Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Angel Podcast. My name
Speaker 1: is Scott Brady and I'm here with Brian mcvickers from
Speaker 1: our team, and we have mister Sree with us here.
Speaker 1: We have Graham Sere and I just met you. Well
Speaker 1: we've met before. I know that we have because I
Speaker 1: do remember your face. But we finally got a chance
Speaker 1: to chat last night at the premiere of Grace Schustler's
Speaker 1: film that she did with tred Lightley and with the
Speaker 1: Overland Expo Foundation, and we just got a chance to
Speaker 1: chat because Brian's like, do you got to talk to
Speaker 1: this guy? So there's a lot of commonalities that we've
Speaker 1: got love for sailing, a love for exploration, a love
Speaker 1: for business. So we're going to dig deep into some
Speaker 1: of those conversations today. So thanks for being on the podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm glad to be here, and I think this is
Speaker 2: really fun. You know, we're talking about some of the
Speaker 2: most important stuff in the world, so I'm excited about it.
Speaker 2: And you have good people too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean this is completely tangentle but also
Speaker 1: relevant from an overlanding perspective. But you run IGNIK and
Speaker 1: you guys make these great little fireplaces. I've used them
Speaker 1: all over the place, and you just come up, came
Speaker 1: up with a cool like hybrid fireplace slash cooking. What's
Speaker 1: that one called the mullet.
Speaker 2: Or scullet the light, the mullet, business on top, buld
Speaker 2: on top, you mullet in the back, party in the back.
Speaker 2: But it's a you know, it's a it's a skillet
Speaker 2: with height adjustable fire pit and heating underneath it.
Speaker 3: It's elevated fire pit.
Speaker 2: It's an elevated fire Is this camp on in the snow?
Speaker 2: You don't want your fire down in the snow. You
Speaker 2: want to get it up and you want the heat
Speaker 2: where you can feed.
Speaker 4: You're sitting next to it. The heat radiated straight out.
Speaker 4: It's it's super cool. I mean, it's an amazing product
Speaker 4: and a great company. But you're on the podcast because
Speaker 4: you've lived an incredible life and just in the brief
Speaker 4: moment that I had to talk to you, by the
Speaker 4: time I figured out, you had sailed at least one
Speaker 4: hundred thousand miles. And I'm sure we're to get that
Speaker 4: number corrected here in a few minutes once I know
Speaker 4: the scope of it. But you know, you've crossed the
Speaker 4: Northwest Passage and Brian. The reason why you're on the
Speaker 4: podcast today is I've been wanting to talk to you
Speaker 4: forever about your crossing. Graham and I did that together
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty four. Yep, September August, Yeah, basically all
Speaker 4: of August.
Speaker 3: It was about a six week trip. I think a
Speaker 3: little bit less.
Speaker 2: Actually, I think it might. I don't know, I can't remember.
Speaker 2: So we got on You and I both got on
Speaker 2: a nor no ma ask. So we got on the
Speaker 2: boat in No. The boat, so dog Bark is it's
Speaker 2: a sixty foot it's an old raceboat actually that we
Speaker 2: converted into an expedition. Expedition is kind of a lofty
Speaker 2: word for what we do well, and.
Speaker 4: That's as a race boat. It was an open sixty yeah,
Speaker 4: and it was built for the BOC Challenge, which was
Speaker 4: a kind of a It was a predecessor of the
Speaker 4: Vending Globe, which is a famous around the world unsupported
Speaker 4: NonStop sailing race.
Speaker 5: And was this boat used for that.
Speaker 2: It was, so it yeah, did finish the first one.
Speaker 2: And so it was built back when there were no
Speaker 2: iceberg exclusions. So in those days boats ran into icebergs
Speaker 2: and people died and that was just part of sailing
Speaker 2: and and so dog Mark was built for that kind
Speaker 2: of built to go in ice filled waters, and nowadays
Speaker 2: they build boats a little lighter and a little faster
Speaker 2: which don't want to hit in So that was built
Speaker 2: for the nineteen ninety BOC Challenge and the American and
Speaker 2: Mike Plant actually hit an iceberg and sunk his boat
Speaker 2: in that race. And that's what caused ice exclusions.
Speaker 1: So when they created an exclusion, they would limit the
Speaker 1: north latitude.
Speaker 2: So it south flatitude. So basically those around the world
Speaker 2: races all they go down and they run under the horns. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 2: but the lower you go, the more breeze you have,
Speaker 2: the faster the boats go, and then the more ice there.
Speaker 3: Is about the roaring forties, so that was that.
Speaker 2: Was the thing that was not what our experience was.
Speaker 2: We had some roaring wind, Yeah, we had. We had
Speaker 2: some fairly breezy conditions. Yeah, we saw ice, we saw
Speaker 2: polar bears.
Speaker 3: We had the full experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was telling somebody about I was here at
Speaker 2: the expo. I was talking about the icebreaker that we met,
Speaker 2: and this was a guy who's like, ah, yeah, the
Speaker 2: Northwest passage. They take cruise ships through that now, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, yep, they do. And there are these icebreakers
Speaker 2: that are stationed in places, and the icebreaker will punch
Speaker 2: a hole for the oil tanker or the cruise ship
Speaker 2: from whatever. You don't usually do that for the rest
Speaker 2: of us.
Speaker 5: Huh.
Speaker 2: We had pretty special treatment, royal treatment, because we were
Speaker 2: there were three there's a mom and two cubs with
Speaker 2: a kill on the ice there, and so we were
Speaker 2: we were a couple of miles from the icebreaker. But
Speaker 2: he was kind of watching the bears too. He's up
Speaker 2: on this high conning tower and so I'm talking to
Speaker 2: him on the radio about you know, the bears in
Speaker 2: our experience and yeah, I bet you see those bears
Speaker 2: a lot better from up there than we do. And
Speaker 2: then I bet you can see how far the ice
Speaker 2: flow goes that way, and he's like, yeah, it goes
Speaker 2: that way a long ways. You'll be you'll be driving
Speaker 2: for a while.
Speaker 4: So we were hunting up and down the ice float
Speaker 4: trying to find a path through it.
Speaker 2: You know, it's hard to with a sailboat. I mean,
Speaker 2: we don't break ice. I mean we can, we can
Speaker 2: sort of move it around super heavy, but he so there,
Speaker 2: you know, it's a bunch of young guys on a
Speaker 2: bunch of Coasti's on a on a on an Arctic
Speaker 2: vacation tour. It's probably not here, but they called me
Speaker 2: back and they're like, you know, we got to probably
Speaker 2: make a hole here. We've got a chip coming through
Speaker 2: pretty soon anyway. Yeah, you want to take a kind
Speaker 2: of a run through with us, good training drive for
Speaker 2: And I'm like, beats the hell out of going north
Speaker 2: twenty miles. Sure, let's do this. And so these are
Speaker 2: big red ships that he says, Oh, and by the way,
Speaker 2: we break ice at nine knots he which is faster
Speaker 2: than most sailboats can go period. Yeah, and we'll do
Speaker 2: the best we can. We got a fast boat, and
Speaker 2: so he did a big circle around. We locked in
Speaker 2: behind him. He said, get as close as you can,
Speaker 2: and we went. He went through the ice as fast
Speaker 2: as he could. We went behind him as fast as
Speaker 2: we could. But so what's not well known. I didn't
Speaker 2: know that, you know, the ice breakers break the ice.
Speaker 2: The ice probably is starting to close up. But that
Speaker 2: ice that he breaks has to go someplace. Yes, some
Speaker 2: of it goes down under his boat, some of it
Speaker 2: comes shooting back up and so it was a slalom
Speaker 2: course in there, sort of a high speed nerve wracking.
