In all of his years of trans-ocean sailing, rounding Cape Horn is one passage that Steve Colgate had never done. Known for its harsh, challenging year-round conditions, rounding Cape Horn under sail is a journey that even some of the most seasoned sailors might take a pass on.

In the early days of a special cruise, Steve sailed “around” the Horn on Seal – a purpose-built charter boat – with Peter Nielsen (Editor of SAIL magazine), another couple and the captain and mate of this 56 footer

In one of the few communications back to his wife, Doris, Steve reported that it wasn’t a true rounding, as that designation is given only to those who sail 50 east to 50 west or vice versa, but it was truly a thrill – dampened only by the fact that it was too rough to take the dinghy ashore to get their passports stamped.

With over 12 years sailing in high latitudes, Hamish Laird is one of the most experienced skippers in the business, and he has put that knowledge into all the details of the yacht Seal. His wife, Kate, who Steve describes as “another Ellen MacArthur” is every bit Hamish’s co-skipper on these exciting voyages.

About S-V Seal
Seal is a 56-foot tough aluminum cutter sailboat built to explore high latitudes and support scientific and adventure expeditions. She was designed by Chuck Paine and his team at Kanter Yachts and is “the strongest boat we’ve ever built.” She carries 6 passengers and 2+ crew for extended voyages to remote regions.

All Seal's voyages are "expedition style." Those who sign on are considered members of the crew - standing watch, helping with sail handling and boat keeping to the extent of their abilities (no experience necessary).

Following are expedition excerpts from emails sent by Kate to friends and families of the crew.

January 6 - We are in Puerto Williams tied up at the southernmost yacht club in the world. We had a brilliant sail down here ... it was 30-40 knots from behind and we sailed the whole way on one gybe, with the jib poled out, doing an average of 9 knots and as much as 10.2 knots at times. It felt amazing to be on the bow ... we don’t see that kind of speed in months in the light winds of the tropics. We took the pole down at ‘the mark’ (the edge of a bank that goes out from Puerto Williams) and close reached right up to the mouth of the harbor.

January 8 - We had a slow but good sail yesterday up the Beagle Channel, including sailing through a little nest of islands about halfway along the Navarino coast ... wind at about 6 knots and boat speed at about 2!

January 9 - We tried to make it to Peninsula Hardy to the west of Cape Horn yesterday, but when we were halfway there, it blew up 30 knots on the nose, so we tacked and headed down to the Cape Horn Archipelago and are on Isla Wollaston, the northernmost island in the group. Great sailing, close hauled ... we were down to the third reef for a while (we have four!) but the sea was very flat so we hummed along quite nicely. Of course, the moment we anchored, the wind turned around, and we could have motored on, but it was dinnertime, so we did that instead!

On January 9th, Steve reported, “This has been a great trip so far. We went around Cape Horn today. It started out light and we were able to get to the west when the west wind came in at up to 48 knots and we breezed past Cape Horn. It was too windy to go ashore and we're holed in a small cove on the way back to the Beagle Channel.”

January 10 - we had a fantastic sail around Cape Horn Island yesterday. There was no wind at all when we set out, and the forecast was for light winds all day, so we resigned ourselves to a motor around Cape Horn, not very romantic. Well, there are lies, damned lies, and weather forecasts ... Hamish scratched the backstay and just as we approached Isla Hornos, Peter gave an all mighty blast on his whistle on his foul weather jacket, and sure enough, the wind filled in ...
It built gradually and we put in the second reef, the third reef and finally we’re under fourth reef and staysail with a steady forty knots and gusts to fifty, sailing along at 8 and sometimes 9 knots. A spectacular way to see Cape Horn. Hamish took off the top of a champagne bottle with an axe just as we went past the Cape and we sailed up through the archipelago to Caleta Martial where we are now. We had roast lamb for dinner to celebrate and we're now getting ready to head off this morning.

January 11 - We had the full gamut of Tierra del Fuego sailing yesterday ... we left Caleta Martial with the fourth reef and staysail, and then switched to a triple reefed jib, then shook out a reef and another and another, until by the afternoon we were ghosting along at 4 knots with the full main and full jib. Bahia Nassau was excellent - lots of wind, but not on the nose, and the sea hadn't had a chance to build up, so it was quite comfortable and fast. The black browed albatrosses seemed to be really enjoying the wind. We saw a few more whales, but not as close up as they had been yesterday (I never even mentioned yesterday's whales - we were able to drift around near a pod of very large minkes and see them quite close up.)

We came into Puerto Toro at supper time, and after supper several of us went ashore to look at the beaver who has built a dam right behind the town. Hamish and I had watched him when we were in here the other day,and we went up with Peter and Mark to see if we could find him, but two dogs followed us and chased away the beaver. We went around for a walk along the shore front and as we were returning to Seal, we noticed a V wake in the harbor -- it was the beaver. He swam clear across the harbor in salt water to get a bit of grass from the other side of the harbor. Must taste better on that side.

