Life on board the Kapt Danilkin

by Adrian Flanagan on 5 Oct 2007 Adrian Flanagan has dreamed of being the first sailor through the North West Passage. Even though the ice pack is much reduced from previous years, it was still impossible for his Barrabas to complete the journey. Now Flanagan's yacht is deck cargo about a Russian freighter...we will let him take up the story...

Like her master, the ‘Kapitan Danilkin’ is quite small at 30,000 tons but well maintained and packed with character. The wide expanse of the bridge crammed with all manner of electronic devices affords a grand view from six levels up. There is a gym and sauna with a plunge pool - of which I have made liberal use. The officers’ dining hall is on level one - the food solid if unimaginative.

Meals tend to be quiet, even silent affairs, more a literal re-fuelling stop than any form of social focus. The social aspect for me comes during two periods of my day - morning coffee with the Captain and the Chief Mate, Dimitri and again in the evening, tea or a drink, usually just myself and the Captain. The officer’s deck is on the fifth level just below the bridge. My cabin is comfortable comprising two adjoining rooms, one a sitting area with a large desk, sofa, armchair and coffee table and adjacent a bedroom with en suite shower room.

Captain Alfred Zagorsky is an extraordinary man. A mariner for over 50 years and a captain since 1972 his experience of the sea and the Arctic in particular is immense. His English is sufficiently fluent that we can converse quite easily. Our conversations are wide ranging - his favourite subject seems to be the concept of ‘freedom’ - not that he feels in any way restricted but is keen to understand the rationale and consequences of the voyage I am making within the framework of liberating oneself from the aspirations enjoined in youth and developed and nutured through early adulthood which, if then left unexpressed might otherwise turn sour and cankerous.

It is the freedom from entrapment that ensues from a lack of fulfilment, the emergence of the unguarded self which has consumed much of our dialogue. We have covered oriental philosophies, religion, future population migration, national cultural influences and our own personal situations and circumstances.

The ship encountered the sea ice of the Taymyr massif on the evening of 30th September, our third night at sea. I stayed up late and into the early hours of Monday morning observing the ice from the freezing prow and the comfort of the bridge. I spent some time on the afterdeck with the Captain. A question still hovered - could I have made it through the ice? The answer was an emphatic ‘No!’ Ice was at 100% cover, 3 feet thick. The reason for my vigil on the stern was to answer a second question - ‘Could I have been towed and kept Barrabas in the water?’ The ice breaker ‘Russiya’ crunched through the frozen sea seven cables ahead leaving a path of ice boulders, fragments and chippings in her wake.

The Kapitan Danilkin’s 38mm thick steel bows pushed this debris aside and in turn left a wake of open water. Captain Zagorsky explained that pieces of ice could be pressed beneath the bows, ride along the ship’s keel and emerge at the stern. It was these hazards I was looking for - ice chunks breaking the surface from the depths of the ship’s draught, 25 feet, each weighing up to one ton would cause devastating damage to a yacht following behind. It didn’t happen often as the Captain and I stood in the warm lee of the funnel stack looking sternwards, but it did happen and I surmised that a single impact like that could quite easily have sent Barrabas to the bottom. So it was with considerable relief at the vindication of loading Barrabas onto the ship’s deck that I allowed sleep to overtake me in the snug nest of my cabin.

The next morning I woke a year older and, as far as navigating Arctic ice goes, a year wiser. During our morning coffee the Captain presented me with a bottle of whiskey and we lent character to the coffee with a few shots of brandy. In the evening we had my ‘birthday cake’ - an apple tart on a sweet bread base.

On board ship, as elsewhere during Barrabas’s voyage around the world I have been met with exemplary kindness - from the Captain showing me how to operate the washing machine to his stringing a clothes line in my cabin and running a hose from his personal galley to Barrabas to fill her water tanks to providing me with the few additional provisions I need for the run from Murmansk home. But more than those, it is generosity of spirit, his concern for me and my small boat that touches me most. He has given me his private telephone number at his home. I am to call him when I make landfall in England so that he might, in his own words, ’sleep more easily.’

Position: 71 21N 61 09E

We now have a map with several plots on it. The Green dots indicate the route taken by Adrian in Barrabas to the edge of Proliv Vil’kitskogo. The yellow dots indicate his course back to the Port of Tiksi. The mauve dots indicate the course taken from the Port of Tiksi by the Kapitain Danilkin with Adrian and Barrabas aboard. The black dot marks the reported position for Kapitain Danilkin in the Kara Sea today. One sea left before leaving the Russian Northern Sea Route. Adrian has to enter Murmansk to formally sign out with the FSB prior to leaving Russian Federation waters. The decision still has to be made on where Barrabas will be put back into the water before checking in at Murmansk. The blue dots indicate the intended course towards Murmansk.