ICEBEAR

After nearly four years and over 42,000 miles, we have said farewell to ICEBEAR.

We bought ICEBEAR from a Swedish owner in the fall of 2019, after organizing a rental agreement with him for the 2019 season. In fact, Mia & Andy knew the boat for a long time, having first met her as THINDRA in the ARC Rally in St. Lucia way back in 2009. She was run by a Swedish crew then, and they had gotten invited for drinks in her cockpit on the docks at Rodney Bay Marina!

When ISBJØRN was in Svalbard in 2018, we’d started looking for a bigger boat, and THINDRA came up for sale on yachtworld.com and it became a foregone conclusion that we’d add her to the fleet. She’s one hell of an offshore sailing machine!

ICEBEAR is hull number 11 of 21 Swan 59’s built. She’s the tall rig / deep keel version of the boat, and has the optional aft companionway into the cockpit from the aft cabin. She was built in 1986, although the builder’s plaque says “1991”. The story, from “The Professor” Lars Strom, goes as such:

“Andy,

There are in some cases odd arrangements and special deals between customer and agent/yard affecting the year on the plaque. 59-011 was originally delivered 1987, and had a plaque showing that, but after one summer the customer sent the boat back to the yard to be stored until 1991, and then demanded a modified plaque. 018 originally delivered 1988, appears there was some monkey business also. If the year on the plaque is clearly later than the production run years, it has been manipulated, with the basic intention to get a better price when the boat is later sold.

Cheers,

Lars”

So that’s some interesting history! Since 59º North has owned the boat we have done a tremendous amount of upgrades, and she is currently easily the best-equipped Swan 59 out there sailing.