Q&A: Circumnavigation Of Scandinavia Via The White Sea

January 25, 2021May 19, 2005 by John Harries

Question: Do you know if it’s possible to circumnavigate Scandinavia via Holland, the Baltic Sea, St. Petersburg, the Belomorsk Canal, the White Sea, the Norwegian Coast, returning to Holland?

Answer: It has been done. I think the UK Cruising Association did a cruise in company that way some years ago. The tricky bit is the Russian canal. From what I understand it is important to have a Russian with you who can manage things and it is better if several boats travel in company. I understand that that part of Russia can still be pretty wild, with graft (bribes) and stealing. The rest of the cruise should be fairly straight forward.

Update: John Vallentine successfully undertook a voyage through Russia in 2014.

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John was born and brought up in Bermuda and started sailing as a child, racing locally and offshore before turning to cruising. He has sailed over 100,000 miles, most of it on his McCurdy & Rhodes 56, Morgan's Cloud, including eight ocean races to Bermuda, culminating in winning his class twice in the Newport Bermuda Race. He has skippered a series of voyages in the North Atlantic, the majority of which have been to the high latitudes. John has been helping others go voyaging by sharing his experience for twenty years, first in yachting magazines and, for the last 12 years, as co-editor/publisher of AAC.