2027

FALKEN 2027
ISBJØRN 2027
SPECIAL PASSAGES 2027
FAQS
What’s included in the crew fee?
The crew fee for the passage includes everything you need on the boat, plus use of the following:
- Helly Hansen 'Inflatable' PFD with integrated harness to use while aboard.
- Spinlock Double-tether for moving around on deck to use while aboard.
- All meals, snacks and drinks while on the boat.
- Sheets, quick-dry towel & a pillow.
- Large collection of books onboard, including novels, sailing classics and sailing reference books, in hard copy.
What the price DOESN'T include:
- Transportation to and from the boat.
- Meals and drinks ashore.
- Personal toiletries & clothing.
- Foul-weather gear (see packing list for details).
What happens after I signup to sail with 59º North?
After you submit your initial signup form, we'll send you a link to a longer application that will ask all sorts of questions about your history and why you want to go ocean sailing. The more detail you can provide, the better.
Once your application is approved, and provided we have space available on your chosen passage, you'll receive an invoice for 50% of the total crew fee. Once this invoice is paid, your crew space will be fully confirmed. We'll hold the space in the interim between application approval and invoice payment.
Next, you'll get a series of newsletters from us with increasingly specific details about your chosen passage as we lead up to departure date. Three newsletters in total will be sent prior to you joining the boat, and will include things like packing list advice, travel insurance recommendations, introductions to your shipmates and sailing staff and more. You'll also receive another link to fill-out even more information we need from you like medical forms, food preferences and visa information.
Once you've completed the passage, we'll send a 4th and final newsletter wrapping up your trip, which will include links to submit photos to share with the crew, a PDF scan of the handwritten logbook we kept during the trip and a request for a testimonial from the crew!
How do you plan passage routes to ensure safe weather patterns?
Our passage calendars are created by Andy Schell & August Sandberg to specifically take advantage of seasonal weather patterns. We optimize our routes & sailing dates to ensure that we are sailing in the "right place at the right time." This means no summer passages to/from the Caribbean, for example, during the height of hurricane season, or doing an east-west trans-Atlantic in February, the best month for reliable Trade Winds.
We often commission "climatology studies" from our friends and partners at Weather Routing Inc. (WRI). The professional forecasters and weather routers at WRI analyze long-term trends for us, detailing the proposed routes at the proposed times of year. As we get more comfortable with the weather patterns in a given region, we're able to sail further into the shoulder seasons with confidence. When we venture to new parts of the world, we tend to plan more conservatively.
This planning takes place usually 2 years before passages will take place. When the time comes to set sail, we consult with WRI to find the optimal weather window for departure and always allow +/- 1-2 days leeway in the length of our trips (more for high-uncertainty routes, like the fall passage between the Chesapeake Bay and Caribbean, for example, when weather is quite volatile between summer hurricane season and winter gale season).
At-sea, we use a combination of automated GRIB forecasts and human-created updates from the forecasters at WRI to keep ahead of the weather and plan our routing strategy.
What amenities are there aboard the boat?
Not too many! Our boats offer a very simple but cozy & comfortable offshore sailing platform. All the boats have hot water, but the only showers are in the cockpit, so it's bikini and board shorts for showering time. Beds are proper sea bunks, everyone gets their own dedicated bunk and storage locker (no hot-bunking on our trips!) and we provide sheets, 'Turkish cotton towels' and pillows. You'll need a sleeping bag on colder trips. ISBJØRN and FALKEN have heat, making colder passages a lot more enjoyable (but no A/C and little shade in the cockpits, so when it's hot, it's HOT). Read more about each boats specific layout, bunk arrangement and amenities on the specific boat pages by clicking on the 'About the Boat' button above.
How long are the watches?
Our watch schedule is flexible and ultimately up to the skipper. Traditionally, watches were divided into periods of 4 hours, with two different watches standing a 4-on / 4-off schedule, often with a small adjustment at dinnertime, and onboard ISBJØRN we normally follow this type of schedule. On FALKEN, we typically run a two-watch system, standing 6 hours on in the daytime, then 4 hours on at night. On tropical routes, when it’s hot in the daytime, we sometimes flip this to limit sun exposure. Regardless of which watch system we use, crew are always gathered together for dinnertime, allowing us to eat together and reflect on the day.
The skipper and mate stand a different watch schedule than the crew, so that one of them is always awake and supporting the crew. Their schedule allows them to spend time sailing with all the crew.
On an ocean race, where all crew is given specific roles, a ‘watch captain’ would ultimately be in charge of decisions on their watch. However, given the range of experience of the crew, we do not assign watch captains — rather, if there is discussion among the crew as to what to do, then the captain is woken up to settle the debate!
How much experience is required to sign on for a passage?
The short answer? NONE! We have had several crew who have never even set foot on a sailboat before, but they have the dream, and that’s what’s important. Our crew, John M., always dreamed of seeing the ‘stars down to the horizon,’ yet he’d never been sailing. He changed that with us, and has since been as far as South Africa to complete a coastal nav. course and sails regularly on Lake Ontario in his free time. You’ll of course understand more of what’s going on the more experience you have, but it’s not in fact required.
That said, we DO require a certain level of physical fitness to join us offshore. Regardless of how much we emphasize it, most people still underestimate how difficult it is simply to LIVE on the boat offshore, even on a nice day.
Do you have Starlink?
We've installed Starlink for the 2026 season aboard FALKEN, but not for the reasons you might think. Mainly it's to allow staff to have broadband internet while in port in between passages. We realized we were spending a fortune on eSIM cards and phone data, so opted for Starlink to use in port.
Offshore, we use it to send blogs from the boat, the occasional social media post and for downloading high-resolution weather forecasts. And of course for emergency comms, particularly for medical emergencies where a Facetime call with a doctor ashore could save someone's life.
Crew & staff do NOT have access to Starlink offshore. It's a feature of our passages to be disconnected when at-sea, and we expect that the crew who sign up to sail with us will enjoy that aspect of the trips.
If you'd like to communicate to friends and family while on the boat, most people in the past have brought along Garmin InReach devices, which allow for two-way text messaging on the Iridium satellite network. These have global coverage and work well, it's "just enough" comms to stay in touch but avoid the doom-scrolling on your phone :)
What can I expect to learn on a 59º North trip? Do I get a certificate?
59º North is not a sailing school, and we don’t issue any official certificates (but will gladly sign your logbook), but crew often say they have learned more in one day with us than a full week of formal class. That’s because we teach the real thing, with real stakes, having to get the boat from one port to another in varied weather and on a timeline.
Focusing on fundamental seamanship, we’ll teach you how to anticipate the weather & make routing decisions, how to optimize the sail plan for different points of sail in different conditions, how to helm, how to use the radar and on and on. You will become a better sailor — and a better thinker — sailing with 59º North.
We’ve created an environment onboard that fosters hands-on learning and teamwork. Our skippers and mates are almost always co-ed, and we sail with a diverse crew of mixed genders, nationalities, ages, sailing & life experiences. Everyone gets an equal opportunity to participate in running all aspects of the boat, from navigation, helming, sail trim etc., and yet nothing onboard happens by accident. Skippers & mates manage the crew’s varied fitness and skill levels to make sure everyone stays safe while being able to fully participate.
