At four this morning we woke to find the wind had picked up from the NE, so we escaped Puerto Toro and backtracked around the corner to Cabo Rice. We can see the wind gusting in the channel - there is a layer of spray hovering above the water ... we had 40 knots at times when we were coming around, so we expect we'll be staying put today, waiting for the wind to go around to the south before heading up channel toward the glaciers.

January 12 - We spent the day in Cabo Rees yesterday and then came back to Puerto Toro in the evening when the wind began to clock around. We took walks ashore and Hamish chopped up the rest of the lamb that has been hanging off the gantry for the last week. It had a good salting as we sailed around Isla Hornos ... we expected the wind to shift slightly in our favor in the early hours of the morning, we stayed on standby from three o'clock, but didn't end up leaving until about 7:30, when the wind went right down. We're expecting several days of strong westerlies, so our plan now is to get as far up into the Beagle Channel as we can and find a good place to hike and explore while we wait for this system to pass. We were very lucky to get to Cape Horn when we did ... it would not be nice weather to be visiting it this week.

We're now motoring up the Beagle channel in no wind ... it was 40 knots yesterday on the nose, and we expect 40 knots on the nose tomorrow, so Steve is under strict instructions to concentrate on his luck to keep the wind down while we make our way west. The weather systems coming through now are classic Cape Horn systems ... we had slightly unusual weather in December; this is more like the normal pattern of very strong lows, with a tiny window of light winds between each ones. You can probably find the current weather at: http://www.directemar.cl/clima

Most everyone is in the "library" of the raised saloon ... Peter is keeping watch on deck, Hamish at the chart table, and everyone else is deep into a book. The cranberry bread smells like it is nearly ready, so I'd better get back to it!!

January 13 - We had a long haul yesterday ... 90 miles of motoring up the Beagle Channel to try to get as far west as we could before the next system comes through, which looks like it will give us several days of strong westerlies.

Our ETA for where we wanted to go was well after dark, so instead we came into Caleta Voilier. We thought it would be the quick option, but it took us three sets to get the anchor to hold in 80 foot depth in very fine silty mud ... we eventually put the Fortress (an aluminum anchor with a Danforth shape) out in front of the CQR and it held first bite.

At the end of the day, we'd started to get into the first of the glaciers, crumbling blue walls of ice going up into the clouds. Several dolphins followed us right into the anchorage, and they swam all around us throughout all our various tries with the anchoring. In the morning they came back again as we were releasing our shore lines and heading out. Two condors are circling overhead, and the sun is coming out, so we just might get a peak at Mt. Darwin (a rare site, since it is usually covered in clouds.)

January 14 - The dolphins came back to escort us out of Caleta Voilier, and we motored across the channel to Seño Pia and went up to the ice wall at the end. We drifted amongst the ice during lunch, listening to the roar of ice bits falling off and the clunk of ice drifting past the hull, and then anchored for an hour or so while Kate, Mark, and Peter went for a walk on the glacier's edge. It never fails to amaze me to see the power of the glaciers ... the rock scoured by, and the bulldozed piles of gravel by the side as if the glacier has pushed the mountain aside.

We came around the corner where we could anchor, lift the rudder, and bring the stern right up to a waterfall and take on water. We spent the afternoon filling water and reading various accounts of Fitzroy and the Beagle ... it makes us feel awfully warm to be snug around the heater, listening to the rain (which is snowing on the mountain tops) and the waterfall, watching the ice drift past in the fjord...

January 15 - We had a lazy morning yesterday in the pouring rain, watching Irving Johnson's Around Cape Horn, which is extraordinary footage from a trip he made in the early 1900s with an "A1 Cape Horn storm" washing the decks of the enormous ship Peking. We set off to the other arm of Seño Pia, where there is another glacier and a beautiful anchorage called "Beaulieu". Peter declared it to be the most beautiful anchorage he's ever been in.

We slogged up the hill behind the anchorage and got a bit of a view. Not long after we'd all returned to the boat, the sky cleared and we had a magnificent view of Mount Darwin. It's a rare sight to see the mountain as it's usually covered in clouds, but we had a fine clear evening with the sunset picking out the mountains. Fitzroy named it after Darwin after he had saved one of their whaleboats. The surveyors had been ashore when a huge chunk of glacier fell off ... everyone ran for height, but it was Darwin who realized that they would lose the whaleboat (and their only way back to the Beagle which was a long way away) in the displacement wave that would follow such an icefall. He and several sailors managed to save the boat and quite possibly the lives of the whole shore party.

Happy hour was enlivened with the anchoring techniques of our neighbors; fortunately Steve is on hand to tell us how to retrieve our anchor when someone else's chain is across it, which isn't a skill we've need here in Tierra del Fuego before!

January 16 - We came out into the Northern Arm of the Beagle Channel yesterday and along to Seño Garibalidi. It was pouring rain, so we moored behind an island and waited for the rain to stop. It did in the late afternoon, so we're now eagerly watching for signs of blue sky to go up to the head of the fjord and see the glacier close up.

We did an ice run in the afternoon to make pisco sours (the national drink of Chile) with 10,000 year old ice ... we're totally out of sight of the glacier in this anchorage, but a steady stream of ice passes by in the main channel to remind us where we are.