Speaker 2: We did hit ice a couple of times.
Speaker 3: Small, small, but yeah.
Speaker 5: And I'd say that is this an aluminum boat?
Speaker 3: No, it's fiberglass.
Speaker 4: Yeah, basically really interesting part of it is so I'm
Speaker 4: up on the bow calling filming. I'm film and everything right,
Speaker 4: and I look back and Graham is like white knuckled
Speaker 4: up totally.
Speaker 2: Kind of.
Speaker 4: Think it shouldn't be that hard. We're just following another
Speaker 4: boat that just cleared a path. But what it was
Speaker 4: we were in their prop wash and so you were
Speaker 4: trying everything you could just to keep.
Speaker 2: The boat jump and ice is coming at us.
Speaker 3: And so underwater the boat's just getting thrashed back and.
Speaker 2: It was pretty It was fun. I mean, in hindsight,
Speaker 2: that was one of those experiences that not paining people
Speaker 2: get to do that.
Speaker 1: I remember when we were in southern Greenland, when we
Speaker 1: were getting ready to drop the Arctic trucks to cross
Speaker 1: the island, we used an icebreaker. We couldn't have gotten
Speaker 1: the landing craft. The landing craft is very suitable and
Speaker 1: that was carrying yes, exactly, so the icebreaker was busting
Speaker 1: a path with the landing craft to get up to
Speaker 1: this shelf of ice. I mean it was so thick
Speaker 1: at one point that the icebreaker can't get through it.
Speaker 1: But that's where you want to drop the truck because
Speaker 1: you can drive on it because it's so thick. What
Speaker 1: he does, We go amazing experience.
Speaker 3: Neat and we got to see a lot of polar
Speaker 3: bears up close that were walking around.
Speaker 2: Brand and I got chased. Chased, we walked backwards rapidly.
Speaker 3: It was the fastest speed walking backwards in reverse. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's so many parallels between overlanding and blue
Speaker 1: water sailing or expedition sailing. I mean, you have a
Speaker 1: land cruiser, you have a love for vehicle based travel
Speaker 1: as well. But what I found in my very limited,
Speaker 1: compared to YouTube sailing experience is that it's like overlanding,
Speaker 1: but more difficult because you can't pull over things. When
Speaker 1: things are really bad, you're in it until it's over.
Speaker 1: Whereas you know you have a vehicle mechanical problem, you
Speaker 1: can get it towed over to a little pull out
Speaker 1: and you can come up with a plan like you're
Speaker 1: in it until it's over one way or the other.
Speaker 3: Risk the risk factors a lot higher.
Speaker 2: Yeah, particularly if you are it's like overlanding, and the
Speaker 2: more interesting the places you go, the more prepared you
Speaker 2: need to be to solve whatever it is that happens.
Speaker 4: We went to quite a few areas up there that
Speaker 4: there just weren't other people. Yeah, and you wouldn't see
Speaker 4: anybody for a week.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, especially after you leave tuck t yuktuk. There's just
Speaker 1: not much up there. Yeah until what resolute.
Speaker 2: Definitely, So Cambridge Bay is in there in that sort
Speaker 2: of span. Cambridge Bay is probably the only place we saw.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say that.
Speaker 4: I think one of the most remote areas that from
Speaker 4: a feeling of remoteness was where the Hudson Bay Company
Speaker 4: station was and getting through that cut was the name
Speaker 4: of that cut, oh old.
Speaker 3: So there's a cut.
Speaker 6: It's about a mile wide and about fifteen miles long,
Speaker 6: and it's Scott's the south end of Somerset Island, and
Speaker 6: it's got a fourteen knock current go either way. Sure,
Speaker 6: sure you know when it's flowing and it goes both ways.
Speaker 5: And how long is it just to get through it?
Speaker 4: It's if you're doing it at slack, I mean maybe
Speaker 4: an hour okay, two hours, you could end up really yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there's a lot of like bad stories, yeah,
Speaker 3: boats sinking there.
Speaker 2: I have to tell the So I've done a couple
Speaker 2: of trips up into the Arctic, and and so the
Speaker 2: first time I went up there in that same bellat straight, straight,
Speaker 2: straight old, get brain turned on eventually. So the first
Speaker 2: time I was there, straight was pretty packed with ice,
Speaker 2: more ice than we saw in it. And one hard
Speaker 2: aluminum boat, modern French design boat was squeezed by the ice.
Speaker 3: And popped like a cork.
Speaker 2: And so and a woman on that boat had to
Speaker 2: get out and spent I think they spent twenty four
Speaker 2: hours on the ice on an ice flow, yeah, on
Speaker 2: an ice floe, on moving ice. And then by moving
Speaker 2: it's it's moving, yeah, fourteen current. Yeah, And so they
Speaker 2: had to wait for They said, it's either the polar
Speaker 2: bears or the coast guard. Somebody's going to get us.
Speaker 2: And the helicopter got them first. So it's pretty pretty interesting,
Speaker 2: terrifying story.
Speaker 5: And that was.
Speaker 2: I was listening to it on the radio thinking, oh
Speaker 2: my goodness, I was at the time. I was there
Speaker 2: with my family, Yeah, and I'm thinking what am I
Speaker 2: doing I've got ice all around me too. We were,
Speaker 2: we were plugged in by ice at that point. But
Speaker 2: listening to this on the radio was one of those
Speaker 2: things that you know, makes you realize that the consequences
Speaker 2: are legitimate.
Speaker 5: In that point.
Speaker 1: I remember, Brian you mentioned a similar story, because I
Speaker 1: didn't remember you telling me that one. But yeah, there
Speaker 1: was another boat that was super strong and it got
Speaker 1: popped up out of the ice.
Speaker 3: The same location.
Speaker 4: This was maybe four days before we went through the
Speaker 4: Bellet Straight, and it's on the This happened on the
Speaker 4: east end of the Bellet Straight near the Hudson Bay
Speaker 4: Trading Post, and in that area there's quite a few
Speaker 4: big rock outcroppings that break the surface, and then there's
Speaker 4: a lot of whirlpools as well. And so the story
Speaker 4: that we heard from the group that had gone through
Speaker 4: before us, they were coming the other way from east
Speaker 4: to west. A boat got was there, following one another.
Speaker 4: The last boat got pinned between two ice flows, popped
Speaker 4: up out of the water onto its side onto an
Speaker 4: ice floe spun around three sixty degrees.
Speaker 3: Everybody had to be to hold on for dear sixty. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Big aluminum, big strong aluminum, expensive.
Speaker 4: So the beautiful boat they spin around because now the
Speaker 4: ice thing is trapped in a whirlpool. And then the
Speaker 4: ice flow that they were on cracked in half and parted. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they plopped back in the water and kept on going.
Speaker 5: Give me out of it.
Speaker 3: We never really got anything close to that.
Speaker 2: I can just imagine that. Oh my goodness, lets you go.
Speaker 1: Well, and what you told me last night that I
Speaker 1: found was so fascinating. You just alluded to it. But
Speaker 1: this is that was your successful crossing of the Northwest
Speaker 1: Passage with Brian a few years ago. Was your second
Speaker 1: time through, because the first time you were there with
Speaker 1: your family and you made it about halfway, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: not quite halfway.
Speaker 2: I mean, it depends on where you measure from. But
Speaker 2: we had really terrible ice year that that particular year,
Speaker 2: and a lot of weather, a lot of wind. So
Speaker 2: the wind driven ice basically plugged the passage and for all.
Speaker 2: But I think one sailboat got through. Yeah, and they
Speaker 2: got through really early actually the other direction, coming towards Alaska.
