On November 15, 2022, Zhai Mo returned to Shanghai, and people greeted him at the pier. Photo courtesy of interviewee
When the wind blows into the sails, the boat will go.
With a sailing ship as his home, relying only on the role of wind and sails - after 504 days and 28,000 nautical miles, on November 15, 54-year-old Zhai Mo completed the first sailing ship in human history to sail the Arctic Ocean without docking.
Zhai Moliu has long hair, a strong physique, and dark skin, which is in line with people's imagination of navigators. More than ten years ago, in 2007, he also initiated and completed a sailing voyage around the world. In addition, he has experienced many sailing cruises in the South Pacific and the Chinese Sea Frontier.
Zhai Mo appreciated the lyrics: "Build the house on the sea, I will only have my life adrift." "I think I was born of sailing and sailing.
So, what was his sailing experience like? Here's what he said:
Sailing around the Arctic Ocean is the most dangerous voyage
On June 30, 2021, two crew members and I set sail from Qinhuangdao Road Wharf in Yangpu, Shanghai, planning to sail around the Arctic Ocean in four months.
Our boat, called the "Global Communication", is 25 meters long and 7 meters wide, with four sails, and has good internal conditions, with a special wheelhouse, living room, bedroom and kitchen, but the pots and pans in the kitchen must be tied with ropes to prevent them from breaking when the waves are bumpy. The ship was accompanied by axes, medical kits, signal guns, cold sleeping bags, satellite communication equipment, etc., as well as books and drawing tools. The grain is mostly dry goods such as pancakes and yak jerky, and we have enough stocks for a year and a half, so we will not starve when the weather changes and the ships are frozen in the Arctic Ocean for a long time. They also bring some common fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, bananas, and potatoes, but the ships often bump and tilt during the voyage, and there are few conditions for cooking on fires.
I was at the helm, and after leaving Shanghai, the ship entered the Pacific Ocean via the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan. On July 24, 2021, we sailed through the Bering Strait and officially entered the Arctic Circle.
This is a beautiful but terrifying area, the sky is gray, the horizon is endless, and the ice floe area of more than 50 nautical miles is like a minefield, and there is a risk of the ice touching the hull at any time. And the further north you go, the larger the ice floe becomes, and when you cross Greenland, the iceberg appears, towering like a skyscraper. At many checkpoints, boats can only be kept on ice.
Two of my crew members, one from Xiamen and one from Russia, worked a 12-hour shift to watch the ice floes and icebergs at the bow of the ship. As the captain and helmsman, on the ship, I could only sleep, and after only two or three hours, I had to get up to check the rudder position and the direction of the ship. In places where ice floes are dense, the minimum speed of the boat is only 1 knot, or 1.85 kilometers per hour, which is slower than walking.
There have also been several crises: on August 25, 2021, off the east coast of Greenland, the ship encountered a polar cyclone with winds of more than ten degrees, and one of the four sails was not put away in time, but I immediately cut the sail ropes to avoid the danger of capsizing. In mid-September 2021, also near Greenland, the hull of the ship vibrated like a drum, and water seeped at the keel due to a collision with the underwater ice, but fortunately it was resolved by the automatic drainage system. Since entering the latitude above 75 degrees, due to the interference of the earth's magnetic field, the ship's electronic instruments have failed, and the ship has traveled for three days in visual estimation without danger. To sum up, it was the most dangerous voyage of my sailing career, during which I trembled with the crew and thought that it was good to die.
In late October 2021, we completed our Arctic Ocean circumnavigation, but the climate change exceeded expectations, and the original return to Shanghai had been frozen, so we had to continue westward into Canadian and American waters. This detour delayed the return to China by almost a year, and it was not until August 2022 that we sailed to Shanghai via the Cuba and Panama Canals.
On November 15, 2022, after 504 days, I arrived at the Shanghai Port International Passenger Terminal on the Global Pass and finally fulfilled my wish.
In fact, my wish to circumnavigate the Arctic Ocean has long been fulfilled. In 2002, I met a navigator named Hank in the Netherlands, who was nearly seventy years old and claimed to have sailed five and a half laps around the world, only to be tripped up by the Arctic Ocean, and his ship was frozen for nearly a year at the junction of the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea.
When I heard Hank reminisce about this failure, I had been sailing for about two years and was immediately excited to think that circumnavigation of the Arctic Ocean was a dream that would eventually be fulfilled in my sailing career.
Zhai Mo (right) and the crew on the Arctic Ocean, the water and sky are the same. Photo courtesy of interviewee
This blue planet belongs to me
In November 1968, I was born in Tai'an, Shandong Province to a family of miners. Growing up in such an inland city, I had no idea about the sea at one point.
When I was a child, I followed my father to fish in a small river in the mountains, sometimes using branches and stones to trace his appearance. My father bought me paint and drawing boards and sent me to learn to paint.
Later, I was admitted to the Shandong Academy of Arts and Crafts and gradually developed the style of "painting abstraction". Many years later, when I was alone above the ocean staring at the undulations, I would think of Monet's "Sunrise" and Turner's "Seascape Before the Storm."
After graduating, I first started photography at the Pearl River Film Studio, then shot commercials and experimental films alone, and finally returned to my old profession of painting.
In 2000, I went to Auckland, New Zealand, for an exhibition, and found that it is the authentic sailing capital, with an average of one in three people owning a sailing ship. On weekends, the sailboats on the sea stretch to the skyline. Auckland's sea is navy blue and the sandy beaches are dark; On a clear day, the clouds on the sea are within reach, and the scenery is really good.
