Building An Arctic Expedition Rowboat

Rowing 2000 miles across the Arctic Ocean, up and over the top of Canada is the "last first" in Arctic exploration. Due to the incredibly harsh and remote environment, choosing the right boat is vital. We felt like nothing on the market was up to the task. So we decided to build our own boats - 19 foot rowboats to be exact. These vessels give us many advantages over a traditional one person craft. Mainly the fact that we can sleep aboard the boat, tucked into a small sleeping cabin which will save us a lot of time compared to making a camp on shore every night.

These boats were designed by Colin Angus of Angus Rowboats. He is based out of Vancouver and offers multiple styles of boat plans. After much talking and research we decided on the Row cruiser. Colin designed this boat himself, making it fairly easy to build in a couple months with little to no boat building experience. Link down below.

This video showcases the building process, followed by a full walk through on the water after we have completed a couple hundred nautical miles working out the kinks. During our month long training run up the west coast of Canada, we spent all but a handful of nights sleeping aboard the boats while being anchored off in small bays or coves. We have much to learn still but are feeling confident in our skills and abilities to complete the Northwest Passage this coming summer.

If you'd like to check out these boat plans and purchase a set for yourself here is the link to Angus Rowboats:

https://angusrowboats.com

A big thank you to Colin and his partner Julie for all the support and information during this entire process.

If you want more information about our Arctic expedition go to :

http://northwest-passage.com