A new Australian yacht recently set sail around the world via some of the most isolated waters imaginable, including Cape Horn, South Georgia and Kerguelen Island. Onboard are a professional skipper and a fee-paying crew, some of whom have signed on for the full circumnavigation while others will fly in and out for specific passages.

It's a project which began as a race and has become an expedition. Australian adventurers Don and Margie McIntyre originally selected the title 'Together Alone' for an ambitious scheme to conduct a round-the-world yacht race, starting and finishing in Hobart. They set up a company called Ocean Frontiers to build on Don's experiences competing in the BOC Around Alone Challenge of 1990-91, plus the example of the BT Global Challenge, the well-established round-the-world race for fee-paying crew members conducted by British company Ocean Ventures.

The Together Alone Race was to incorporate three separate divisions and two new one-design yachts from the drawing board of Australian designer Graham Radford. The McIntyre 55 would be used for Class III, sailed by fee-paying 'volunteers' with professional skippers (like the BT Global Challenge), while the second new design, also by Radford and called the McIntyre IOOD 50, would be raced by single-handed entrants competing in Class I. Class II would be open to double-handed crews in their own monohull yachts of 45-50ft LOA.

November 2001 was selected for the start, and under the direction of David Pryce, project manager for Ocean Frontiers and aspiring solo circumnavigator, construction began on the moulds for the two new Radford designs at Taree, on the NSW mid-north coast. Two 50-footers were produced while work also began on the first 55-footer.

But by early this year the project was faltering. There simply weren't enough entries across the three classes to make the event viable.

"It is very disappointing for everyone involved as it was to be a grand adventure and an opportunity unlike any other, but if the commitment is not there you cannot do anything," Don McIntyre said when announcing the cancellation of the Together Alone in April.

At the same time, he indicated that the partly-built new McIntyre 55 would embark on a somewhat different adventure than the one originally planned, called the Together Alone Around the World Expedition (see Expedition Program, overleaf).

DRESS REHEARSAL
By mid-October, when we visited the yacht at Heron Cove Marina on Sydney's Pittwater, it was receiving the many final preparations required for a six-month voyage into the world's wildest oceans. It had been christened Arctos, after the Constellation of the Bear, which is a feature of the northern hemisphere sky (bears, especially the teddy variety, are important to the McIntyres), with overall sponsorship from the National Investment Institute.

Right in the midst of all the onboard activity were Don McIntyre and David Pryce. Due to other commitments, most notably the busy Antarctic expedition program of his icebreaker ship Sir Hubert Wilkins, McIntyre is not taking part in the Together Alone sailing expedition. The role of skipper has been assumed by Pryce, a 30-year-old naval architect with some serious ocean adventuring already under his belt.

Pryce has undertaken five Antarctic expeditions with Ocean Frontiers' previous vessel, Spirit of Sydney, completed the Sydney to Cape Town leg of the BT Global Challenge, and raced in the Melbourne Osaka Double-Handed Race and the Solo Trans Tasman Yacht Race on the Adams 10 Aurora.

For Pryce, the Together Alone expedition is a dress rehearsal of sorts. His personal goal is to compete in the Around Alone Race and the Vendee Globe Challenge. Both are singlehanded circumnavigation races; the former has stopovers while the latter doesn't. Pryce plans to compete in one of the two McIntyre IOOD 50s which have already been built. His work getting that boat ready for racing will have to wait until the end of the current expedition on the 55, but Pryce said: "This is time well-spent and really good preparation for my singlehanded campaign, covering the southern ocean course and those weather systems and all the issues involving the boat."

FIORDS AND TROUT
Arctos is heading for Cape Town via Hobart and Wellington, NZ. Pryce explained: "There's a logical progression, rather than just heading straight to the Horn which might be a little bit too much to begin with."

After a stopover in the remote Patagonian port of Ushuaia, the yacht will head to remote South Georgia in southern Antarctic for Christmas: "There's snow and ice and fjords and reindeer, and Santa will be able to get his sleigh in there," Pryce said.

Next the yacht will head northwards to Punta del Este, Uruguay, and some Atlantic islands before heading south again to the remote Southern Ocean islands of Kerguelen, clearly a highlight on Pryce's agenda.

He said: "That's where they whip up all the bad weather, there's a French base there, lots of fiords and apparently all the streams are full of trout. It should be interesting as hardly anyone ever gets there."

Six crew members have signed up for the entire passage, with up to three more joining the boat for individual legs. Pryce said: "It means we can have three two-man watches, which makes it a lot easier than one-to-one; you have two on deck and they can call up the next two if they need a hand. The boat's pretty well set up so two people can handle it."

