Some advice and observations about the Viking Route which is the North Atlantic Passage from Northern Europe to North America via the Faroes, Iceland and Geenland.This is based on our experiences on boar Shimshal over three seasons from 2015-2018.
The Viking Route - crossing the North Atlantic in short hops! When dodging icebergs, engulfed in fog and with a gale brewing it is humbling to remember that the Vikings did all this a thousand years ago. They made these formidable ocean crossings in open boats with square sails and only the haziest notion of where they were going.
Not long after the Vikings came the sealers, the fur traders, the missionaries and the fishermen who regularly ploughed their way between Scandinavia, Greenland and onto North America. The Viking Route is, therefore a time honoured way to cross the North Atlantic and yet only a few yachts take this route each year in either direction.
It is an extraordinary series of ocean passages interspersed with some astonishing coastal cruising and it is perfectly possible to do it all in one season but, by doing that, you can only scratch the surface of this wonderful route.
We left Scotland in 2015 with a vague plan to overwinter in Iceland and go onto Greenland and North America the following year. Our plans changed as we became so beguiled by the North we extended our journey and don’t regret a moment of it. The voyage to Iceland via the Faroes was a delight and the welcome we received there was fantastic. We were quickly persuaded to cruise to North East Greenland in 2016 and explore Scoresby Sound which was a revelation. We returned to Iceland for a second winter.
In 2017, suffering severely from the “Greenland Bug”, we elected to attempt to cruise the east and west coasts of Greenland with a planned winter stop in Aasiaat at 68 42N on Greenland’s NW coast. Heavy ice on the East Cost of Greenland forced some minor alterations to the plan but, by overwintering, we were able to take our time and enjoy the delights of Greenland’s immense coastline.
In 2018 we finally left Greenland in our wake and made our landfall in Labrador a few days after the ice had finally cleared much of the coast. We then enjoyed cruising the very remote coast of Labrador south to Newfoundland where we plan to overwinter in Lewisporte. Inevitably we had to visit l’Anse aux Meadows along way which was temporarily settled by the Vikings a thousand years before!
Essential Reading [ul] [li]A Viking Voyage: Hodding Carter An account of a voyage in a replica longboat from Greenland to l’anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.[/li] [li]The Viking Route: Bill & Jayne McLaren’s Flying Fish description of their voyage to North America in 2000.[/li] [/ul]
Timing If planning to make the crossing in one season then timing will be really important. Nobody in their right mind would plan to avoid Prins Christian Sund (PCS) and round Cape Farewell instead. PCS is one of the jewels along the way while Cape Farewell is a particularly storm tossed and ice strewn bit of sea that requires a substantial amount of sea room. The ice on the East Coast of Greenland is very variable. In 2018 PCS was ice free throughout July and yet in 2017 we were one of the first sail boats to enter PCS from the east and that was on August 3rd having waited in a fjord for 6 days 30 miles north of the entrance. Boats crossing east Greenland need to pick their timing for their departure but should be prepared to make their PCS landfall as late as early August.
The problem with doing it all in one season is that if you can’t get into PCS until late July or early August then there is a temptation to hurry on and miss some great cruising in Greenland. Most west bound boats want to be on their way across the Davis Strait by mid August as the SE Coast of Greenland will have both ice and darkness by then which is an anxiety provoking combination. Furthermore those strong southern storms become more frequent in the North Atlantic by early September.
Most boats transit PCS and then cruise Greenland’s SW coast to Pamiutt or Nuuk before heading off across the Davis Strait in mid August.
If a winter stop in Greenland is planned (recommended) then progress west will be determined by the ice conditions in Labrador. Normally Labrador is more or less ice free by the end of June but in 2018 it persisted well into July which shortened our cruising time in Labrador. If aiming further north for Baffin then the ice will be around until August.
Both the Denmark Strait and the Davis Strait are prone to some lively weather conditions and those wishing to avoid strong conditions will need to build time into their schedule to wait for suitable conditions. In 2018 we waited in Nuuk for 9 days for a Davis Strait weather window but I understand that the conditions were unusual. In the end we got near perfect conditions and made our Labrador landfall just as the ice had cleared and at the start of a Canadian heatwave that saw temperatures to 30 degrees!