Speaker 2: The rest of us were stuck. And we were stuck
Speaker 2: in the ice for a long time, and eventually the
Speaker 2: Canadian Coast Guard called us and said, hey, guys, it's
Speaker 2: time to go home. We're leaving. The icebreakers are leaving.
Speaker 2: If you would like, if you and your family would
Speaker 2: like to stay right where you are, freeze in for
Speaker 2: the winner.
Speaker 3: You can do that, and there are people that do.
Speaker 2: But we're going home and you should too. And I
Speaker 2: looked at my daughters and my wife and they're like
Speaker 2: the best part. Kind of the inspiration from all that
Speaker 2: was so you deal with failure, right, this is you know,
Speaker 2: we've spent a lot of money and a lot of
Speaker 2: time and kind of the family dream to do this thing,
Speaker 2: and we're not going to make it. So there were tears,
Speaker 2: but my oldest daughter eventually turned to me and said,
Speaker 2: you know, Dad, it's been reading too many sailing books.
Speaker 2: But the whalers after their whaling season, when it begins
Speaker 2: to freeze up here, whalers, they all go to Lahina.
Speaker 2: Can we go to Lahina? I have a pretty fast sailboat,
Speaker 2: so I said, yeah, we can go to Lahina. And
Speaker 2: so Dutch Harbor to Lahina in dog barks about ten
Speaker 2: days wow. And so we got down to Dutch Harbor,
Speaker 2: loaded up, put the tuna jigs out and headed for Lahina.
Speaker 2: And behind us changed quite a bit in that in
Speaker 2: the last year. That was prior to all of the
Speaker 2: fires there. But boy, what a wonderful welcome after being
Speaker 2: in the ice. You know, they were so nice to
Speaker 2: us and family was ecstatic to get there.
Speaker 1: And then I think you had mentioned that you guys
Speaker 1: decided then to kind of sail more in the South Pacific.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, yeah, so we actually went down so from Hawaii,
Speaker 2: and Hawaii's wonderful place. It's not it's a difficult place
Speaker 2: to cruise, like if you want to if I think
Speaker 2: of cruising on a sailboat like overlanding, there are places
Speaker 2: where it's really easy and the terrain is right essentially,
Speaker 2: you know why is hard, big mountains, the wind in
Speaker 2: those channels is challenging. So some of the windiest sailing
Speaker 2: we did crossing the between Maui and the Big Island.
Speaker 2: And so we did did some cruising there and my
Speaker 2: family said, well, let's go to the Marquessas. And because
Speaker 2: for my honeymoon, my wife said, how about we sail
Speaker 2: to Hong Kong for our honeymoon. Different boat halber Grassy.
Speaker 2: We're having a halber Grassy story, and so my kids
Speaker 2: had I mean I've got tattoos from the Marquesas, and
Speaker 2: it's actually the only place I will let people put
Speaker 2: needles in my body in the Marquesses. But it's it
Speaker 2: was one of those experiences that I wanted to share
Speaker 2: with them, and so we're able to go down go
Speaker 2: we did the Marquesas. The to motives are amazing cruising
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden and you can go from
Speaker 2: being in the Arctic and there's a kind of blue
Speaker 2: water in the Arctic that is really striking. Where you
Speaker 2: guys went swimming with all those jellyfish up there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was I mean it's almost glacial blue. And then
Speaker 2: to go to the Tuamoto and have this beautiful blue
Speaker 2: green experience is just amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So my kids have had they had to put up
Speaker 2: with a lot of torture, but at least.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting to again come back
Speaker 1: to those parallels between blue water expedition, sailing and overlanding.
Speaker 1: But you know, like overlanding would be the classic routes
Speaker 1: would be like the Silk Road or the length of
Speaker 1: Africa or crossing Antarctica, these these very classic uberland routes,
Speaker 1: and sailing has similar ones. I mean the ones that
Speaker 1: come to mind for me is like one of the
Speaker 1: great prizes that remains is the Northwest Past. It's getting
Speaker 1: a little bit easier to do that, but it's only
Speaker 1: been you know, other than overwintering, it's only been in
Speaker 1: the last decade or so that people are regularly attempting
Speaker 1: to cross the Northwest Passage in privately owned sailboats or
Speaker 1: other privately owned boats, even motor yachts. So it's fairly
Speaker 1: recent that's been even feasible to do. And then the
Speaker 1: other one that you and I talked about last night,
Speaker 1: which is Point Nemo, which is something that well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it to me, it's it's on my bust bucket list,
Speaker 1: but it's only because I'm so ignorant of what that
Speaker 1: exactly means. You know, I've looked at it on the map,
Speaker 1: and I've I've cruised around on Google Earth, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: that is really really far from land in any direction.
Speaker 4: So for the for the listener and the viewer, Point
Speaker 4: Nemo is it is the most remote point on the planet.
Speaker 1: The furthest away from furthest away.
Speaker 4: From land, and there's nothing there, so there's no actual
Speaker 4: It's a point on a map it's not it's not
Speaker 4: an island, it's not a point of land. It is
Speaker 4: just to point on the map that is the furthest
Speaker 4: way from anything else.
Speaker 1: It's so far from anything else that that is where
Speaker 1: the International Space Agencies drop all their trash, like the
Speaker 1: like all of all the secrets, we're not going to
Speaker 1: get invested here, all of the all of the yeah,
Speaker 1: all of the satellites. That's where they plan to bring
Speaker 1: the International Space Station out of a little bit. So
Speaker 1: I think you probably want to time it to make
Speaker 1: sure either.
Speaker 3: That you're there. That could be kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, either you want to make sure you're there
Speaker 1: on that day or you want to make sure that
Speaker 1: you're not a little nimble though I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that would all just come down to chance.
Speaker 1: But that would be pretty neat to see the space
Speaker 1: station come out of the come out of.
Speaker 4: The I think the rarity of some of these achievements,
Speaker 4: like the Northwest Passage is so dog bark was when
Speaker 4: we did that, it was number two hundred and ninety
Speaker 4: six something like that. As far as the number of
Speaker 4: private trips that had gone through and some of those
Speaker 4: what it's not two hundred ninety six boats. It was
Speaker 4: two hundred ninety six trips. Because there's yeah, we met
Speaker 4: a few people who had done that, done it five
Speaker 4: or six times.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and very few of those are It's a
Speaker 2: very small circle of people who are doing that regularly.
Speaker 5: And then there's a crossed an Arctica. I mean, that's
Speaker 5: very rare.
Speaker 2: It's pretty similar that. I think, you know the differences
Speaker 2: up there. Change is happening at a rate that I
Speaker 2: think it's in the press all the time. You know,
Speaker 2: we're Canada in particular, is really investing in that area.
Speaker 2: I think it's going to be.
Speaker 6: An important geopolitical.
Speaker 2: Conversation for all of us.
Speaker 5: First, it will ultimately be a very viable commercial route.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that has been the goal. It's right
Speaker 2: now it is not a very viable commercial route, but
Speaker 2: unless you have a submarine, in which case it's a fine.
Speaker 4: We went into one of the Inuit villages that we
Speaker 4: visited and we're talking to some locals and he looked
Speaker 4: at me really serious, and he kind of whispered and
Speaker 4: he said.
Speaker 3: Did you see any submarines?
Speaker 4: Like, we didn't see any submarines, because there can like
Speaker 4: a lot of folks will see stuff up there that
Speaker 4: kind of shows up and then disappears. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of traffic that nobody really knows about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes sense, and that you know, those passages
Speaker 2: count too, but we don't know very much about.
