Noël Marshall

Awarded to the late Noël Marshall (Sadko) for what he described as ‘truly the cruise of a lifetime’ – a 47-day voyage from Chile to the Antarctic Peninsula, evocatively described in Flying Fish 2008/1 as A Month in the Antarctic.

After singlehanding from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia to pick up his four additional crewmembers they met only three other boats, one of which was Wandering Albatross – see The OCC Award of Merit, above. However this was more than balanced by the masses of wildlife, including petrels, Antarctic prions, black-browed albatross, Adelie, gentoo and chinstrap penguins, skuas, blue-eyed shags, Antarctic terns, Cape petrels, crabeater and fur seals, and minkie, humpback and blue whales. They replenished their water tanks exclusively from glacier streams, and visited several international scientific bases including the three wardens manning the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust at Port Lockroy.

Initially they headed towards Detaille Island near the southwest end of the Antarctic peninsula, working their way back northeastwards via Flounder Island, Lippmann Island and Anvers Island. From there they headed north to Deception Island in the South Shetlands and through the archipelago to Elephant Island, before sailing back to Ushuaia. They anchored or moored to rocky shores at some delightful sounding places, including Paradise Bay, Grandidier Channel, Flounder Island, Crystal Sound, Mutton Cove, Neptune’s Bellows, Pendulum Cove and Potter Cove. Noël believed that, at 66°52'·07S, Sadko held the record for the furthest south achieved by an OCC-owned boat.