if you choose to help us with our dream of a safe ice transit and with your own awareness about climate change.

Donate whatever you can to this 2019 « GoFundMe appeal ».

3-  A follow up of my previous two gofundme campaigns 2017-2018.

Together, let ‘s do first a quick follow-up on my past  two “gofundme” campaigns, my use of your money, my yesterday’s promises:  “Witnessing the fabled North West passage from the deck of a wooden sailboat and documenting the effects of the global warming on the Arctic”.

During the Arctic summer of 2017, I sailed Breskell from the Chesapeake bay to Greenland via Newfoundland.  I stored my boat in Sisimiut on Greenland ‘s west coast, north of the Arctic circle.

With your precious help, the following Arctic summer of 2018, my goal was to sail from Sisimiut in Greenland to Disko bay, through the passage between Disko Island and Nunavut.  After crossing Baffin Bay, I was planning  to reach Lancaster sound and finally go through the North West Passage.  Sailing “Breskell” home to Port Townsend was my ultimate goal.

4-  I was unable, in 2018, to go through the North West Passage. 

I tried as hard as possible not to deceive you, my generous supporters.  I even punched two good sized holes in my hull trying to climb this “sailor’s Himalaya”.  I was not the only one left on the side of the trail.  No boat went through the passage that year.  The Canadian Coast Guard even prohibited sailing all areas above 70 degrees North.  Too much ice plugging or drifting around the passage.

One of our fellow sailor tried too hard.  He sunk his aluminum boat right there.  The crew was later lifted out of some floating iceberg by the Coast Guard.  Being very humble and always vigilant are the keywords to success there.  You want to survive so far north ?  Keep these keywords in your mind when nature decides something else for you.

Disappointed but safe,  I, with my entire crew, decided to back down East.  We sailed all the way to Newfoundland.  Not a big deal for an hardcore sailor cherishing offshore sailing.  A good adventure.  Still, you are intitled to ask more for the money generously offered during my previous “gofundme” campaigns.

Sure, I enjoyed immensely the magnificent environment the Arctic offered me.  Sure, I never complained once about this unique opportunity you provided for me. Reading my blog, Breskell.com, you discover that I didn’t spend your money for taking a nice “Sunday ride”, sailing easily at your expense between two confortable marinas.  With my team, I learned during these two years to offer you an attractive story of the daily huge challenges facing the mariner sailing by himself in the northern latitudes.  We shared also with you the delightful pictures of our sailing adventures.  I had another privilege.  I welcomed again on my crew Dominic Joyce, a talented  and intrepid film-maker from London UK.  Have you watched his documentary” Disko”?  A tribute  to our first Arctic sailing journey in 2017.  You trusted me when I told you I was a good mariner able to sail my yellow wooden boat through the Arctic ice field. 

My high latitude journey supported this claim.  Dominic demonstrated also what an outstanding cineast he is.  His “Disko” documentary received multiple awards, from Maine to Germany or Italy.  Your past contributions were in serious hands.  Wait now for our second documentary made during our “failed” 2018 attempt.  Its name?  “Breskell” naturally!  Through the lens of an artist, you will discover the beauty of the Arctic both from the “eagle eyes” of Dominic’s drone and from “the down to the water” views from the deck of my yellow sailboat.  You will even witness first hand one dramatic incident.  Two life threatening holes I managed to punch through the hull of my beloved boat during a storm up there.

Dominic new released « Breskell » is even better that his first multi-awarded “Disko”. 

I owe you, my supporters another confidence.

During my first Arctic journey, as promised, I started quietly to testify about global warming.   A lot of glaciers were not reaching anymore the waterfront One of the most famous, the “Ilulisat glacier”, had retreated more than 3.7 miles since 2004!   We encountered pebbled beaches and safe anchorages in place of walls of ice crashing into frigid waters.  Think about this my friends.  My son or our daughters and all of your grandchildren will be deprived in just one single generation of these natural wonders of our planet Earth. The fragility of arctic wildlife in front of the incoming climate changes will make the magnificent mother polar bear we met last summer the next mammoth disappearance of this century.  And this “discovery” started to make me really, really, angry!

With your past contributions, PRIVATE DONORS and CORPORATE SPONSORS, you made possible this extraordinary sailing journey of discoveries through the Arctic in 2017-2018.  Our two exceptional public documentaries, my blog and its almost 9000 viewers are my personal acknowledgement for your initial help.

They stand also as my personal thanks to all of you for supporting my dream with my special gratitude to PATAGONIA.  Without their exceptional northern outfits, we would probably be dead by now. As simple as that!

Thanks again for your support.