Speaker 4: I think a combination of the global weather opening that
Speaker 4: up and changing the ice flows in the seasons, and
Speaker 4: then I think also shared knowledge. It's a lot easier
Speaker 4: for people to use the Internet in different modes of communication,
Speaker 4: to be able to share how to do it and
Speaker 4: the way.
Speaker 2: I mean it's some of the same starlink is Starlink
Speaker 2: enabled all kinds.
Speaker 3: Of staring the entire time.
Speaker 2: The first time I went up there, we were not
Speaker 2: you know, we were using a radium based systems Iridium
Speaker 2: Go basically you know that sort of hunt and peck emails,
Speaker 2: glorified texting by and startling. Four of us could basically
Speaker 2: be talking to work or the coast Guard or whoever
Speaker 2: at the same time.
Speaker 4: And we had we had immediate access to government issued
Speaker 4: in scientific ice charts, right, so they're really racking down ice.
Speaker 2: Load pictures of ice every twelve hours or so.
Speaker 4: And then we could overlay wind patterns on top of
Speaker 4: those to predict where the Ice was going to move
Speaker 4: to Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2: So it was really the tech has changed the game
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 5: If you think about it.
Speaker 1: Just two years before that, when you and I crossed
Speaker 1: the Pacific, Brian, we didn't have starlink, No, we had
Speaker 1: we had very expensive like it was like eight thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a month.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was.
Speaker 4: It was AKVH GIMBALEDKVH satellite ball that was in like
Speaker 4: this egg on the bottom back of the boat.
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Speaker 7: You can find it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
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Speaker 4: As eight grand a month, yes, right, and when you
Speaker 4: got when you got up into the northern latitudes, the
Speaker 4: further north you got, the less coverage you had because
Speaker 4: the satellite for so low in orbit.
Speaker 1: And plus combined with the heel of the boat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that was one of the challenges. The satellite
Speaker 1: could only get heel over, it could only heal over
Speaker 1: so far before it lost connection.
Speaker 4: Right, But starlink now makes complete. So we used starlink.
Speaker 4: We used they were Canadian issued ice chart.
Speaker 2: Yes, the Canadians really do a nice job.
Speaker 4: And then we used predict wind quite a bit for
Speaker 4: the wind patterns for you, as I use that for
Speaker 4: Lake Roosevelt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, same thing.
Speaker 2: The technology. I mean, these are shared technologies that I think,
Speaker 2: you know, it's not just for sailors or for boaters.
Speaker 2: I think that I use Windy as another app. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you were that's the one that Windy is outstanding.
Speaker 2: It's outstanding when you want to see pre SIP moving
Speaker 2: across an area, you know, the satellite radar is all there,
Speaker 2: and to have all that on your phone in real time,
Speaker 2: it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: We had I think we had two or three garment
Speaker 4: in reaches on there, and we had another Iridium system
Speaker 4: that was still on the boat that was still doing
Speaker 4: I was pinging somebody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually that was the tracker. So the rideom Go
Speaker 2: provided the tracking data for predict whens so that you
Speaker 2: could see in real time where a dog bark was
Speaker 2: as we were moving across. Yeah, that's a pretty good
Speaker 2: use of that kind of low bandwidth technology.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we definitely you know, I think trips like that
Speaker 4: into those remote areas on a sailboat, you really start
Speaker 4: to appreciate redundancies. And we experience that in overlanding. You
Speaker 4: have a couple of different systems that might back things up.
Speaker 4: You've got some spares, you've got some emergency kits. But
Speaker 4: I'll remember that we so dog Bark has two autopilot systems,
Speaker 4: and when you're doing a trip like that, the autopilot
Speaker 4: becomes another very valuable crew member. And we had a
Speaker 4: few experiences with one system that was getting very confused
Speaker 4: because of the magnetic goodness. Yeah, the magnetic discrepancies up
Speaker 4: in those high latitudes.
Speaker 2: Anybody who talks about the magnetic North Pole as a
Speaker 2: as a fixed place, it hasn't been there, and it
Speaker 2: moves and there is interference in the area, and you
Speaker 2: can quite literally watch your compass around like this and
Speaker 2: you think, I don't think we're at the North Pole.
Speaker 4: I think the first time we realized that the boat
Speaker 4: actually did a three sixty wow, like we were like,
Speaker 4: what is it? Very very slowly, but we realized that
Speaker 4: we're pointing the wrong direction, and it did a full
Speaker 4: circle all on.
Speaker 2: Its own, and and so magnetic compasses are good for
Speaker 2: a lot of things, a lot of places, but maybe
Speaker 2: not there.
Speaker 4: So we were able to switch from you switch from
Speaker 4: one system to the other while you recalibrate the first one,
Speaker 4: switch back and forth. It was just the redundancies and
Speaker 4: a lot of the spare party.
Speaker 5: You basically have to input the declination from.
Speaker 2: The Yeah, you can do that manually with the older autopilot.
Speaker 2: The newer one wants you to drive around in circles
Speaker 2: until it figures.
Speaker 3: It all out.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, you know, the poll is moving, and so it
Speaker 2: had a heck of a time trying to auto calibrate.
Speaker 2: I think we kind of had to force it eventually
Speaker 2: we did.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: So let's let's talk a little bit about your experience
Speaker 1: adventuring in the world of overland.
Speaker 5: So you tell us about the lank Is you've got.
Speaker 2: So I have I have an old So it's a
Speaker 2: it's a two thousand and six land cruiser, so it's
Speaker 2: not that old, but it's not that new either, yep.
Speaker 5: And it is vehicle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're great, and it's you know, it's sort of
Speaker 2: a workhourse. So I have that on a first gen
Speaker 2: tundra that is the Ignick truck that you know has
Speaker 2: the roof tops and desk boxes, and basically we drive
Speaker 2: that truck. One of the perks I'm a little pump
Speaker 2: for Ignick here, but one of the perks of working
Speaker 2: for Ignick is that somebody has to drive that truck
Speaker 2: to these shows, which is an opportunity to have a
Speaker 2: week long camping experience. And so we we do, you know,
Speaker 2: the five overland shows we do in the wintertime. We
Speaker 2: do like snow on snow stuff, and so we spend
Speaker 2: you know, upwards of thirty days a year sleeping in
Speaker 2: in the truck. Yes, actually sometimes on asphalt down here.
Speaker 2: At least you guys have gus under this ring.
Speaker 5: Not so much.
Speaker 2: Camp is something exactly.
Speaker 3: Not my fault.
Speaker 2: Find me a holiday, but but yeah, we The ability
Speaker 2: to work in an environment that you truly enjoy is
Speaker 2: something that I did not learn right away in life.
Speaker 2: I've worked, I've done all kinds of stupid things professionally,
Speaker 2: but but working in the space makes the work fun.
Speaker 2: And so you know, we we laugh about who's yeah,
Speaker 2: I gotta drive the truck down to flag Staff. Know,
Speaker 2: we were fighting over who gets down there.
Speaker 1: Because you guys are based out of the Pacific Cambridge Island,
Speaker 1: so that is that's a beautiful the world.
Speaker 2: We're happy to be there. Yeah, but you know we
Speaker 2: kind of travel all over the west. Yeah, we don't
Speaker 2: drive to the East show so that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we did a few years and there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with Overland Expo East. But for whatever reason, Brian and
Speaker 1: I are cursed with weather, Like the weather.
Speaker 3: Was so the hurricane show.
Speaker 1: It was so bad for us one year that parked
Speaker 1: cars like with nobody in them. We're sliding down the
Speaker 1: hill at and like piling up at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the hill. I was like, you know, maybe the universe
Speaker 1: is telling me that this isn't the show.
