Around the arctic by outboard

A Danish adventurer, two Greenlanders and a Russian have successfully completed the first circumnavigation of the Arctic Sea in a six metre open boat powered by a pair of 140hp Suzuki outboards.

The quartet set out from Copenhagen in the summer of 2000 and have since spent every northern summer battling their way ever westward -- past Jutland, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and Russia.

Their POCA 600, a six metre open boat used by Danish police, powered by twin Suzuki DF140 four-stroke outboards didn't miss a beat.

Exhibition leader Anders Bilgram says the four men lived with Eskimos en route and spent their time recording the culture of the people and the natural landscape. They recorded ice-free crossings of the Northwest and Northeast passages -- the first time both stretches of water have been ice-free for decades.

The expedition was sponsored by the Moscow Adventure Club and the crew carried all the latest safety and navigational equipment. But Bilgram says their success was due to their outboards.

"Without the development of Suzuki's 4-stroke engines we would never have been able to go all the way around the Arctic," Bilgram says, "Especially because of the very long distances in Siberia.

"The 4-strokes were reliable and extremely efficient in fuel consumption, saving us 35-40 per cent on fuel," said Bilgram.

The trip was not without dangerous moments. The crew climbed into their life raft when trapped by a storm on the open sea 650km from the nearest village in Russia. Finally a Russian cargo ship came to their aid.

Bilgram says they also had several encounters with polar bears -- but dismissed the incidents and "not dangerous".

The other exhibition members were Frederik Lynge, a Greenland policeman, who filmed the trip, Ale Hammeken, a Greeland adventurer, and Sergey Epishkin, a Siberian expert who acted as a Russian interpreter.

The POCA 600 could carry 220 litres of fuel and weighed four tonnes when fully loaded. It had a top speed of 50km/h.