Intrepid sailors Alex Whitworth and Peter Crozier are due to reach their
home port of Sydney today, ending the second of two remarkable circumnavigations in their little 10m sloop Berrimilla.
Members of their home clubs, the Royal Australian Navy Sailing Association
(RANSA) and the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, will meet Berrimilla when
she sails through Sydney Heads and will escort her to a berth
at the CYCA, where she is due about 12 noon.
Berrimilla’s final leg,  from Hobart to Sydney,  marks the end of their
second circumnavigation in Berrimilla – the first was a Sydney – Hobart
(Race) – Fastnet (Race) – Sydney – Hobart  (Race) combination of cruising
and racing, via Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope.  No other yacht has
sailed in both the Sydney Hobart in Australia and the Fastnet Race in
England in the one year and then sailed back to contest the Sydney Hobart.
The second circumnavigation has been a voyage from Australia to England
through the daunting North West Passage across the top of Canada to again
contest the Fastnet Race, and a delayed return voyage that took Whitworth
and Crozier in Berrimilla down to the French-owned Antarctic Kergelen
islands before reaching Hobart on 1 March.
After a week to spruce up the Brolga 33 and give her a much-need slipping
and anti-fouling,  Berrimilla and her crew set sail from the Royal Yacht
Club of Tasmania last Monday, 8 March. At noon today, Berrimilla was off
Ulladulla on the NSW South Coast after a fuelling stopover in Eden.
Berrimilla is the first yacht to circumnavigate the world under sail via the
North West Passage and the first to circumnavigate via both Cape Horn and
the North-West Passage – opposite ends of the Americas.
She is also the first Australian yacht to sail through the North-West
Passage unassisted and in a single season.