Speaker 3: There were three or four years in a row they
Speaker 3: they had.
Speaker 5: I'm all about it.
Speaker 4: There are a hurricane a few years in a row
Speaker 4: that just we get right on the edge of the
Speaker 4: cell and it just saturated everything.
Speaker 2: It was such a beautiful place. It is and we
Speaker 2: actually all these shows have interesting opportunities and challenges, right,
Speaker 2: you know this one is it's glorious on the market here.
Speaker 2: I think So Cal Market is the most stoked overland.
Speaker 2: They really are, and they're crazy here.
Speaker 3: You got a lot of folks coming right out of
Speaker 3: La this whole area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm also seeing just a very different attitude,
Speaker 1: like people are here just to have fun for the day,
Speaker 1: Whereas I think that the folks that are making the
Speaker 1: trip the flag Staff, they're a little bit more deeply committed,
Speaker 1: they're mate and I think that there's a little bit
Speaker 1: more strongly opinionated as well. It's like, whereas these southern
Speaker 1: California folks are like, I'm out here with my kids
Speaker 1: for the day.
Speaker 5: I love my Tacoma, Like this, what are you cooking?
Speaker 1: I'm seeing a really a really great attitude out of
Speaker 1: the people that are attending this show, which I think
Speaker 1: is really.
Speaker 2: Neat and we need more of that. I mean, it
Speaker 2: is you know, it is work, and you know we
Speaker 2: talked about consequences earlier, but it should also be fun.
Speaker 5: It should be fun.
Speaker 2: So seeing these people here have fun, They're whooping and
Speaker 2: hollering out there right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is definitely a family environment.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing tons of which is you know, you don't
Speaker 1: have an industry. You don't have a business if you
Speaker 1: don't have young people involved with it, if you don't
Speaker 1: see kids. We can see a lot of families here,
Speaker 1: which I think is really encouraging. Well, i'd love to
Speaker 1: I'd love to circle a little bit into some of
Speaker 1: your professional experience, because you mentioned to me last night
Speaker 1: that you would you've sold three businesses, which when we
Speaker 1: were talking earlier before we started to hit the record button,
Speaker 1: it's only four percent of business owners that get to
Speaker 1: a successful exit. They all exit in one way or
Speaker 1: yet it's not a successful Yeah, it's not a successful exit.
Speaker 1: It's you know that they've had they got to shut
Speaker 1: their business down, or they they've gotten into so much
Speaker 1: debt that they can't carry the load anymore, or they
Speaker 1: time out physically. I've heard that the number one reason
Speaker 1: why businesses fail is because the founder runs out of energy.
Speaker 5: They literally they.
Speaker 1: Wake up one day and they say that the prospects
Speaker 1: of going forward feel more daunting than the prospect of failure.
Speaker 1: So I would love to hear a little bit from
Speaker 1: you about, like, what what are the things that you
Speaker 1: learned in three successful exits, which has got to be
Speaker 1: in the point zero zero zero kind of time range
Speaker 1: of success.
Speaker 2: So I truly think that being an entrepreneur is it's
Speaker 2: one of the hardest things that anybody can choose, and
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people, all of us, actually
Speaker 2: made those choices without knowing what we were getting into.
Speaker 2: There is a leap of faith that is required to
Speaker 2: do this, and that blissful ignorance allows you to say,
Speaker 2: I got this right. And I think that you know,
Speaker 2: the entrepreneurial process is the is going from I got
Speaker 2: this to and not knowing how to when you land.
Speaker 2: In order to stick the landing, you've got to you've
Speaker 2: got to be able to take the how and build
Speaker 2: it into a business sure, so that it isn't us
Speaker 2: doing all of the work. The processes have to be
Speaker 2: built out. But I think that so what you said
Speaker 2: about entrepreneurs who bonk, essentially who run out of energy
Speaker 2: for the job, it really resonates with me because the
Speaker 2: middle of the night, you can't get to sleep, How
Speaker 2: are we going to make payroll? How are we gonna
Speaker 2: How am I going to survive this? I don't know.
Speaker 2: Pick up recent catastrophe COVID or supply chain disruptions or
Speaker 2: terriff impacts, whatever it is, all of those things can
Speaker 2: be totally terrifying. And my attitude is we'll figure it out.
Speaker 3: A lot of resilience.
Speaker 2: Resilience and the blissful ignorance. Confidence also belief in your
Speaker 2: people that you know it's not I got this, but
Speaker 2: there's some we to that. But I think that at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, it comes down to.
Speaker 5: Persistence and persist today.
Speaker 2: Persistence is I'm not gonna quit today. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to bulk today, and I don't have the answers. You know,
Speaker 2: being honest with yourself that not having the answers doesn't
Speaker 2: mean the show is over. It just means we're gonna
Speaker 2: We're gonna have to keep trying stuff and maybe we're
Speaker 2: gonna fail, fail quickly, and don't let the mistakes that
Speaker 2: we all make sink the boat.
Speaker 3: Well, And when you say not fail, not all failures
Speaker 3: the end.
Speaker 2: Of the day, right, not of fact, it allows for Frankly,
Speaker 2: bankruptcy is not the end of the day. There are
Speaker 2: I mean, you can recover from almost anything if you
Speaker 2: are dumb enough, tough enough, stubborn enough, brilliant enough, or
Speaker 2: lucky enough.
Speaker 1: I think that those handfuls a definitely except for the brilliant,
Speaker 1: I definitely had luck and dumb enough.
Speaker 2: And if those things, I don't think there's any secret sauce.
Speaker 2: Persistence is the word that I use to describe, you know,
Speaker 2: the willingness kind of not to give up, and not
Speaker 2: not so much not to give up, but to keep
Speaker 2: trying to find solutions. That for me, it's the belief
Speaker 2: that sooner or later somebody's going to solve this problem.
Speaker 2: Why not me, you know? And I think that is
Speaker 2: and luck, you know, luck, I mean, there's there is
Speaker 2: no I would love to say that, you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's brilliant, but it's kind of the other four things
Speaker 2: that that actually get you through.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think about it.
Speaker 1: Even in this industry that there there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of people that were way smarter than me, right, that
Speaker 1: didn't make it right.
Speaker 5: And I think a lot of.
Speaker 1: Times, I mean I can think back so many times
Speaker 1: where I was like, I don't know how we're going
Speaker 1: to make it, and then Brian would call me up
Speaker 1: and he'd be like, Scotty, I just got this contrast,
Speaker 1: and it's just like out of nowhere, we were saved
Speaker 1: for another day, and it just gave us. It gave
Speaker 1: us enough momentum to be able to build a reputation
Speaker 1: and to be able to deliver on our vision and
Speaker 1: it allowed us to survive. And I know that you know,
Speaker 1: it's very We've talked about that, you and I have
Speaker 1: where like it's very easy to have that survivorship bias
Speaker 1: of like I made all these great decisions. I'm not
Speaker 1: so convinced of that, especially for myself. I think that
Speaker 1: I had great people. I had people that I trusted,
Speaker 1: that I worked with, that we all worked on the
Speaker 1: same level I was. I never felt like I was
Speaker 1: the guy in charge because I wanted everybody to be
Speaker 1: able to make decisions without me because I was gone
Speaker 1: a lot, I traveled a lot. So I think that
Speaker 1: we had timing on our side. I think we had
Speaker 1: a lot of luck on our side. And I think
Speaker 1: we had just enough time to build a reputation that
Speaker 1: people wanted to work with us, and it got us
Speaker 1: through it.
Speaker 5: But it's very tough. It's very tough.
