QUEEN OF THE ICE
In dialogue with Captain Maiwenn Beadle
No Captain is ‘just’ a Captain, but Maiwenn Beadle is remarkable in her accomplishments at the helm. Holding a <3000 GT licence and with over 30 years of experience, she has led multiple vessels through the Northwest Passage and Arctic waters. She has also commanded a 75-metre icebreaking expedition yacht in Svalbard and Greenland, while at the same time inspiring all those around her to look a little further – not only exploring a landscape, but embarking on voyages of discovery, to deepen our understanding and further our knowledge of the planet.
What expeditions from your career to date stand out for you personally?
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What does your role as an ‘Ice Advisor’ entail?
I joke with my clients, but there’s a lot more to it than saying “Don’t hit that, it’s hard!” As an Ice Navigator, I fulfil a vessel’s statutory obligations under Polar Code Manning requirements, Port and Flag state regulations, and their responsibilities to their insurers,
advising them how to safely navigate not just through ice but through the additional
challenges of Polar areas, such as poor charting and heightened environmental regulations. Navigation in the Polar areas can be very challenging, and extremely stressful for captains and crew. I help to train them so they come away with an understanding of how to drive in ice, how to read ice charts, the dangers of navigating with nothing on the charts, how to tell
what’s going on in an environment where the information is not what you would be used to, and how to find their way through this alien environment in a way that is both safe and ecologically sound. It’s about supporting them to make the correct decisions and find answers from a safe navigational point of view whilst retaining the feeling of adventure.
Why do you think the notion of exploration has seen such a boom in the superyacht sector?
I think there’s two sides to that. Firstly, there’s a difference between the boom in the marketing of the idea of an explorer yacht, and the boom in explorer yachting. I see a lot of vessels marketed as explorer yachts that plainly aren’t, it’s just an aesthetic - that plum bow, that slightly rugged work-boat look, and it’s an aesthetic which says: “I’m not your runof-the-mill tied-to-the-dock in Monaco kind of superyacht.” But that’s exactly what those boats are, with very limited real capability. Secondly, I think there’s been a rise in explorer ideology.
What interests you about partnering yachts with scientific research programmes?
I’m currently an Ice Navigator on a private yacht, which will visit Greenland in July and August. I love these trips that operate on the edge of science and yachting, serving as the point of interface. Again, looking at some of the Damen Yachting Yacht Support and Xplorers, there are lots of ways in which those boats can be specifically setup to take scientists to remote locations and have the vessel used as a base for research. I would love to meet an Owner who is interested in that same interface and take them on the journey of a lifetime.
What are some of the ways that Owners can support scientific projects outside of specific programmes?
Yachts For Science is an initiative that I must mention. For anyone with a superyacht, if you have a spare cabin or a week between charters or even during repositioning, then there are people that desperately need to be in those cruising areas and your boat can be used without it interfering with your plans or operational setup in any way. I also can’t reiterate enough how important it is to be feeding back measurements and data to research bodies. There’s equipment you can easily install that will report data back to scientists who need it. For example, fit a water flow through and take water temperatures. If you’re an Owner building a new boat, install a wide-angle sonar and then you can contribute to sea floor mapping data. Yes, yachting consumes, but it can also give back. I think this is a really interesting way of doing it.