Ice halts Valley native’s Arctic trip
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Warren native Matt Rutherford will have to wait until 2027 to complete another record-setting solo voyage.
Rutherford, 45, was forced to end his attempt to circumnavigate the Arctic Ocean solo, a journey of about 10,000 nautical miles.
According to a news release issued Thursday, Russia's Northern Sea Route Administration (NSRA) directed Rutherford to postpone his transit of the Northern Sea Route due to icy conditions.
Authorities cited subzero temperatures forecast for the Chukchi and East Siberian seas beginning Monday, along with a heavy, largely impassable ice field near Wrangel Island, as the deciding factors.
"I'm not going to pretend I'm not disappointed," Rutherford says in the release. "I've been planning this for a long time, and turning around is the last thing I want to do. But this isn't my call to make, it's the Russian government's, and when they tell you the ice isn't going to let you through, you listen.
"Chimera (Rutherford's Valiant sailboat) is in great shape, I'm in great shape, and I'm not the kind of person who quits. I'm going to sail 1,000 miles to Norway, have a steak and a stiff drink, and then a further 3,500 miles home, spend the winter getting ready, and go finish what I started next year."
Rutherford's journey started June 25 from Greenland and was expected to take until October to complete.
The voyage was a fundraiser for his climate science nonprofit, the Ocean Research Project, and it had raised $26,500 toward a goal of $250,000. The water samples already collected in the North Atlantic and into Baffin Bay by Rutherford, will go toward Ocean Research Project's ongoing seasonal climate research in cross-examining NASA/JPL's ECCO-Darwin ocean model.
Rutherford already is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first person to solo circumnavigate North and South Americas on a 309-day voyage in 2011-12.
In a Zoom interview with the newspaper on Day 34 of his journey, Rutherford said his fascination with sailing and exploring started after reading a book about British explorer Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922), who led three expeditions to Antarctica. Making his own journey around the Arctic Ocean had been a dream ever since.
"It seemed impossible for a long time," Rutherford said last month. "It just seemed so far away. In 2008, in my late 20s, I sailed from Annapolis to Europe, which was like my first big trip alone. The whole time I'm talking about sailing to the Arctic. I was sailing towards Africa, and I was always talking about sailing to the Northwest Passage. ... About a year after I got back from that, I did a trip around the Americas and actually went up and did the Northwest Passage, which is a place with a lot of lore and history and, unfortunately, a lot of casualties. But it seemed like sort of an ultimate challenge too, and I like a good challenge, obviously."
It's a challenge that will have to wait for another year.