Speaker 2: Well, so the quality I've been a fan of Overland
Speaker 2: Journal might kind of since the first one was put
Speaker 2: in my hands. It was beautiful, world class work. So
Speaker 2: that's that's something too. I mean, you have to you
Speaker 2: have to have you have to have something that you
Speaker 2: are uniquely good at. Yeah, and you guys made me
Speaker 2: come to my cabin on Mount Rain. Hear there are
Speaker 2: old episodes, you know, sitting next to the toilet.
Speaker 3: Sorry, there there however, and it is.
Speaker 2: That inspiration is still there for me, and that's pretty cool,
Speaker 2: you know. I think in my case it's less about
Speaker 2: that sort of artistic brilliant. For me, it was there
Speaker 2: are all of these problems, and you know we our
Speaker 2: products are not perfect. We make mistakes, but we also
Speaker 2: fix mistakes. Right, So if making a mistake once it's
Speaker 2: pretty easy to do, pretty pretty normal, that's that's life people.
Speaker 2: But your ability to convert that into learning and to
Speaker 2: use that learning to move forward, I think, you know
Speaker 2: that's the ignect secrets of us. You know, we're not
Speaker 2: We are here to fix stuff that bothers us about,
Speaker 2: like products should don't need to necessarily create waste. And
Speaker 2: if we can make products that are a little more sustainable,
Speaker 2: and each product, but each generation becomes a little more sustainable,
Speaker 2: that's progress. And I think that product companies need to
Speaker 2: be able to make progress if they're going to stay
Speaker 2: in business.
Speaker 1: And so for us, that's one thing I would say
Speaker 1: that you did a great job of, too, is that
Speaker 1: you identified where's the greatest opportunity in this area of
Speaker 1: discipline which you guys have, which is around heating or
Speaker 1: swarming people around a campfire and also preparing food. It's
Speaker 1: very common thing that everybody does when they go camping,
Speaker 1: but it's there's more and more fire restrictions than every before.
Speaker 1: So if you were to go into business to say, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm going to make a really beautiful camping fire tray
Speaker 1: for wood fires, I don't know if that's a good idea.
Speaker 1: It's going to get harder and harder to sell it.
Speaker 2: That would be something you might want to learn from. Right,
Speaker 2: you might say, huh, so sparks are not a good idea.
Speaker 2: How do we do this without sparks? How do we
Speaker 2: do this with a non off switch? How do we
Speaker 2: The hardest problems can be broken down into relatively simple things,
Speaker 2: and you don't have to solve every problem all the
Speaker 2: way all at once. It's okay to say this is
Speaker 2: better than you know what went before, and I think
Speaker 2: you know if you can, Rather than like my wife
Speaker 2: is a perfectionist, I am.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I'm about progress. Like let us just let us make
Speaker 2: a difference a little bit out of time, rather than
Speaker 2: trying to solve the world's problems at.
Speaker 4: Once, you are also filling a void and solving problems
Speaker 4: or filling a need that maybe not everybody realizes is there. Right,
Speaker 4: So Overland Journal has always been very unique offering.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: There was never anything like it before, and there's other
Speaker 4: really truly nothing still like it. Yeah, and you know
Speaker 4: with Ignick, you have talked to me before about this
Speaker 4: a pretty significant passion about green gas bottles. Yeah, the
Speaker 4: disposable green bottles that everybody and so you guys took
Speaker 4: that as a bit of a challenge and said, we're
Speaker 4: going to find a.
Speaker 5: Solution for that to reuse them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, to eliminate the need for them, yea, to
Speaker 2: have a reusable solution. And you know, honestly, if I
Speaker 2: could have replaced green bottles with something like today, we
Speaker 2: make a one pound refillable cylinder that is essentially a
Speaker 2: one for one replacement for the green bottle, and that's
Speaker 2: called the tap rack. But we didn't. We came out
Speaker 2: of the Arctic the first time in twenty eighteen and
Speaker 2: started Ignick. It's taken us that long to get to
Speaker 2: a solution, but our first solution was, let's get a
Speaker 2: refillable propane tank that is small enough and portable enough
Speaker 2: and has a handle and maybe hoses in a afters
Speaker 2: that you can use it to do the work of
Speaker 2: a green bottle and refill it easily. That we called
Speaker 2: the gas growler. That was the sort of the first thing,
Speaker 2: but for us, that was a perfect example of this
Speaker 2: is better than those things that I don't still don't
Speaker 2: know how to throw away. It's got its limitations. And
Speaker 2: then we eventually got to the tap wreck, which is
Speaker 2: a sort of a take these four one pound bottles
Speaker 2: to the service station, put propane in them. Here's my
Speaker 2: three dollars, let's go. You know, it's now a much
Speaker 2: more convenient solution than trying to shrink a barbecue propane
Speaker 2: tank down to a portable size.
Speaker 3: And coming out of the Arctic. The first time, it
Speaker 3: was the handwarmers.
Speaker 2: Well, the hand warmers. There was a whaling camp that
Speaker 2: I can't tell anybody about, but I can't shut up about.
Speaker 2: We're at a whaling camp and they were living in
Speaker 2: the whalers. We're living in shipping containers, and they were
Speaker 2: heating the shipping containers with those little screw on catalytic
Speaker 2: eaters screw onto one pound bottles and I walked into
Speaker 2: that shipping container and I was like, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: And you know there obviously it takes a lot of
Speaker 2: one pound bottles to heat a shipping container. And you know,
Speaker 2: we show up, we've got these aluminum lightweight refillable or
Speaker 2: composite lightweight refillable tanks, and I would just why. And
Speaker 2: it comes down to awareness, right, it's not I think
Speaker 2: many people don't know that propane tanks come in almost
Speaker 2: any size.
Speaker 5: You want.
Speaker 2: Now, buy the tank with the specs that you need,
Speaker 2: buy any nick tank, buy another whatever, it doesn't matter,
Speaker 2: but buy one that's right for your needs, and then
Speaker 2: refill it rather than.
Speaker 3: Try to access access.
Speaker 2: I mean, I hear that all the time now that
Speaker 2: there are so many good refillable solutions. I ask people, well,
Speaker 2: so why are you still using green bottles? And they're like,
Speaker 2: you know, for me, it's one hundred miles to get
Speaker 2: to anywhere that I can get a propane And I
Speaker 2: was just like, well, you need a bigger propane tank, right, sure, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's again that's a solvable problem.
Speaker 4: But along with the businesses that you've been involved in,
Speaker 4: you also seem to be quite a like almost on
Speaker 4: an engineering side.
Speaker 3: You're a product designer.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I remember we were on dog Bark.
Speaker 4: And I and you've got we've got the Christmas tree
Speaker 4: of headlamps, right, so it's a vertical pull and all
Speaker 4: these headlamps.
Speaker 3: Strapped to it.
Speaker 4: And I grab a headlamp and I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I've got the same one at home. And I said
Speaker 4: I really like this one. And you kind of chimed
Speaker 4: in and said yeah, but it's got this problem.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I don't know. It works pretty well,
Speaker 3: and he goes, no, I designed it. I know all
Speaker 3: about the problems.
Speaker 2: Joking back camp being headlamp designer. There a bunch of
Speaker 2: closet headlamp designers running around, so yes, we did do
Speaker 2: I did a bunch of lighting design I actually my
Speaker 2: background's weird. I graduated from school and I moved to Taiwan.
Speaker 2: I worked in electronics.
Speaker 5: Mean, incredible, how long did you live there?
Speaker 2: I lived in Taiwan, So I worked for a Taiwanese multinationals.
Speaker 2: I lived in Taiwan for four years. But I also
Speaker 2: we had a factory in Thailand. So I mean getting
Speaker 2: paid to work in you know, amazing places is the gig.
