Planning to Fail in the Arctic

I can grab and go with the best of them. A last minute weekend? I can be ready in five minutes. But in the two months I’ve been preparing for this trip, I’ve asked myself questions I’ve never had to before. How much toothpaste do I use in a month? What over the counter meds should I bring along just in case? And my favorite internal query so far; what do we need to bring to fend off a polar bear? While there are settlements with provisions in them at various locations in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (and we’d rather leave things for them then reduce their supply), this trip is squarely in the “If you don’t bring it you won’t have it,” camp with the consequences of going without ranging from inconvenient to inconceivable.

Preparing for any trip is a risk management game. Weather you are going to the grocery store or to Greece, your brain plays a game of “what can go wrong?” Q&A’s and you don’t leave the house until you at least subconsciously believe you’ve answered them. And whether you are driving to Aldi or flying to Patras, you’re never more than your next stop away from almost everything you would need that you might have forgotten so it’s a pretty easy game. On this trip, the boat and whatever we carry with will be all we can rely on. If we need a spare part for the boat that we don’t have, we’re screwed. If I accidentally drop my last pair of glasses over the side, then that’s all the reading I’ll be doing for months. And if one of us gets sick and needs (Insert cure here) and it isn’t aboard, we are in very real trouble.

Having any successful trip is, in large part, about planning to have a bad one. Mariners should first have a plan to fail – a plan for all of the what ifs. Do that and the trip get’s much more fun to my way of thinking.

What can go wrong and what is our plan if it does? Answer, rinse, and repeat until you’ve exhausted all reasonable possibilities. That’s planning for the arctic and – as it turns out – it takes an enormous amount of time.

What are our weather/ice limits?

Too many boaters take the Captain Ron approach to planning, “If anything is gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there.” But, failing to set a hard limit on what you will operate your vessel in, leads to risk taking with no reward.

Every vessel has environmental limits, and so does every mariner. With your experience and your vessel in mind, decide ahead of each trip what wave height you’re willing to accept and just how much wind you’re willing to tolerate. Force yourself to fill in the blanks questions like:

• We change plans when wave height is at or over ____ feet.
• We change plans if winds are at or expected to reach _____ knots.
• And, of course, we never venture into areas of more than 3/10th ice.

Setting those limits gives you permission to stick with those plans and ensure that your unpressured logic wins the decision instead of your attachment to your plan to make it to the next port. Deciding ahead of time what the conditions you consider safe and unsafe stops the “get-there-itis” that clouds decision-making when weather reports change.

Where else can we go?

I’ve seen more than one vessel pass a safe harbor, only to sink before getting to the next one. “Heading back” only needs to mean “heading in” to wherever you can make landfall. If the weather does turn unexpectedly, any land may be good enough. Study the charts and pre-identify possible bail-out points so that you know them as well as your destination.

We have mapped out every possible harbor, cove, village, settlement, and anchorage along our proposed route.

Who are we talking to?

Every year, vessels with EPIRBS go missing without the EPIRB going off and without a radio call being made. Relying on everything to work isn’t what the safest operators do. Part of a decent float plan includes a communications plan. Schedule a call in every 6 hours with someone back home. Send an email in every change of watch. It’s a no-cost way to back yourself up in the event of an emergency. The person ashore who misses the check in can then contact the USCG with your previous communications (and your float plan, of course).

Both Greenpos and Nordreg will be asking for (and receiving) check-in’s from Sarah-Sarah as will our contacts back home.

What do we call “Pan Pan” for?

Another thing I’ve never experienced in my life in rescue was the sound of a boater calling “Pan Pan.” Safe boaters call in early when things even look like they are going sideways. The vital distress communication “Pan Pan,” tells the Coast Guard and anyone else listening that things are not urgent, but that you may need assistance and helps make you less alone out there.

Sarah-Sarah calls “Pan Pan” when:

• We are taking on any water to any degree.
• At the first sign (even the smell of) smoke or fire.
• When anyone has a medical problem that we are considering going back in for.
• When we lose propulsion, or steering (even if we know we can get them back).
• Anything else that makes us feel uneasy or even slightly beyond our comfort zone.

Calling Pan Pan will not launch a rescue, it will not get you in trouble with the authorities, and it won’t bother them even a little. But it will let them know that you are having an issue and what the nature of that issue is and open up a world of options that can solve your problems before they get out of hand.

You may have a hundred-thousand good miles under your keel, but none of that prepared you for a bad mile. Planning to fail prevents failure. Boaters who write float plans never seem to need them. If you want to have a great trip your next time out, spend just a little time and write down your plan for a bad trip. It’s my first and best advice. 

I’m still working on the toothpaste question or what else I might want if we have to winter over in Paisley Bay, but we’ve spent a lot of time planning to fail on this trip. We have spares for our spares and backups to those in most cases. This isn’t a grab and go trip. And all this planning for what might go wrong is what helps me be confident that we’ll make it to Anacortes just fine.