Individual crew contribution for the full circumnavigation is $45,000, while costs for individual legs varied from $12,000-$20,000.

DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION
The 16.5m yacht has a beam of 3.66m, draft of 3m and carries a 2800kg lead bulb on the bottom of the keel (a stainless steel strut adding just under a tonne of additional ballast).

The hull is constructed of E-Glass and Divinycell foam core with transverse frames and longitudinal stiffeners. Pryce said: "We used Divinycell of 20mm depth and H80 density with E-glass cloth either side for the hull. Then in the deck we went for 20mm thick Superlite balsa, with H200 foam in the high load areas under the clutches, etc. The bulkheads are all Superlite balsa, which meant we could keep the interior reasonably light but still rugged."

The steering arrangement includes a 3.5in stainless steel rudder shaft on three bearings, which Pryce said is "really heavy engineering and very simple", a description which could equally be applied to many other aspects of the yacht. A linear drive autopilot has been selected with the same goal in mind.

THE RIG
The aluminium rig is by Allyacht Spars in Queensland. Pryce described it as follows: "It's a pretty sturdy, untapered, double-spreader section set up with three forestays. The forward forestay is the furler, and we'll put the full No 1 genoa on that. Then for the Southern Ocean legs we'll swap to a heavier genoa which comes back to just behind the shrouds. We'll keep the big genoa for the Atlantic and some of the lighter legs.

"The second forestay is for hanked-on headsails: the No 2, No 3 and No 4. Then there's the inner stay for the staysail and the storm jib, which will be pretty handy. In strong winds we can just put the staysail up and two reefs in the main and the boat is easy to handle, then we can go to three deep reefs in the mainsail - it's a really bulletproof Southern Ocean main by Hoods [who built all the sails] - and then there's the trysail.

"You wouldn't want to get in a tacking duel with this [three forestay] rig, but it's really good on the longer trips. Two big advantages are that you've got the redundancy -if you ever break a forestay you've still got the other one there, so you're not going to lose the mast. And you can pole out a headsail to windward on the second forestay and then unroll the genoa to leeward and it's like a really easy-to-handle spinnaker. As the wind gets stronger and stronger you just take more reefs in the main to keep control and you've still got all this sail area out the front.

"We have two spinnaker poles, one each side, and we'll carry an asymmetrical and a symmetric spinnaker, but we'll only use them in light conditions."

Pryce said the mainsail is set up with Sailman 5000 batten cars, using solid bearings on the slides rather than rollers. He said: "It's not the lightest gear but it's just got to go the distance. We will take a set of spare battens, because you seem to go through those pretty quick."

DECK LAYOUT
The deck layout is fairly conventional, with halyards and control lines led back to clutches and two self-tailing winches at the aft end of the coachhouse, and two more pairs of winches around the cockpit for headsail and spinnaker sheets and mainsheet/runners. Oversized blocks and hardware are used in most instances.

The McIntyres' previous expedition yacht, Spirit of Sydney, used a hydraulic backstay and vang, but for the sake of simplicity, the new yacht is set up with a solid vang with block and tackle adjustment and a backstay adjusted via a turnbuckle. A boom brake to guard against involuntary gybes is also set up.

The headsail tracks have been attached along the toerail, rather than closer inboard, to save having to organise outboard sheeting when reaching. Pryce said: "It means we won't be able to sail as close to the wind as we would otherwise, but then over the passages we're doing that shouldn't matter, and it meant we could take the shrouds a little further outboard so the mast has better support.

The running rigging is a mixture of Spectra (staysail and jib halyards, running checkstays to support the staysail), wire to double braid polyester (the genoa and main halyards) and double braid sheets, kickers, reef lines, etc. "All simple, reliable stuff," Pryce said.

INTERIOR LAYOUT
The interior configuration has been carefully thought out to make the McIntyre 55 as safe and liveable over extended periods as possible. There are integral watertight collision bulkheads forward and aft, plus two sets of watertight bulkheads and hatches leading forward from the saloon to allow the forward section to be sealed off for wet storage of sails and gear.

Aft of the sail storage area is the forward cabin, which houses two sea berths to starboard and access to the heads compartment to port. This has a manually operated marine toilet, a hand basin and will have a fabric zip-over door. Pryce said: "We've kept it really simple so it shouldn't break and is easy to service if it does."

There are also six plastic milk crate/storage cubes located here, of a total of 24 around the boat. Ten of these are allocated for the crew, who are allowed to bring whatever gear they can fit in their individual storage cube and their bunk, with the remaining 14 for spares, food, etc.

There are a total of 10 bunks, with four in the main saloon and two each in the two aft quarter cabins. Each bunk can be raised on block and tackle and has a seatbelt across the middle which can be tightened in rough weather.