Speaker 2: I learned that at like twenty three. You mean, you're
Speaker 2: paying me to be to work in Thailand, let's do this?
Speaker 5: Amazing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I did that. I did that until the
Speaker 2: mid nineties. I moved back because of the woman that
Speaker 2: I am currently married to. Amazing, but I did. I
Speaker 2: did a good stint in Asia.
Speaker 3: And how many languages are you up to?
Speaker 5: So I speak?
Speaker 2: I speak Chinese pretty fluently.
Speaker 5: That that's pretty useful.
Speaker 2: And I can swear in a couple more languages.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: No. I think that having the ability to live abroad
Speaker 2: and to experience cultures is another one of those things
Speaker 2: that I think transforms humans. And I you know, I'm
Speaker 2: preaching to the crowd obviously, but you know, if we
Speaker 2: could get you know, our kids to travel more, and
Speaker 2: that's about the best thing that we could do to
Speaker 2: make better humans because they have it. It makes them independent,
Speaker 2: it makes them competent, and it gives them It gives
Speaker 2: them a sort of awareness that our perspectives aren't People
Speaker 2: don't necessarily may look different, they may speak differently, but
Speaker 2: but you know, they've also got really different problems in
Speaker 2: some of the other places. So you go to the
Speaker 2: Arctic and they are humans that are really worthy of respect. Yes,
Speaker 2: they they live their life. Challenges are real life challenges,
Speaker 2: and you know it gives you context when you know,
Speaker 2: I can't connect my phone to the internet. That's not
Speaker 2: a life challenge.
Speaker 4: You come back from traveling to some areas like that,
Speaker 4: and it's what you thought were problems before you left
Speaker 4: art in.
Speaker 2: Significant it really you know, it's reassuring to me come
Speaker 2: back and how are we going to make payroll? We'll
Speaker 2: figure that out. And you know we do not have
Speaker 2: polar bears in the backyard.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: We can let our kids go and play in the backyard,
Speaker 2: so it's different.
Speaker 1: One of the things I wanted to ask you about,
Speaker 1: Graham is you know you've done how many hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of miles have you sailed around the world.
Speaker 5: Let's get a number.
Speaker 2: I don't let's say more than one hundred. Brian was
Speaker 2: asking me, so I it's probably more than that. So
Speaker 2: I my dad was a commercial fisherman. I did thirteen
Speaker 2: or fourteen seasons, you know, on fishing boats, and those
Speaker 2: miles are hard to count. But we're kind of running
Speaker 2: from California to Alaska. The months on the water so
Speaker 2: you can months on the water every year. So I
Speaker 2: probably did forty or fifty thousand miles as you know,
Speaker 2: as a kid, as a young adult, and then I
Speaker 2: got into sailboats and started racing sail boats. I've done seven,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of Hawaii trips from either Alaska down
Speaker 2: to Hawaii or a bunch of racing from mostly from
Speaker 2: California and Washington.
Speaker 5: And that boat that you have is meant for that.
Speaker 1: In fact, yea, if I remember, that boat has won
Speaker 1: the trans Pact several times, right.
Speaker 2: I think three times? Three times. Yeah, So it's uh,
Speaker 2: the boat's fast. But I've done it on a bunch
Speaker 2: of other boats. I've done on really modern race carbon
Speaker 2: fiber raceboats.
Speaker 3: Some of the listeners might know more than we think.
Speaker 7: So it's.
Speaker 2: A It is a carbon fiber rocket ship. Everything on
Speaker 2: it is carbon and they are capable of insane speeds
Speaker 2: really some of the funnest things that ever. It doesn't foil,
Speaker 2: but it planes like crazy. So you know you're you're
Speaker 2: sailing down wind that twenty five twenty five not plus
Speaker 2: top speed on twenty twenty eight dog barks top speed
Speaker 2: twenty eight twenty nine knots. You know, these boats when
Speaker 2: they're set up to go down when they fly, but
Speaker 2: from a living experience, what you have here is so
Speaker 2: much more comfortable. So you're in this carbon fiber tunnel,
Speaker 2: and there are fourteen of us in this carbon fiber tunnel.
Speaker 2: We have bunks that are this wide carbon tubing, and
Speaker 2: you get into your sort of pipe berth. You ratchet
Speaker 2: the pipe berd up so you can't fall out because
Speaker 2: the boat is flying through the air and jumping off waves,
Speaker 2: and so you squish yourself on the high side of
Speaker 2: the boat against the wall as tight as you can,
Speaker 2: and you attempt to sleep for four hours before you
Speaker 2: get up and do it again. And so use headlamps
Speaker 2: twenty four hours a day because there's no light down
Speaker 2: there whatsoever. It's a really different people do that strange
Speaker 2: things for.
Speaker 3: Fun, doing it for fun.
Speaker 1: It's all for fun, but how much learning comes out
Speaker 1: of racing that they can then experien in regular sales well.
Speaker 2: And the things we do with Dynama and you know
Speaker 2: that even carbon all that you know that comes from
Speaker 2: the Bleeding Edge, which is the TP fIF two fleet. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the Spectra and you know all of the high
Speaker 2: end ultra light backpacks all of that tech.
Speaker 3: We used to work with. Was it Viking. We used
Speaker 3: to work with a recovery.
Speaker 4: Equipment company, all Icelandic Guys Icelandic fishing equipment. They were
Speaker 4: all fishermen, and so they were taking a lot of
Speaker 4: the rigging that they were using on the fishing boats
Speaker 4: and realized they could just recover vehicles with it because
Speaker 4: it was so.
Speaker 2: Strong, right, And I think that, you know, that's wonderful.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so many places that there's cross pollination.
Speaker 4: Yeah, even the soft shackle was on sailboats before it
Speaker 4: ever came into the vehicle recovery.
Speaker 1: And you know one of those pulley blocks that are
Speaker 1: used for recovery now. One of the things that I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask with all of those years of working
Speaker 1: in teams on sail boats and are high stress conditions
Speaker 1: crossing oceans with your own family, which is a totally
Speaker 1: different experience from a different a crew from a different
Speaker 1: Let's share with the listener some of the things that
Speaker 1: you've learned through that, Like how has that changed you
Speaker 1: as a person? Like how how is Graham different today
Speaker 1: after all of that learning than thirty years ago?
Speaker 2: So I think, you know, I have more appreciation for
Speaker 2: what humans are capable of. It is I mean, and
Speaker 2: small children are their amazing clay for creativity. They become,
Speaker 2: you know, the most interesting people in the world very
Speaker 2: quickly if they are truly challenged. Yeah, I am about
Speaker 2: as far from being a helicopter parent as you can.
Speaker 2: I'm a parachute parent, like strap them in, check them,
Speaker 2: tell me how, you're probably gonna make it to the
Speaker 2: ground sooner or later. But I believe that we learn
Speaker 2: by doing, and to some degree we learn by failing,
Speaker 2: and kids learn so much faster than we do as
Speaker 2: adults that it's a crying shame that we aren't torching
Speaker 2: our children more because there's so much learning opportunity there now.
Speaker 2: I really believe that people have to get out and
Speaker 2: have adventures and become uncomfortable, find their comfort zones, stretch
Speaker 2: their comfort zones, and I just think that their lives
Speaker 2: will be so much richer if they can do that.
Speaker 2: And my threshold for pain is different than other people.
Speaker 2: I think you can. I think the willingness to go
Speaker 2: out there and try stuff that maybe you don't understand
Speaker 2: and learn a little bit as you do. That it's
Speaker 2: wonderful and sailors are this group of people who are dreamers.
