9-Meter Fiberglass Sailboat Completes Northwest Passage Through McClure Strait [View all]

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With a 9.3-metre fibreglass sailboat, Nicolas Peissel and his crewmates were able to do what seasoned explorers on hulking Arctic ships attempted over centuries but never succeeded. They crossed the northernmost route of the Northwestern Passages, which connects Baffin Bay to the Arctic Ocean in Canada's far North.

"There's no reason why we should have been able to do that," Peissel, who hails from the Montreal area, said Friday over satellite phone aboard the Belzebub II, three months into its journey.

At any other time in history, the M'Clure Strait, the last stretch of land-bound water before the Beaufort Sea, would have been entirely covered in ice. But it wasn't. And the boat, which would have easily been ensnared by ice like those of many explorers before it, is now sailing peacefully on the Beaufort as it heads to Alaska.

"This is a clear signal that there's climate change," Peissel said. And this was the point of the whole journey. Thirty-five-year-old Peissel, his cousin Morgan Peissel, and Swede Edvin Buregren are making history to demonstrate how Arctic ice is at an all-time low, and the serious implications for humanity.

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http://www.canada.com/technology/Ship+historic+crossing+signals+extent+Arctic+melt/7176411/story.html