UK Architects Sail the Arctic in a Converted Lifeboat
In 2019, two friends and their dog set sail in a converted lifeboat on a 5,000-kilometer four-month journey from England to the Arctic Circle.
Guylee Simmonds, 29, and David Schnabel, 28, are both architects from England. They met at university and both love adventure and the outdoors.
After deciding to travel around Norway together with their dog, Shackleton, they bought a lifeboat and converted it into a place they could live as they sailed north.
"As architects we are always designing for other people, but now we were doing it for ourselves," Guylee said in an interview with the BBC. The boat — called Stødig, which means "reliable" in Norwegian — used to be a lifeboat. It's 11 meters long, three and a half meters wide, and has a top speed of six knots — or about 11 kilometers per hour.
Onboard, there are now two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a living and dining area. The friends also added windows and an outdoor space.
After a year of work, David and Guylee started their adventure in May 2019 by sailing from Dover, England to France. They continued along the coast to Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden before reaching Norway.
They faced plenty of problems along the way, including four-meter high waves and engine issues. But after four months, they arrived safely in Tromsø, the largest city in the Arctic Circle.
Now, the friends are waiting for the pandemic to end before starting another adventure in their boat. A short film about the journey will be released in summer 2020.
