Eight Irishmen and their 47-foot aluminium boat Northabout left Westport in June 2001 to sail the demanding Northwest Passage. Rivalling the Antarctic for drama and tragedy, it meanders north of Canada and Alaska through the Arctic Ocean. Many had failed until the great Amundsen achieved the first navigation in 1903-06. During 2001's brief Arctic summer, the crew endured the hazards of ever-moving ice and navigation through narrow channels of open water. They photographed the harsh beautiful landscape and superb wildlife, and met isolated communities of the native Inuit. Completing the voyage in a record thirteen weeks, the crew returned home leaving the boat in Alaska to cruise British Columbia the following year. The call of the wild induced a return to the Arctic in July 2004 to try the more difficult Northeast Passage, - longer, more remote, against prevailing currents, adjacent lands barren, languages and permits difficult - via the icy seas of Siberia from the Bering Straits to Norway. Overcoming Russian bureaucracy they sailed in July 2004 from British Columbia. The voyage took two seasons. In 2004, Northabout was nearly trapped in ice many times.
Finally, stopped by solid pack ice, Northabout was laid up in Khatanga in Siberia for the winter. The team returned in summer 2005 for the most difficult section of the voyage around Cape Chelyuskin. On October 12, 2005 Northabout sailed into Westport, County Mayo, having completed the first ever, and more difficult east-to-west, circumnavigation of the Arctic icecap by a small yacht.