Speaker 2: And you know, the ability to execute on a dream
Speaker 2: is an amazing thing. That's how adventures happen, right, That's
Speaker 2: how expeditions succeed. Is you have to be crazy enough
Speaker 2: to dream something big, and then you have to be
Speaker 2: stubborn enough, persistent enough to execute on that dream. And
Speaker 2: that's how that's how great adventures have some bad ones too.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I completely agree.
Speaker 1: And it comes down to the realization that if we
Speaker 1: don't stretch ourselves, if we don't test ourselves on a
Speaker 1: regular basis, we can completely normalize to a fraction of
Speaker 1: our potential potential. So it's not just about having a
Speaker 1: big idea or a big dream. We've got to build
Speaker 1: ourselves up to that. In addition to having a big
Speaker 1: dream of driving around the world, or sailing around the world,
Speaker 1: or sailing in the Northwest Passage or whatever. I mean,
Speaker 1: Brian dreamt about doing that for as long as I've
Speaker 1: known him. Yeah, as long as I have twenty years
Speaker 1: I've known Brian. He is that has been a dream
Speaker 1: of his to cross the Northwest Passage. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: kept himself tuned up, kept himself he was pushing himself,
Speaker 1: crossing the Pacific, living for years on his sailboat with
Speaker 1: his wife Amy, and it put him in.
Speaker 5: A position that he could do it. And that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 5: And so it's it's not just.
Speaker 1: About having a big dream, although those are very important.
Speaker 1: That's fuel, that's like gets things going. But you've got
Speaker 1: to have the ability to do it.
Speaker 5: You got to keep pushing yourself, learning new things, building
Speaker 5: your skills, building relationships with others.
Speaker 4: That's part of it, a big part of it, right,
Speaker 4: And being able to share those dreams, even to voice it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: We met in the basement of the Sans Convention Center
Speaker 4: during shot show and I think we had written an
Speaker 4: article about Ignick and we were chit chatting and somehow
Speaker 4: we started talking about boats and sailing and I said
Speaker 4: Northwest Passage and he was like, wait what he said,
Speaker 4: Northwest Passage, And before you know it, it happened. In fact,
Speaker 4: I remember remember getting onto the boat because I had
Speaker 4: not met anybody else on the crew except for Graham,
Speaker 4: and I got on the boat and he Graham wasn't
Speaker 4: there yet. He kind of came in the next day
Speaker 4: and I I'm received by half the crew that was
Speaker 4: already there and they kind of got a little bit
Speaker 4: of the grilling, right, They're like, so, who are you
Speaker 4: and what do you mean You guys met that a
Speaker 4: trade show. You're now on this boat doing this thing,
Speaker 4: and and it you know, what a great crew, what
Speaker 4: a really flexible, friendly, welcoming group of people and all
Speaker 4: incredibly skilled and talented. And that's part of the reason
Speaker 4: we had such a great trip. But you know, that's
Speaker 4: how those things come about.
Speaker 2: But the ability to communicate clearly and forde relationships makes
Speaker 2: magic happen. And I think that for us, we were
Speaker 2: just we had similar dreams and you have to be
Speaker 2: able to arrange your life in a way that allows
Speaker 2: you to go take August except I mean the adventures.
Speaker 2: The adventures are hard and you have to be able
Speaker 2: to prioritize. You kind of have to train your family
Speaker 2: that this is who I am and you know we're
Speaker 2: going to have these strange adventures from time to time, and.
Speaker 3: Well, the support of the family goes along.
Speaker 2: It's impossible to I mean, it's not impossible to do
Speaker 2: these things alone.
Speaker 5: But boy, it's a lot less joyful, I think, right.
Speaker 2: And having you know someone who in the sailing world
Speaker 2: we call short support, but having someone who supports you
Speaker 2: makes whether that is making the you know, taking care
Speaker 2: of the kids, or whether that is calling the coast
Speaker 2: guard when you need help, right, short support is really
Speaker 2: really valuable. So I have some of the best short
Speaker 2: support on the planet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Graham, it's been it's been an inspiration to meet
Speaker 1: you and to hear your stories. I mean, I was
Speaker 1: my mind was, absolutely I was trying to watch the film.
Speaker 1: It was a great film, but the whole time I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: how cool is it that this guy has You've pursued
Speaker 1: your dreams as a professional, as an entrepreneur, but you've
Speaker 1: also given yourself big chunks of time to celebrate those
Speaker 1: successes and to go see the world with your family,
Speaker 1: and that is a rare thing. And I think that
Speaker 1: all of us need to be inspired. And having you
Speaker 1: on this podcast it's an inspiration for me and I
Speaker 1: know for Brian. Brian speaks so highly of you, and
Speaker 1: I'm just so excited that our listeners get to hear
Speaker 1: about what it means to sale around the world and
Speaker 1: how it so much of it translates to overlanding. You know,
Speaker 1: for those that are listening, just remember, like keep testing yourself,
Speaker 1: get uncomfortable, find the things that give you that little
Speaker 1: bit of a nod in your stomach because you're learning
Speaker 1: something new and you're testing yourself and your vehicle and
Speaker 1: your travel companions. And then forge relationships with people that
Speaker 1: have similar dreams and you'll be shocked what will happen
Speaker 1: when it all comes together. You might just find yourself
Speaker 1: staring at a pull bear across across in the Northwest passage.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's I couldn't have said it better. That's really how
Speaker 2: the magic happens. Yeah, you know, you guys have made
Speaker 2: it happen over and over again. I think this show
Speaker 2: is full of people who read about now are telling
Speaker 2: really interesting stories about where the you know, where their
Speaker 2: next adventure is or where their last one is. And
Speaker 2: that's what makes this so much fun, so really lucky
Speaker 2: to be able to do this.
Speaker 1: How do people find out more about your sailing adventures
Speaker 1: on dog bark and then give people, you know, just
Speaker 1: a quick insight on how to find out more about.
Speaker 2: Sure so ignick is I g n i K dot com.
Speaker 2: There's all kinds of information about our product there, and
Speaker 2: it's about our philosophies. And then if you're curious about
Speaker 2: saying you want to see pictures of Brian swimming in
Speaker 2: the Arctic. That is saledog bark dot com. And so
Speaker 2: that is the way to all along with us. We've
Speaker 2: actually got some stuff coming up, so I mentioned this.
Speaker 2: We're We're. The boat has overwintered in the maritime provinces
Speaker 2: of Canada. We're headed for Greenland and Iceland this summer.
Speaker 5: So amazing.
Speaker 2: You know there'll be more good content coming back.
Speaker 3: I have no doubt. And the website is a great blog. Yeah.
Speaker 4: We had a few folks on the boat did a
Speaker 4: great job of updating it regularly, some gifted photographers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one drone pilot.
Speaker 5: A fearless drone pilot.
Speaker 1: Every time I've attempted to fly a drone from a
Speaker 1: sailboat has been a near disaster.
Speaker 5: Every time the time near disaster.
Speaker 2: So we didn't lose a single drone.
Speaker 3: No, we didn't.
Speaker 2: You are And I've got another friend who's a very
Speaker 2: good drum pilot, but he lost a couple on dog marks.
Speaker 3: So good record.
Speaker 4: I got more and more confident the further along we went.
Speaker 4: The first day I was like, I'm not flying it,
Speaker 4: And after a while I was like, let's keep it
Speaker 4: right boy.
Speaker 2: Some of the iceberg footage was just amazing.
Speaker 3: It's a great, great backdrop.
Speaker 1: Well, Graham, thank you again for being on the podcast,
Speaker 1: and we thank you all for listening, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: to you next time.