According to Pryce: "If it gets really uncomfortable [down below] we're probably pushing the boat too hard. To go the distance within the time we've got, we've really got to look after the boat. It's not like a Sydney to Hobart Race, where you might go bashing to windward for a few days; it's all about pacing ourselves."

The port side of the saloon area also serves as a dinette area (and will be kept clear for this use when only seven of the bunks are needed).

There are two 220lt water tanks under the saloon bunks, and Arctos is also set up with a PUR40E desalinator rated to produce 6lt of freshwater per hour. Two 20lt jerry cans of water (and another two of diesel fuel) provide emergency back up.

At the aft end of the saloon is the navigation station to starboard and the galley to port. This has an Origo methylated spirits two-burner stove and oven (to avoid the use of gas), salt and freshwater foot pumps to the sinks and several rows of sliding storage baskets under the benchtops.

"We're not going with refrigeration, because that just becomes a nightmare to maintain over the long term," Pryce said. "Most of our food will be dehydrated rather than freeze-dried, because that just works out too expensive over a long trip."

There is no internal heating system in spite of the cold destinations on the yacht's schedule, but Pryce said: "We've got an Origo portable heater which uses the same type of methylated spirits burners as the stove, and we'll be able to put that in the cabin to warm the boat up."

To the starboard side of the companionway is a full-sized, self-draining locker for hanging wet weather gear. "Everyone has their own hook so in the dark you can find your gear easily," Pryce said. "No wet weather gear forward of the chart table area should keep the saloon comfortable."

Pryce continued: "The idea of the whole boat was to keep it as simple as we could without the velour seat covers, etc, while still having all the safety gear and functionality. So it should be very easy to maintain and keep looking good, and it's light and airy and easy to clean rather than having nooks and crannies that collect dirt."

POWER SYSTEMS
Arctos has a Yanmar 3JH 38hp diesel saildrive with a Gori propeller. Pryce said: "People think 40hp is not going to drive a 50-footer, but this is a pretty easily-driven hull, being narrow. And the engine isn't so big that we have to install a generator.

We'll run the power production off the main engine with a 90amp alternator and then a smart charger that charges the batteries [four 100amp/hr gel cells] and we'll take a spare of each of those in case one breaks down.

"That should keep up with our power requirements, and we've got a solar panel that's wired in all the time, plus a removable Airmarine wind generator, so there's three levels of redundancy with the power supply, which is the biggest onboard problem of all."

COMMUNICATION AND NAVIGATION
Communications systems include the VHF radio for port and coastal work, HF radio for longer distances and an Inmarsat Satcom C which should provide coverage around the world and will be the yacht's primary means of communication.

Pryce said: "There's two sides to the communication - it's fantastic to have it, but it can be a distraction for everyone from the issues onboard. On the BT [Global Challenge] people were saying there was so much email coming in to the boats, they just wanted to get away from it all and have a good sail...

"We might also go to an Iridium or an M phone, as you can download photos and send them back from the boat."

For navigation there is no chartplotter, but a Raymarine 300 GPS to lower power consumption on the screen. Electronic instrumentation includes the Raymarine ST60 Tridata and wind functions with three display units on the cockpit bulkhead, two more at the chart table and another one next to Pryce's bunk in the starboard quarter.

There is a Raymarine Pathfinder radar and a Furuno weatherfax providing paper printouts. There is also a laptop computer onboard providing access to weather charts which can be downloaded and saved, but Pryce said: "I still prefer the paper weatherfax - you don't have to run the laptop to access them and you can tear them off and hand them around."

SAFETY FIRST
Given the ambitious route being undertaken and the responsibilities involved with taking fee-paying crew, every effort has been made to equip Arctos with the most comprehensive safety equipment available.

This includes a Sea Marshall Crewfind Man Overboard system, with personal EPIRBs which activate an alarm if a crew member wearing one should go overboard, plus a direction finder to lead the yacht back to find them.

Pryce said: "It's really important not only when we're far away from assistance, but also just along the coast. If we lost someone over the side between Sydney and Hobart, their best chance of being rescued is still us."

The 10-man RFD liferaft (AYF Category 1) has an insulated floor and an EPIRB is packed in with the other safety equipment in case there's no time to grab one from below when abandoning ship, plus there's a hydrostatic-release 406 EPIRB mounted on the transom to automatically deploy if the yacht should sink.

The crew will use safety harnesses as a matter of course, Pryce said, explaining: "We are using wet weather jackets with internal safety harnesses, so as soon as there's water over the deck you put your jacket and harness on; it's a natural thing rather than having to put an extra piece of equipment on. We'll also carry survival suits for extreme conditions."