16 months. 30.000 nautical miles. 22 legs. 145 crewmembers from Poland, Belgium, Australia and Germany. 18 countries and countless ports.
After six months of preparation in Trzebież and Szczecin, Polonus set sails on the trial voyage from Szczecin to Bornholm and back on 28 May 2011. This pre-leg was supposed to be a test for all systems and equipment, which went well. On 2 June Polonus headed for the Kiel Canal, Helgoland and finally to Amsterdam via the standing mast route. With a fresh crew on board, Polonus headed to England and France, with the next crew scheduled to embark in Lorient. Its path led it from Lorient to Lisbon, Madeira and the Canary Islands to Sal on Cape Verde, from where it was taken by yet another crew across the Atlantic to Brazil.
Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and the Magellan Strait led Polonus to Pacific waters, from which it returned to Ushuaia after rounding Cape Horn.
It was Polonus’ first rounding of Cape Horn, achieved under captain Sławomir Kulczak from Szczecin. Captain Henryk Wolski took her around Cape Horn once more, with a detour around Patagonia’s most breathtaking landscapes and back to Ushuaia. On 4 January 2012 captain Radosław Przebitkowski set off to Antarctica in order to visit the base of the Polish Academy of Science and the British base in Lockroy.
After three unforgettable weeks in the Antarctic, Polonus headed back for Cape Horn to pass it just one nautical mile away during a 9 force strong gale on 25 January at 5.28 pm.
A fresh crew took the yacht back north. Polonus was once more headed for Poland, this time via the Patagonian Straits and the Pacific Ocean.
Ports of Peru, Columbia, Ecuador and Panama followed and new crews settled in. In July Polonus was again greeted by Atlantic waters after navigating the Panama Canal. A skeleton crew of three took her on a 4100 nautical miles non-stop leg from St. Martin in the Lesser Antilles to Iceland. A three week leg to Greenland followed with a crew exchange in Keflavik. The new crew of 8 took Polonus via Faroe Islands and the Hebrides to Dublin. After the second-to-last leg to Stavanger, the last part was crewed by the organisers of this extraordinary expedition, including captain Marek Grzywa and the yacht’s owner Piotr Mikołajewski.