Ice Sea ice conditions on the East Coast of Greenland are very variable but fantastically documented by the Danes.
Current Ice charts: https://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/hav/ice-charts/
Archive of ice charts:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecharts.uk.php Daily satellite images:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/satimg.uk.php Even when the sea ice has melted icebergs will always be encountered in the East Greenland Current. This current brings ice bergs calved off the icecap all along the East Greenland Coast. The current rounds Cape Farewell and brings icebergs up the West Coast to about the latitude of Nuuk. North of Nuuk there are few icebergs calved off glaciers until nearing Disco Bay where the icecap disgorges vast quantities of ice from the Ilullisat ice fjord. Most of that ice infests Disko Bay and gets carried north and around Baffin Bay before being pushed south down the east coasts of Baffin, Labrador and Newfoundland.
Sea ice is rare south of the Arctic Circle on the West Coast of Greenland.
Expect to find locally calved ice in PCS as there are many glaciers reaching the shores of the sound. Anchorages in PCS and in SW Greenland will have icebergs drifting around in them so expect broken nights and take poles to fend them off.
The Canadians don’t publish satellite images but they do produce comprehensive daily ice charts:
http://iceweb1.cis.ec.gc.ca/Prod/page2.xhtml?CanID=11090&lang=en&title=Eastern+Arctic Polar Bears If planning to cruise the East Coast of Greenland then you will need a firearm of sufficient calibre to stop a charging Polar Bear. This would either be a pump action shotgun firing a singe slug or a rifle. A shotgun firing pellets is not considered adequate. We took a .375 which we never had to use but we did get ourselves licences and trained up to use it. As UK citizens it took us six months to acquire a gun licence so plan ahead if you are taking a gun.
Polar Bears are seen in PCS but are rare and there are few places where crews are likely to spend much time ashore with the notable exception of the Weather Station which, when occupied, has a substantial armoury.
North of PCS on the west coast there are too many humans so Polar bears are very rare.
Labrador has polar bears and indeed as far south as Makkovik a bear was sited the day before we arrived and, as a result, we were warned by the mounties not to surrender our ammunition. Guns, however, are banned further north in the Tornghat National Park although, I understand, polar bears are commonplace there as they are in Baffin.
The route Each of the stepping stones along the Viking Route are worthy cruising grounds. Spending multiple seasons on the west Coast of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland should be considered and there are plenty of good places to leave a visiting boat for the winter.
Faroes We sailed direct from Lochinver in NW Scotland to the Faroes arriving there around mid summer. We spent a week or so cruising the Faroes and actually left our boat in Torshavn and flew home for 6 weeks due to work commitments. We would not recommend this as both the flights and the berths were hideously expensive. The Faroes are not geared up at all for leaving boats unattended.
Expect to be fog bound in the Faroes at some point and expect ferociously strong tides. The tides are now properly documented in Imray’s current Northern Waters Sailing Guide but please note this was not the case in the first edition. Because of fog and wild weather it would be worth budgeting some time here so that you actually get to see the islands. They are stunning.
There are some great marine services in Torshavn although geared up for shipping rather than leisure boats. There is also a well stocked chandlery and tax can be reclaimed on purchases for transiting yachts.
Iceland We made our landfall on the east coast at Seydisfjordur having emailed our ETA 24 hours in advance. The Police met us at the quay and boarded before we were even tied up.
We then sailed anticlockwise around the north coast and enjoyed favourable north east winds in July. Others choose not to do this because of the adverse current. We found the currents and tides of Iceland difficult to predict and definitely had some testing times going clockwise on the W coast the next year and so would still recommend the anticlockwise route.
The Husavik Bay on the north coast is a major whale watching site in the summer.
The remote fjords in the NW of Iceland known as the West Fjords are superb. For those boats arriving early (or overwintering in Isafjordur) then the West Fjords make a great ski mountaineering destination which can only be reached by boat. The snow usually remains good until mid April.
