NAVIGATING THROUGH ICE
Presented by Ben Lyons
February 24, 2017 @ 6:00 pm
When WSS-PONY Branch member Ben Lyons left his chief officer position onboard QUEEN MARY 2 in 2008, he set a different course—often, deliberately sailing his ships into ice! Since then, he has become an ice pilot and has worked onboard a variety of vessels navigating in the Polar Regions. Ice navigation is still primarily a visual skill, and during his informative and entertaining program, Ben explained the differences in types of ice, the tools that are available to modern navigators, what the different ice classifications mean and why accurate weather forecasts are so important to those on the bridge. Ben also walked us through navigating in ice on three different types of vessels: a private superyacht, the ice-strengthened expedition ship NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORER, and Crystal Cruises’ CRYSTAL SERENITY on its record-setting Northwest Passage transit in 2016. On the last named, he was an expedition team member.
On and often off terra firma, Ben is CEO of EYOS Expeditions, an outfit that plans expeditions for superyachts and provides the crews to carry out programs that span the world from Antarctica to the Russian Far East and Svalbard to Madagascar. In a recent development, on January 28, 2017, the 43,188-ton private yacht THE WORLD claimed the record for sailing the farthest south any vessel has ever sailed while cruising the Bay of Whales in Antarctica’s Ross Sea. THE WORLD was assisted in this feat by EYOS Expeditions.