 Berrimilla arrives back in Sydney after her first circumnavigation, 21 December 2005 | |
| Yacht club |  Royal Australian Naval Sailing Association |
|---|---|
| Nation |  Australia |
| Class | Brolga 33 |
| Designer(s) | Peter Joubert |
| Builder | Baker |
| Launched | 1977 |
| Specifications | |
| Type | Monohull |
| Displacement | 6,933 kg |
| Length | 10.1 m (33.14 ft) |
| Beam | 3.1 m (10.17 ft) |
| Draft | 1.8 m (5.91 ft) |
| Sail area | Mainsail 21.43 m2 (231 sq ft) Fore triangle 39.25 m2 (422 sq ft) Spinnaker 88.09 m2 (948 sq ft) |
| Crew | 2–6 crew |
Berrimilla II is a 33 ftyacht, most famous for performing two remarkable circumnavigations and for being the 77th vessel to transit theNorth West Passage sinceAmundsen’sGjoa in 1903–06; her transit was the 114th (some vessels have done more than one). She was owned and skippered by Australian yachtsmanAlex Whitworth.[1]
Berrimilla's first circumnavigation began with the2004 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, continued via an unscheduled stop inDunedin, New Zealand, after a severe knockdown and on toCape Horn andPort Stanley in the Falkland Islands/Malvinas.
Thence she sailed direct toFalmouth, Cornwall, UK, talking with theInternational Space StationExpedition 10 along the way.
She finished 11th overall and second in her division in the 2005Fastnet race[2] and returned direct from Falmouth to Hobart and then to Sydney in time to start in the2005 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.
The voyage was first conceived as a passage from Sydney, Australia to Falmouth, UK via the North West Passage, with a stopover onDevon Island to meet up with a group ofNASA scientists to witness a totalsolar eclipse of August 1, 2008. The scientists were part of theHaughton-Mars Project, henceBerrimilla's blog was titled "Berrimilla Down-Under-Mars".
Berrimilla's voyage started on April 10, 2008. She sailed direct toAlaska from Sydney and then via the North West Passage to Falmouth, UK where she was laid up for the winter. The original intention was to return north of Russia to theBering Strait – theNorthern Sea Route – but the permit to do so arrived too late to complete the voyage safely before the winter freeze.Berrimilla sailed her second 2009 Fastnet race and returned to Australia viaLisbon,Cape Town and theKerguelen Islands in 2010.
Alex Whitworth wasBerrimilla's permanent skipper, and Peter Crozier, Corrie McQueen and Kimbra Lindus were part of the crew at different periods of two circumnavigations.
During the two circumnavigationsBerrimilla became the first and the only vessel to:
In the disastrous1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race,Berrimilla placed 1st in PHS Division.[3]