Isafjordur extends a great welcome to visiting yachts and the OCC has an excellent port Officer called Halldor whose boat, Bella Donna, is usually on the pontoon. The harbour master (Muggi) puts out moorings in April / May and so boats can be left cheaply unattended on a mooring. There are limited pontoon berths and a slip but many boats choose to overwinter here in order to get early access to Greenland the following season. There is a fuel dock and water is available on the pontoon and main quay. There is a good supermarket in town, an excellent restaurant and several cafes. For those needing shooting practice before leaving for NE Greenland then there is a local gun club with a rifle range in the hills and this is run by Gummi. There is a 7 hour bus trip from here to Reykjavik or an exciting 35 minute flight (very weather dependent). Avis cars can be hired one way from the airport.
We spent two winters afloat in Reykjavik’s old harbour. We were tied up on a commercial dock next to the maritime museum and suffered no damage despite the city centre location, absence of security and extreme winds. We were lucky to get this berth and arranged it directly with the harbour master. It was very cheap and came with electricity. It was also very close to several large supermarkets. Because of cheap flights between the UK and Iceland we regularly visited during the winter and enjoyed our “city centre apartment”.
We have visited Hofn by road and it is an exposed and not particularly attractive landfall. We understand that the Westmann Islands are a much better alternative.
Not to be missed if cruising Iceland are the many wonderful swimming pools, many of which are outdoor and heated by thermal water.
Greenland Scoresby Sound is not part of the Viking Route but is a world class cruising destination and the the journey up the longest fjord in the world remains, for us, one of our most memorable expeditions. We were lucky in 2016 in that the sea ice all cleared in early July as it did in 2018 but in 2017 few sailing boats were able to gain the fjord until mid August.
We would strongly recommend trying to cruise the East Coast of Greenland before entering PCS if ice and weather allow. This is a massive and mountainous coastline which is almost completely uninhabited. It is a really serious cruising destination which has ice, bears, magnificent scenery, inaccurate charts, fog and some savage weather.
PCS is a delight whatever the weather. We had rain. Take the time to stop at the weather station and walk up the 270 odd steps to visit. It is now unmanned but there are sometimes work parties there doing maintenance and if there is someone there you may be able to get internet and good coffee!
Most boats will visit Nanortalik which is the first significant town in SW Greenland. It has a store and diesel. We found fog there and had nights disturbed by icebergs.
Cruising on the West Coast of Greenland feels much less serious than the East. Much of it can be within the Inner Lead giving protection from the worst of the weather and seas. The charts are more likely to be accurate and there are fairly frequent settlements some of which have docks and diesel. In the larger towns the supermarkets are well stocked from Denmark and often the supplies and diesel is cheaper than Iceland.
Check out the OCC cruising Information Map to get details of our favourite anchorages.
Most of the time Customs formalities in Greenland are very lax and a trip to the post office will suffice for check in and check out. Be aware though at least one OCC Boat’s crew had to leave in a hurry when planning to overwinter as they had inadvertently outstayed their welcome. A little known regulation stipulates that crew can only spend three years in Nordic countries.
Labrador Clearing customs in Labrador for a foreign yacht arriving from Greenland is an anxiety provoking exercise. We pre-registered our arrival using the website and email however the Canadians are known to enforce their arrival rules and have imposed harsh fines on transgressors. The instruction is to ring the Canadian Border Guard before anchoring to get a CANPASS number. However that call results in an instruction to proceed to Goose Bay which is the only port of entry in Canada and happens to be 100 miles up a river. After much research we chose a landfall with a police station and called this police station during our approach. The calls for CANPASS were frustrating on a satellite phone (no cellphone service in Labrador) and when I did get through the advice was, “go to Goose Bay and do not anchor”. The local Mounty however came up trumps and met us at the dock and took us to the RCMP police station where we made a joint call to CANPASS. With the RCMP vouching for our story CANPASS were much more cooperative and issued our CANPASS number. Please note Canadian Border regulations vary from state to state and I am uncertain if we were just lucky. There are police stations at Nain, Cartwright, Hopedale and Makkovik. As we were uncertain where we would be able to make landfall due to weather and ice we had taken the precaution of having telephone numbers with us for each of the police stations. We had downloaded the requisite firearm temporary import document prior to arrival and the local Mounty checked the gun and signed the form for us.
