Greetings from Sweden!
Well, things are not looking good for ocean sailing right now, are they!? This will be another quick update going out to all current, former and future 59º North sailing crew, to keep you guys informed as to how we're handling the ongoing novel coronavirus crisis.
Last night President Trump issued guidelines for another 30 days of social distancing measures in the United States, where many of you are based. Similar measures have already been in effect in Europe and elsewhere. We had been expecting something like this, and had been considering a lengthy period of disruption two weeks ago when we recorded the first podcast about our contingency planning. If you haven't heard it yet, click here.
There's a lot we don't know yet, and won't know for some time…
Sailing into an uncertain future…
Here's what I can tell you as of today, March 30:
Despite my inherent optimism, the entire 2020 sailing season is looking less and less promising. If we can't get north by June, the boats will have to remain in the Caribbean during hurricane season, thereby disrupting the rest of the schedule.
However, we still really want to try to get the boats north - I have a list of volunteers who have offered to help if we need to put together a skeleton crew. That's still an option, so email andy@59-north.com if you want to be added to that list. If we do go, it'll be a last-minute decision once things open up, and will itself involve a lot of uncertainty regarding travel, quarantines, etc...but it'll be one hell of an adventure ;)
If we can safely run any of the trips this year, we will. However, if given the uncertainty of the situation you, as signed-on crew, want to 'opt out' of your passage this year, we won't hold it against you. Email us to confirm, and we'll transfer your deposit to another passage. We are not issuing refunds at this time, but will accomodate everyone eventually. You guys have been super supportive so far, and we really appreciate it.
If it turns out that we need to re-work the entire schedule, given the domino-effect nature of our passage calendar, you guys will be the first to know and will have first dibs on transferring your payments to the new schedule.
What We’re Focused On
This week we are looking out how we might be able to benefit from some of the small business loan programs just passed last week in Sweden and the USA, and hoping that we can keep our staff of awesome skippers, mates and shore support employed through the crisis.
As I've mentioned before, there is an increasing chance this will affect 2021's schedule, and we already have many crew signed on for passages next year. Suffice it to say, not much we can do about that today, but know that when the time comes, we'll work it out.
As I see it, the worst-case scenario for us remains simply losing a year here - we don't sail at all in 2020, and one year from today, in 2021, we pickup where we left off in the Caribbean, pushing all of 2020's trips to 2021, and in turn pushing 2021's passages to 2022. I really hope it doesn't come to that, but with international travel more uncertain now than perhaps ever, I'm not sure what else to say. And I think that's the most important thing here - I don't know how this will play out, and neither does anyone else! And that's okay.
In the meantime, we're working on delivering some online stuff for everyone, including workshops, videos, more podcasts, etc. and we hope to have something published in the next two weeks, so stay tuned for that.
Incidentally, one thing I'm doing personally to pass the time and stay healthy is getting more into the Wim Hof Method. This is a sort of breathing/meditation/cold exposure technique that I've dabbled with over the past three weeks, and today I started the full ten-week course. I've done the breathing exercises now for three weeks and I'm telling you, it's powerful stuff. I've tried meditation before but never found something that stuck. This is more physical and gives you an immediate physical and mental response, so I'm finding it is sticking and I'm more and more interested in it. So if you want to join me, I think Wim is offering 50% off the ten-week course due to the corona crisis, so check it out at wimhofmethod.com.
Otherwise, stay HOME, stay SAFE, stay HEALTHY and
HOLD FAST!
// Andy
