Refit for colder climes

Richard Rogers and Alice Sanger reconstruct their Morgan Giles 30 for some serious expedition sailing to high latitudes

- Richard Rogers and Alice Sanger

Out-of-season sailing attracts us. Winter here in Scotland, and early spring, when days are lengthening and the colours returning, are the best times to be outside. In those glorious few weeks when the glens are warming but there’s snow on the summits, we want to sail to remote mountain areas and go ashore.

We also dream of going further afield: Orkney, Shetland or ‘properly north’ to Iceland and Greenland. The Arctic Circle is less than 550 nautical miles from here.

To do this, we need the perfect boat. We agreed that if we were going to take on such a project we’d do it only once. We wanted a boat that could take us across oceans too, if we ever decide to do that. That’s why we bought Aurora, our 30ft Morgan Giles sloop. She was far from perfect, and needed to be completely stripped down and rebuilt (see PBO Summer 2020). Now we need to refit her to suit our dream of exploring colder climes.

Remote sailing

More than anything, sailing in remote places demands as much water and fuel as you can carry. For the cold you need insulation, and a decent hull in case of ice. For places with unreliable charts your underwater profile becomes important, because of what might bump into your rudder.

If you are going to explore mountainous and rocky coasts you also need good upwind sailing ability to get off a lee shore. That might make all the difference to the success of a trip and to the safety of the boat and crew.