If visiting the Tornghat National Park a permit is required which is purchased in Saglek. It may be possible to get this online but if planning on a landfall here customs could be difficult as the most northerly police post is in Nain.
The CCA produces detailed anchorage guides to Labrador and Nova Scotia and the coastline has been re-surveyed recently. We had both old and new Navionics charts on board and there was a big difference in their accuracy. Depth soundings and GPS offset is much more accurate on newer charts so I would not bother with anything done before 2014.
The shops in Labrador were poorly stocked when compared to Greenland and the infrastructure was either non-existent or in disarray. No WiFi, no cellphones, scarcely any ferries, hideously expensive flights where airports exist. We were glad we had adequate food stocks on board from Greenland - these can be brought into Canada as “ships stores”.
Having said all that Labrador is a great cruising destination and is very seldom visited. The season between departure of the ice and the arrival of strong southerlies is very short. The welcome we received was overwhelming and we were frequent recipients of gifted salmon and arctic char. The dialect is, however, virtually incomprehensible!
Newfoundland South of the Straits of Belle Isle life gets a lot easier. There are proper ports although please note St Anthony is NOT an official port of entry but Lewisporte is because of it’s proximity to Gander. So far we have enjoyed stops in St Anthony, La Scie, Fortune Harbour and we are overwintering in Lewisporte.
Lewisporte marina has been extended and they have 2 lifts that can cope with boats up to 40 tons. The Yacht Club is extremely hospitable and supplies cooking, laundry and showering facilities. It is not possible to hire a car in Lewisporte and indeed we couldn’t get one from Gander either in July. In the end we took a taxi (4 hours) to St John’s as the daily bus would not have arrive in time for our flight.
Anyone arriving in Newfoundland via the Viking Route must visit l’Anse aux Meadows and see the UNESCO Viking Heritage Centre and the nearby Snorri (the replica longboat that undertook the reenacted voyage from Greenland) which is now preserved in it’s own grass roofed museum.
Anchoring Greenland is generally an anchoring nightmare with deep “U” shaped fjords. Often the anchorages can be very deep and normally the chart will contain no soundings. The seabed is often rock and there is a lot of kelp. Our advice is to take a very big anchor and 100m of chain. Winds from the mountains and from the glaciers can be both unpredictable and very gusty. Occasionally we used shorelines but they proved a magnet for passing icebergs and so were a mixed blessing. The Greenlandic catabatic winds can be catastrophic which fortunately we did not encounter.
Self sufficiency Beyond Scotland there are no regular yachting services as everything is geared to maintaining fishing fleets and commercial shipping. Having said that we got great service from the Yanmar and Raymarine dealerships in Reykjavik. If you know where to go a lot of chandlery can be sourced in Iceland but it is time consuming to track down.
Most of the bigger towns on the West Coast of Greenland will have VONIN stores for fisherman’s chandlery and STARK DIY stores. Aasiaat ship yard (well north of the Viking Route) has a fantastic chandlery. Specialist services can be found but take some seeking out.
There are none of the above services in Labrador.
Leaving a boat unattended Faroes - prohibitively expensive and not recommended.
Iceland - Easy in Isafjordur. In Reykjavik a boat can be safely left in the water over winter as it does not freeze but prior arrangement is required. Snafari Marina and Hafnafordur can haul sail boats with a hired crane. Please note Iceland is VERY windy in the winter!
Greenland - a crane can be hired in Nuuk but there is no safe storage area. Sisimiut has a ship yard and can haul and store for the winter although an OCC boat was broken into in 2017/18 whilst ashore for the winter. Aasiaat is a major ship yard and can haul and store. They will also undertake repairs but communication is very difficult and the cost is prohibitive. We understand that yachts have occasionally been hauled at Maniitsoq.
