Marseille, December 2025. Departure for Antarctica is eight months away. Before heading offshore, we needed to push ARION hard, not in cruising conditions, but in real operational conditions: sustained wind, formed sea, reduced crew, systems run to their operational limits.
These trials weren't a feel-good shakedown. They were an audit. A working tool. What we found, bugs, surprises, validations, feeds directly into the preparation for the eight months ahead.
Protocol: what we set out to test
Sea trials on an expedition sailboat bound for polar waters don't look like a leisure outing. You're not trying to "see how she handles." You're trying to identify systemic weaknesses before they become crises at sea.
Three main test axes:
1. The autopilot systems. Three autopilots on board (two EV-100s, one ST2000). The goal: verify that each handover from one pilot to the next happens without loss of control, and measure power consumption across different points of sail and sea states. On a solo passage through the Drake, the autopilot never stops, it has to hold for 72 hours without intervention if needed.
2. The electrical architecture. The LiFePO4 battery banks had been recently installed. The trials needed to validate charge management under real conditions: simultaneous production from panels, wind turbines, and alternator; load consumption (heating, Starlink, instruments). Theory on paper doesn't always predict what happens when everything runs at once.
3. Manoeuvres for two, and solo. Tacking, controlled gybing, reefing, first with two crew, then with a single hand on station. On an Antarctic circumnavigation, every manoeuvre must be doable by one person alone, in the cold, at night, tired. If a procedure needs two pairs of hands, it needs to be revised.
What we found
Autopilots: convincing, with one caveat
Both EV-100 units performed well. Clean handover, stable response in force 5–6, consumption within spec (roughly 1.2A average in formed sea). The ST2000 backup was briefly tested, it manages, but its torque is more limited in cross-seas. It stays what it needs to be: a spare, not a long-distance pilot.
One fix required: the drive ram linkage on the primary EV-100 had slight mechanical resistance that produced a friction noise beyond 20° of rudder angle. Identified, corrected at the dock before subsequent trials.
Electrical: source prioritisation
The two wind turbines produced well beyond initial estimates in a formed sea. In sustained breeze they deliver enough to run the autopilot, Starlink, and instruments without touching the panels. A good surprise: in the Southern Ocean, where skies are often overcast but the wind does not drop, this source carries more weight than we had anticipated.
The bad surprise: the solar charge controller and the wind-turbine regulator were competing for charge cycles on bank 1 during simultaneous power-up. Not critical, but observable. Source prioritisation needs to be reviewed in the BMS configuration.
Manoeuvres: the revealed weak point
Solo reefing of the mainsail exposed a real problem. The procedure required going to the mast (full foul-weather gear mandatory in heavy conditions) while the boat sailed unattended on the autopilot. In ordinary conditions, this is manageable. But in 25–30 knots with 2.5-metre seas, the exposure time at the mast exceeds what's acceptable.
Solution: reef line led back to the cockpit, with an additional turning block on the boom. ARION can now take two reefs from the cockpit without leaving the helm. This is one of the most significant changes coming out of these trials.
What changes for the build-up
These trials didn't reveal a major structural flaw. ARION is a sound, well-built boat with predictable behaviour in formed sea. But they produced a list of twenty-three items to address before departure, large and small.
The top three:
- Reef line led back to cockpit (done)
- BMS configuration review for source prioritisation
- New autopilot wiring tested at sea over 48 consecutive hours
The rest, rig tuning, seacock integrity, wet storage organisation, will be handled during the January–February refit period.
One conclusion about sea trials in general
Sea trials on an expedition boat don't prove a boat "is ready." They prove you're capable of observing it without self-deception.
What we learned about ARION in December, we couldn't have learned any other way. The winter Mediterranean is excellent for testing, thermals, mistral, short uncomfortable sea, without being a place where a mistake becomes fatal. We worked within the margin. That's exactly what Patagonia will be in a few months: the last time we can find a problem before the cost of error changes in nature.
In the Screaming Sixties, there are no sea trials. There is the passage, and what the boat knows how to do.
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