Omsk Yachtsmen Go to the Circumnavigation Dedicated to the 200th Anniversary of the Discovery of Antarctic

Фото предоставлено участниками экспедиции
Фото предоставлено участниками экспедиции

Omsk yacht "Siberia" will go to the second circumnavigation. The ship's captain, the expedition commander, the Deputy chairman of the Omsk regional branch of the Russian Geographical Society Sergey Shcherbakov, signed an agreement with the Presidential Grants Foundation. For the preparation and implementation of the circumnavigation were devoted 10 million rubles. The Omsk sport support foundation "Siberian Sailing Expeditions" together with the branch of the Russian Geographical Society created a expedition headquarters and started preparing a bipolar yacht trip.

The yacht "Siberia", Bermuda Cache class, with a crew of 6-8 people was launched on May 31, 1997. It is considered the flagship of the sailing fleet of Omsk. The most famous of its navigation was the circumnavigation. Launched on June 1, 2000, the yacht passed more than 90 thousand nautical miles and returned to the Om estuary on September 30, 2001. The relief crews of the yacht, led by captain Sergey Shcherbakov, visited 44 states, passed through inland waterways of 30 Russian regions. "Siberia" became the flagship of the campaign of Omsk yachtsmen on Dickson Island in 2015, where the northernmost port of Russia is located.

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Provided by the expedition participants

According to the plans, the crew will pass the Irtysh River and the Ob River and will reach the Northern Sea Route, involving Dickson Island, Tiksi, Pevek, the polar regions of Canada and will go to Greenland. From there, the vessel will go south, already it will be on the route of Bellingshausen and Lazarev, the way will be through the Canaries, in the direction of Rio de Janeiro to Antarctica. Then through the southern oceans the crew will go to Australia, across Cape Horn to Cape Town. Along Africa, the route will rise to Greenland and further it will go through Iceland, Franz Josef Land and then return to the Gulf of Ob, thus closing two polar round-the-world rings.

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Provided by the expedition participants

Earlier, the expedition dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the discovery of Antarctic by Russian sailors was planned to take place on the “Power of Siberia”. But the ship was wrecked off the coast of Spain, and there were not enough time to restore it by the start of the circumnavigation . Today the expedition commander Sergey Shcherbakov told reporters about the plans of the team. Replacing the yacht reduced the budget of the future expedition significantly. After all, now the point of reference will not be St. Petersburg, as before, but Omsk. Given the peculiarity of "Siberia", it was necessary to adjust the route. Instead of the east, travelers will begin their voyage towards the west along the Northern Sea Route. In the summer of 2020, the expedition plans to arrive in Vladivostok, spend the winter there and complete the round-the-world tour already in Dickson. There is another option from Bellingshausen to go straight along the west coast of South and North America into the Bering Strait. It will save 9000 km, and most importantly - it will save from wintering. Options are very dependent on financing.

The military sloops "Vostok" and "Mirny" set off for the first Antarctic expedition from Kronstadt in 1819. The main task of the campaign was to prove the existence of the sixth continent. The captain of "Vostok" Faddey Bellingshausen led the expedition. "Mirny" was commanded by Mikhail Lazarev. On January 27, 1820 ships crossed the Antarctic Circle. During the sailing, "Vostok" and "Mirny" circled around the entire Antarctic continent, discovered and marked on the map many new islands and lands, and collected a unique ethnographic collection.