Oregon Public Broadcasting

A sailboat from Seattle will finish a history-making journey Thursday.  The crew believes it's the first to circumnavigate the Americas, a feat made easier by arctic warming.  Correspondent Tom Banse reports.

64-foot steel hulled sailboat, Ocean Watch

Just over a year ago, a 64-foot steel hulled sailboat named the Ocean Watch and her four person crew left Seattle. They set course for Alaska and then sailed a big circle clockwise around North and South America. 

Previously, the barrier to such a trip has been the ice-packed Northwest Passage across the top of Canada.   Arctic warming makes that more passable now.

Captain Mark Schrader says he's ready to trade the blue of the ocean for the green of his small farm north of Seattle.

Mark Schrader: "It's the end of the voyage, a completion of something that we don't think anyone else has ever done -- not that that is terribly important.  But we've had the most amazing opportunity to talk to people at both ends of the world and everybody in between."

Schrader explains the adventure had a larger purpose, to raise awareness of threats to ocean health. 

He says he was particularly discouraged by the amount of trash and plastic debris in the Pacific, which he says could so easily be prevented with just a little care and consideration. 

On the Web:

www.aroundtheamericas.org