Skip Novak

Skip Novak is a racing and adventure legend.

- Sterling Hayden

He participated in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race four times, beginning in 1977, when he navigated the British cutter Kings Legend to a second-place finish at the age of 25. He skippered Independent Endeavour in 1979 to win the Parmelia Race from Plymouth, England, to Fremantle, Australia, and helmed Simon Le Bon’s Drum in the 1985/86 Whitbread, coming in third.

In 1997 Novak navigated the French catamaran Explorer to a record in the Transpac Race, and in 1998 he co-skippered Explorer with Bruno Peyron, breaking the sailing record from Yokohama, Japan, to San Francisco. Novak co-skippered the 33-meter French catamaran Innovation Explorer in 2001 to a second place finish in the non-stop, no-limits circumnavigation called The Race.

Novak embarked on a second career of high-latitude adventures in 1987, building the 54-foot expedition yacht Pelagic. He has spent every season since in Antarctic waters, where he combines his love of mountaineering and sailing by leading adventures from Pelagic and Pelagic Australis, a 74-foot sailing expedition vessel.

His voyaging to the high latitudes has been recognized by the Cruising Club of America, which awarded Novak its Blue Water Medal in 2015, and by the U.K.’s Royal Cruising Club, which presented Novak with the Bill Tilman medal in 2016.

First memory of being on a boat: My first memory of being afloat was on a fishing trip with my parents on a lake in Canada. First sail would have been on my dad’s 22 Square Meter in Chicago. My racing career started in Lehman 10 dinghies in Belmont Harbor [Chicago] and then Blue Jays, well before the days of planing hulls!