Soon after, I was assisting a local friend in making a seafaring documentary and met a Norwegian navigator named David. David is also 70 years old, with rough facial lines and sharp angles, quite Hemingway's temperament. He said he was resting in Auckland to escape the typhoon season, after he had sailed a sailboat around the globe by 1.5 points.
I was amazed and asked him, do I need a license to sail? He said no, as long as there is a boat, even without applying for a visa in advance, I can go wherever I want, and I only need to go through simple customs clearance procedures when docked and disembarked abroad.
You know, 70% of the Earth is covered by oceans. This means that as long as I have a boat, this blue planet belongs to me. This strongly appealed to me – I wanted to sail freely at sea, to navigate the oceans freely.
So, immediately after this conversation, I asked David to pick me a cheap sailboat that could be piloted by one person. A month later, we found a suitable seller on an island near Auckland, and I bought a sailing boat that was more than 20 years old for less than 300,000 yuan. That's pretty much all my savings at the time.
The ship was 7 meters long and less than 2 meters wide, and I named it the "White Cloud".
The five-hour voyage back to Auckland from the island was a five-hour voyage, during which I was taught basic sailing skills such as steering, hoisting and tuning sails. Nearshore, I can already control the boat on my own.
Then I returned my rental house in Auckland and moved it to the White Cloud with a little luggage. The cabin has less than ten square meters of space, and only a fold-out sofa, a toilet and a little food storage can be placed. But this boat is my home.
At that time, I still didn't know anything about real sailing, but I couldn't hold it back. Less than twenty days after buying the ship, I set sail around New Zealand's North Island and into the South Pacific. I continued to teach myself to sail as I traveled, from interpreting compasses and charts to judging wind direction, currents, currents, and so on.
The test came quickly. When I was sailing to the sea near Tonga, I suddenly encountered low pressure weather, heavy rain, a dozen strong winds, waves more than ten meters high, the hull tilted 35 to 45 degrees, like a roller coaster. The bowl in the cabin shattered, and I fell a lot, cutting the soles of my feet.
The storm lasted two days, and I sewed my wounds myself, maneuvered the boat and barely moved forward, thinking, why should I buy this broken ship? If I can drift safely to a place, I will never sail again.
However, I could not help but cheer at the first dawn after the rain and the first rays of light on the horizon, the sight that overshadowed all the magnificent paintings. The thought of withdrawing disappeared. I went non-stop to Tuvalu, Tahiti and other islands in the South Pacific, and walked and rested for more than a year before returning to China.
Since then, my sailing life has never stopped. Before circumnavigating the Arctic Ocean, I had completed several voyages around the world.
In 2008, Zhai Mo sailed the Pacific Ocean. Photo courtesy of interviewee
"Build your house on the sea"
What is the experience of sailing?
On board, the sea is a faint fishy smell, a faint sound in the ears. In the sea between 15 and 30 degrees north and south, the wind direction is the most stable and sailing is the most enjoyable.
Most of the time, I like to sail alone, but rarely feel lonely - there are many things to do when sailing alone, stay focused, observe changes in wind and sea, and be at the helm almost 24 hours a day; My first ship, the White Cloud, had a handmade rudder, and I had to sleep with a rope to tie it to my leg to keep it on course. I also have a rope tied around my waist all day, the other end of which is tied to the hull, and once I fall into the water, I can climb back to the boat along the rope.
It is not advisable to bathe on the sailboat, only on rainy days can you wash the body, if you rinse with untreated seawater, the skin will be sticky. Injuries are commonplace, and I have experienced fractures and exposure wounds. Entertainment was also limited, and apart from resting and boating, I occasionally fished and drew pictures. The sea is often the subject of creation.
In 2015, Zhai Mo sailed the waters of the Gulf of Aden. Photo courtesy of interviewee
When I was a child, I used to use my imagination to depict the sea, with white clouds, seagulls flying, and the sun hanging high. After actually going to sea, I found that the sea is much richer than this. For example, the deep sea in the South Pacific is gray, and the offshore and shallow seas are blue; There are flying fish in the South Pacific, and like in the movie, they will fly in droves on my boat. In the terrifying ice floes of the Arctic Circle, I have seen seals and walruses congregating on the ice, dolphins swimming on the side of the ship, and whales spewing water jets very close to the ship. And when I sailed for a week in the Kara Sea region north of Siberia, I didn't see a single pack of ice – something unthinkable in the past, and it was on the way that I discovered that the effects of global warming were increasing day by day.
With the blessing of these spiritual forces, the physical suffering of navigation is no longer very important.
I became a family in 2010, I used to take my lover to sail between Rizhao and Qingdao, she was so seasick and dizzy that she thought she was not suitable for life on board, but she did not object to me sailing. Thanks to technology, in addition to cutting off the signal above 75 degrees north latitude, I was able to keep in touch with my family through satellite communication during the rest of the voyage.
At present, my Global Pass is docked at Shanghai Bailianjing Pier, and I still live on board. I don't own property on land, I bought and sold five sailing ships, and now this Global Pass is holding almost all my savings. I plan to fly alone to Antarctica in October next year and complete the circumnavigation of Antarctica in about seven months.
"Build a house on the sea, I will only have my whole life adrift." This is a lyric that I know very well. Above the ocean, I can always feel the joy of freedom.
Beijing News reporter Feng Yuxin
Edited by Hu Jie Proofread by Wang Xin