On the latest log, Steve Colgate reported, “It's very easy going now with spectacular fjords and views of glaciers. We were commenting this morning that we know nothing of world events for the past week and it won't make any difference in our lives.

Hamish and Kate are both extremely competent and Kate is like Ellen MacArthur - quite a team!"

January 17 - We motored up to the ice face of Garibaldi glacier yesterday and took quite a few photos of Seal drifting around in the ice floes, though the light wasn't very good. Then we motored down to the Southern Arm of the Beagle Channel, which was particularly exciting for Hamish and me, because it was always closed in past years, so we're into new territory here. It was very windy, with the wind funneling in the channel - we had a 60 knot gust coming into the bay. We went up to a recommended anchoring site, but it was constantly being buffetted by williwaws, so we found another spot, which is completely protected and we were able to get four lines ashore, as well as the 100 meters of chain out on the anchor.

We've named the bay Estéro Rachas (Rachas is the Spanish word for williwaws), because tremendous ones were whirling down the mountainside and hitting us even here. We're going to spend the day here and explore ... there are several likely places to go for walks, and the scenery (when it isn't hailing or snowing, both of which it has done this morning) is spectacular ... Hamish has declared it to be the best scenery he has every visited .... looming glaciers tumbling down towards the sea (but not quite reaching it, so there is no ice afloat) and disappearing behind lush green forests.

I am not sure how good today's position will be as we have taken it off the GPS, and where we are the charts are 1.5 miles off the GPS position ... but Google earth maps may be more accurate than our charts since they were photographed by satellite, and our charts were made by Fitzroy's men with sextant and leadline ....

January 18 - We stayed in Estéro Rachas all day yesterday. The weather has been extraordinary - rain, hail, rain, hail, sleet, a few seconds of sunshine, rain, hail, rain, hail, sleet. I went up on deck last night to find it coated with slushy hail, which has now melted... and this is midsummer! We finally managed to prise ourselves off the boat yesterday and go up the hill behind us. We were rewarded with magnificent views of a glacier tumbling into a lake, and amazing flowers and mosses. Hamish climbed up another peak to get a picture of the boat in the anchorage, but unfortunately, his 15 seconds of allotted light happened as he was making a desperate move up a mossy, sodden ledge ... so not a good day for the photographers, but a fine day to get out and get some fresh air. In the afternoon, Hamish, Peter, Mark, Ellen, and Steve went on a mission to procure ice for gin and tonics, which involved motoring the dinghy around to another part of the estuary and hiking up eroded rock and shaving it off the snout of the living glacier with a hatchet. (The glaciers here have melted back and do not reach the sea, so we can't just pick the ice up from the harbor.)

Excerpt from Steve: We are in a small cove and have just gone ashore to a nearby glacier to get ice for cocktails. It's sleeting and snowing, but the Henri Lloyd is still waterproof and is good protection from williwaws. We've all read about the Beagle and Capt Fitzroy collecting some Fuegens to take back to England. They evidently lived naked in this area except for an animal skin over their shoulders. Unbelievable. And the women were the ones who went swimming to collect mussels, etc. Anyway this place is wild and I have over 200 photos.

January 19 - The weather forecast looked like good winds for yesterday and absolutely nothing today, so we set sail fairly early from Estéro Rachas and into the Southern arm of the Beagle Channel.  We passed by many possible anchorages to explore, but we wanted to maximize our sailing and minimize our motoring, so we continued on under main and poled out jib to Caleta Perón on the eastern end of Isla Hoste, reefing and unreefing and gybing as the channel shifted. It's shocking to see that we are still on the same island as Estéro Rachas - to the west there are high mountains (3000 + footers rising from sea level) with glaciers spilling down to the water, sheer cliffs, and ferocious williwaws ... down here the hills are more rolling, there is grass, and here in this harbor is a small subsistence farm with sheep and horses.  Hamish knows the owner, but unfortunately he is away.  We found some very hungry dogs who we watered and fed (and made a double batch of porridge for this morning), and explored a bit. Our plan is to explore here a bit more this morning, and then head for Puerto Williams tonight.

January 20 - We had a motor down channel in no wind ... a big contrast from a week ago when there were 50 knots in the channel!  It is a brief lull before the next big system coming through.  We arrived in Puerto Williams in the afternoon in time for dinner and a visit to the Micalvi Bar at the Southern Most Yacht Club in the world.  It's bright and sunny today, so I imagine everyone will have a chance to walk around the sites of Puerto Williams (including the bows of the Yelcho which was the boat that ultimately rescued Shackleton's men from Elephant Island) this afternoon before the flight at 1930. It's been a fantastic trip ... we've really enjoyed the group on board and a fine maiden Cape Horn trip for Seal with howling winds at Cape Horn and only one day where we couldn't get where we wanted to go with the wind on the nose.  Hamish and I also enjoyed the chance to start explorations on the Southern Arm of the Beagle Channel, which has always been closed to traffic on previous visits. Back to Ushuaia and Helen and Anna and Sally and Dan tonight.