Labrador - We are not aware of haul or store facilities
Newfoundland - Lewisporte has comprehensive facilities and we understand the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club can haul (travel lift) and store but space and depth in the marina is limited. The OCC has one excellent Port Office in St John’s (Ted Laurentius)
Technological Assistance Forward Looking Sonar would be very useful but we removed our transducer in case it got damaged by ice. In retrospect we should have left it in place as many did and encountered no problems. We did hear of one boat that was nearly lost when the FLS transducer did not shear on impact but perforated instead. Boxing in the transducer would seem a sensible precaution. Radar will not spot growlers which are probably the most dangerous form of ice.
Radar is essential as fog and icebergs are common. It is wise to set a radar guard when on passage. Due to the strange behaviour of our electronic compass at high latitudes (expected) we found radar alignment needed continual realignment. I thing modern HD Radar is preferable to our 2005 technology.
Image Intensifier. Darkness and ice are a dangerous combination and we did a couple of night passages keeping watch with a handheld image intensifier. Although we spotted some ice in good time we were lucky to miss at least a couple of growlers. It’s better than nothing if you HAVE to make a night passage in ice infested water but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Thermal Imaging. We have no experience of this.
Networked instruments including radar. We strongly recommend that instruments should be replicated at both the helm and in the pilot house or in some other warm and comfortable region of the boat. Crew fatigue due to extreme cold is a real issue if watch keeping is not done from a sheltered position.
SSB: We found this unreliable in high latitudes presumably due to poor propagation with perennial daylight. We would not rely on this.
PredictWind: We found this more reliable than both national forecasts (that cover very wide sea areas) and professional weather routers (we used Commander’s Weather).
Iridium: We used iridiumGo with an unlimited data package for all our data which meant that we could receive satellite imagery, PredictWind forecasts, Ice Charts as often as they were available. These are all essential for safe navigation.
VHF Iceland, Greenland, Labrador all have very active and helpful coastal VHF coverage.
AIS All Icelandic craft are compelled to have AIS and the Coast Guard actively monitor AIS movements. If a yacht does not have AIS they will need to report in regularly. AIS is not so widely used by coast guards in Greenland or Labrador.
Heating: Absolutely essential. Keeping the boat warm and dry uses a significant amount of fuel so don’t forget to factor this into fuel consumption estimates.
Endurance: Big tanks (and the ability fill them with Jerrycans) are essential. Many of the fuel docks are designed for small craft and don’t have the depth for a deep drafted sailboat. We carried 1,000 lites of fuel on a 46’ boat.
Water: We didn’t use or need to use our water maker. Occasionally we filled up from streams using plastic barrels and a hose pipe. We occasionally also filled from a small craft dock hose into the barrel that we then dinged back to the boat.
Clothing: By far our best investments were thinsulate dive undersuits designed to go under a cold water diver’s dry suit. These are cheap and fantastically warm. Normal sailing gear is not adequate.
Ice poles: 4m poles for fending off ice. We just bought these in a timber yard in Iceland before departure for Greenland.
Dehumidifier: We have a permanently installed dehumidifier on board which proved it’s worth in northern waters. It kept our boat bone dry through Icelandic winters. In Greenland it got rid of all the condensation every time we ran the generator or found a mains hook up. A dry boat is much easier to keep warm.
Propane: We switched from butane to propane on arrival in Iceland and bought a couple of excellent composite cylinders in Iceland which share the same regulator fitting as the cylinders available in Greenland.
Electricity: We had an isolating transformer installed when we built the boat which can cope can either step up from 110v to 240v or down. We adjusted the jumpers in Canada and nearly everything worked. The difference between 50Hz and 60Hz shore power means that we we have to run our vacuum cleaner of the inverter.
Other resources: All of our anchorages are written up on the OCC’s Cruising Information Map as are those of Bob Shepton.
The OCC’s online Flying Fish Archive has a lot of narrative accounts describing cruising these coastlines. All of this is now searchable.
Imray’s Northern Waters pilot is essential
The Admiralty’s Arctic Pilots and the Canadian Sailing Directions are very helpful although primarily aimed at commercial vessels.
We borrowed most of the paper charts and took Navionics electronic charts for both plotter and iPAD as well as Garmin Blue chart as back up.
edited by simoncurrin on 8/28/2018