Reality
An independent
expedition.
No institution behind this project. No partnership manager, no delegated operating budget, no quarterly meeting with a steering committee. Two people, a 47-foot aluminium sailboat, and several years of savings committed without a safety net.
This is a choice — not a default constraint.
The figures
What it really costs.
An Antarctic circumnavigation maintained south of 60°S — viable, prepared, authorised — costs approximately €500,000. Not €5 million like a Vendée Globe campaign. Not €2 million like an institutional expedition on a research vessel. €500,000. Entirely personal.
ARION is the expedition.
Almost the entire budget is in the boat. ARION — Strongall 47-foot aluminium, 17 tonnes, centerboard keel, built to hold in the Southern Seas — is the expedition's central choice: putting the money where it counts, where real safety is decided. Not in image. Not in communication equipment. Not in shore offices.
What that leaves for everything else — systems, provisions, communications, insurance, scientific equipment, polar preparation — is little. And it is with little that we prepare the expedition.
What it doesn't fund.
Compare with what other polar projects cost:
- Vendée Globe €2 – 5M
- Institutional expedition (research vessel) €500k – 2M
- Boreal 52 + full polar preparation €600k – 900k
- Odyssey of AION — personal funds ~ €500k
We don't claim to do the same thing with the same means. We claim to do the same navigation with less — by choosing the right tool rather than the perfect tool.
The method
We leave when it's viable.
Not when it's perfect.
An independent expedition doesn't wait to have everything. It assesses what is needed to leave safely, finds solutions for what is missing, and documents why it holds. This is not risk-taking — it is constraint engineering.
The watermaker.
We don't have one yet. We've thought through what that implies. The latitudes we will cross produce ice in abundance: fresh water available, clean, plentiful below 60°S. We've sized the onboard reserves, planned backup solutions, calculated consumption over 70 days.
This is not a gap — it is polar resource management. A watermaker would improve it. It does not condition it.
The engine.
ARION has an inboard — an MWM D225 50hp from 1952. It works. But it will be 74 years old at departure, it lacks power, and in the waters where we'll be sailing we cannot afford to rely on it like a modern engine.
To compensate, we added a Mercury SeaPro 60hp long-shaft outboard in the stern bracket — a professional motor, good torque, pushes hard. But in the Drake, wind on the nose and contrary current, honesty is required: it will be very demanding.
What a partner would change: a new Volvo 75hp inboard, installed, ready to sail. Cost: €40,000. That is the difference between a backup redundancy and reliable propulsion in the harshest conditions on Earth.
The sails.
We have an almost new set — thick Dacron, solid, indestructible in normal conditions. The problem is that we will not be in normal conditions. Our genoa is 100m²: a monster. Rolling it in requires the winch it is so heavy. In the southern latitudes, in degraded conditions, it is unmanageable for two. The full-batten mainsail is similarly sized — three reefs, very solid, but over-rated and exhausting to raise even on a ball-bearing car.
What's needed: a genoa half the size for the Drake, and a "7"-shaped mainsail — truncated head like IMOCA boats, four reefs, cut adapted to rapid reduction. The current one would serve as a spare: it has value, it won't be discarded.
This is the item that changes the relationship to the boat in bad weather the most. Not survival — the capacity to manoeuvre without fighting your own canvas.
Other items — electronics, energy, safety, deck equipment — are functional. What a partner brings is new where we have second-hand, redundancy where we have a single unit, and a reference brand where we have the minimum viable. Each item has been evaluated in that order.
Partnership
A partner doesn't buy
the expedition's survival.
The expedition leaves regardless. What a partner brings is the difference between viable and excellent. These are not the same thing — and this is precisely where the contribution has value.
A watermaker at €5,000 means 70 days of water autonomy without counting reserves. A new inboard engine means additional redundancy on the propulsion system in waters where the next repair is done alone, at −10°C, with what was embarked. New sails means certainty that the canvas holds to the end — not hope that it survives one more squall.
What it concretely changes.
- A funded item = additional operational margin
- New equipment = manufacturer warranty in the most isolated waters on Earth
- Redundancy = the ability to continue when something breaks
- A constituted provision = a routing decision that doesn't depend on remaining budget
What it doesn't change.
- The route — decided on board and only on board
- The scientific protocol — it belongs to the crew
- The turn-back thresholds — set before departure
- Editorial independence — no sponsor has access to our raw data
See partnership forms — technical, media, targeted support.
Support usPrinciple
Independence is not
a lack of support.
An expedition with ten lead sponsors is an expedition with ten stakeholders on the route. Not necessarily. But potentially: a logo to showcase in this situation, a communication constraint in another, an angle chosen by someone who has never seen the Drake.
Independence here is the condition for decisions to be made on board — and only on board. Route, timing, scientific protocol, acceptable risk level: these decisions belong to those in the boat. Not to a committee. Not to a brand. Not to a visibility logic.
A technical partner who provides equipment — an engine, a watermaker, sails, survival suits — does not buy a say in the navigation. They associate with a project that knows exactly where it is going and why. And they come back from it with data no one else can bring.
That's the proposition we make.
No other.