After two years of hard work, legendary ocean sailor Roger Taylor is close to completing his new pocket cruiser Mingming II. Although she was launched for sea trials last autumn (see YM March 2014), there was still a considerable amount of interior finishing work to do. Roger reports that the work is well on track, and that he is now planning his maiden voyage for the new boat.

As ever, this will be to the high Arctic, this time to the Barents Sea and the east of Spitsbergen.

If ice conditions allow his favoured route will be an anticlockwise circumnavigation of the Svalbard group. If possible he would like to have a look at Victoria Island, the most easterly of the Franz Josef Land islands.

‘As with all my voyages’ he says, ‘this is just a loose aspiration to get me heading into remote waters.’

The singlehanded sailor, boatbuilder and author has been ocean sailing for over 45 years. He built his first ocean-going yacht in his early twenties.