Chuck Gould writes:

On Oct 19, 3:15?pm, Wayne.B wrote:
On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:58:40 +0200, (Martin

Sch n) wrote:
Two guys sailed through the NW passage in the mid 1980s on
a Hobie 18.

Yes but they did a lot of "over ice" portages if my memory is correct,
not exactly an open passage.

Open enough to take it on in a beach cat.

http://www.latitude38.com/LectronicL...14/Sept14.html

Here is a better url:
http://www.helmdesign.com/polar-01.html

--
Martin Schöön "Problems worthy of attack
show their worth by hitting back."
Piet Hein

Chuck Gould writes:

Undoubtedly you entirely missed the comment in my original post where
I theorized that the NW Passage must have been commonly open during
some periods of time prior to the 16 & 17 century expeditions that
were sent to look for it. (Most rumors have at least some basis in
fact, and stories of passage across the top of North America had to be
common enough and convincing enough that huge sums of money and
resources would be engaged to try to find and confirm it).

If you missed that, you also missed my comment that a period warm
enough to remove ice from the NW Passage 500 years or more ago could
not have been caused by the internal combustion engine.

500 years ago it was pretty cold. The last Viking colonies
on Greenland gave up in the 1400s due to cold climate. Surviving
winter in Europe was a big struggle for most Europeans.
17 century saw the Baltic ice covered on a regular basis and very
bad times in Chine due to low crop yields.

If you look for a warm era look at the 18th century (Carl von
Linné moved out from down town Uppsala because he was worried
about malaria. Malaria was brought to what would later be the
USA by English settlers.) or a thousand years ago when harbours
had to be re-built time again due to rising sea levels---even
here where the land is rising by 5 mm/year as a result of
missing ice of the latest ice-age.

--
Martin Schöön "Problems worthy of attack
show their worth by hitting back."
Piet Hein

On Oct 21, 2:16?am, (Martin Sch??n) wrote:
Chuck Gould writes:
On Oct 19, 3:15?pm, Wayne.B wrote:
On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:58:40 +0200, (Martin

Sch n) wrote:
Two guys sailed through the NW passage in the mid 1980s on
a Hobie 18.

Yes but they did a lot of "over ice" portages if my memory is correct,
not exactly an open passage.

Open enough to take it on in a beach cat.

http://www.latitude38.com/LectronicL...14/Sept14.html

From the link:

"The pair spent three summers sailing, pushing, paddling and tugging
their 450-lb boat across 2,500 miles of ice-clogged Arctic water, from
the Mackenzie River on the west end of the Passage to Pond Inlet on
the east end. MacInnis later wrote about their experiences in Polar
Passage."


So in addition to sailing, the voyage included "pushing, paddling, and
tugging their 450-lb boat" across miles of ice-clogged Arctic water.
Not really an open voyage.

The news about the NW Passage is that it is opening up to the point
where people can simply navigate through it, without any need to break
ice or resort to pushing and tugging a lightweight vessel across vast
expanses of ice.

*If* recent trends continue, the NE Passage will also be entirely open
fairly soon, and it will be possible to navigate, at least during the
summer months, from Scandinavia to Alaska through the Arctic north of
Europe and Asia.

Talk about unspoiled, uncrowded, cruising.....wow!











Here is a better url:http://www.helmdesign.com/polar-01.html

--
Martin Sch n "Problems worthy of attack
show their worth by hitting back."
Piet Hein