Eight young New Zealanders are preparing to follow in the wake of legendary polar explorers, crossing the notorious Drake Passage aboard the historic tall ship Bark EUROPA on a voyage from Argentina to Antarctica.
The eight participants, all aged between 18 and 30, will depart in January for a month-long expedition alongside record-breaking sailor Lisa Blair, as part of the Antarctic Heritage Trust's Inspiring Explorers expedition.
For Wellington global studies graduate Meleki Schulster, 21, the prospect of sailing, living and sleeping aboard a tall ship is something entirely outside his experience. "It looks like it's out of the Pirates of the Carribean, it's so cool. It feels like a crazy adventure and I'm always keen on an adventure," he said.
His excitement runs deep. "I honestly can't wait to do it all. I still don't know how I made it, but I'm so grateful, so honoured and feel so privileged to be in this spot. Our ancestors used to use the stars and used to go on voyages with even less crazy boats. It's going to be a really cool experience to be able to tie it back to them and just inspire people to jump on board."
Once at sea, the group will take on genuine crewing duties, working rotating shifts of four hours on and eight hours off as they learn to handle the ship, before spending just over a week exploring the Antarctic Peninsula.
The Drake Passage is notorious for its two contrasting personalities. Sailors know one as the Drake Lake and the other as the Drake Shake. Blair said the Drake Lake brings calm, quiet conditions, while the Drake Shake can push storms thousands of nautical miles wide through a narrow channel.
"It's luck of the draw. You could be there in a high-pressure system, which is no wind, calm seas, or you could be out there in 10-metre breaking seas. Everyone's going to be seasick in those conditions. Cold, wet, maybe snowing, like brutal climate so we don't know what will happen," she said.
Blair sees the expedition as central to the Antarctic Heritage Trust's broader mission, which aims to inspire a spirit of adventure by giving young people the chance to follow in the footsteps of explorers who traversed the continent more than 100 years ago.
"Part of the inspiring explorers programme is that explorer's mindset. So fostering their curiosity, their innovation, talking to teamwork, building their resilience and just really structuring their mind to go through challenges that they might face after this," she said.
Blair holds eight world records, including being the fastest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around Antarctica in 2022.
Sailing Bark EUROPA will be new territory for Blair too. She will need to learn the names of different ropes and 24 sails, just as the young crew members will. Blair said her own late start in sailing, she did not take it up until she was 25, gives her a genuine understanding of what the group will experience.
"I still really remember my first experience with it and how I struggled in certain things, so just trying to bring that to them and make them feel supported," she said.
"I really think there's so much incredible value for us, as a global world, in making sure that the next generation of people coming through can have forged a connection with Antarctica because we don't protect what we aren't connected to."
Bark EUROPA connects directly to the era of the great Antarctic explorers. Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton both journeyed to Antarctica on tall ships like Bark EUROPA. Built in Germany in 1911, the vessel originally served as a floating lighthouse on the Elbe river before being converted into a fully operational sailing ship.
Alongside their crewing duties, the group will contribute to Bark EUROPA's collaboration with the Polar Citizen Science Collective, gathering microplastic samples and logging sightings of birds and whales.
