Š DAVID REID
ADVENTURE
Vagabonds A family experience like no other
F
or parents Eric and France Brossier and their daughters Leonie and Aurore, family life is a little different than most. Mum and Dad still go to work every day, eldest daughter Leonie (six) has to be taken to and dropped off at school and Aurore (four) still enjoys days at home playing, reading and drawing. Groceries and supplies still have to be bought and collected at the nearby store and care still has to be taken when going outside during the cold winter. Most meals are had together and stories, events and happenings of respective days, like many families, are told over dinner at day’s end.
July/August 2014
Home though for the adventurous French family is the 47-ft long polar yacht Vagabond. Presently, the yacht (and family home) is held fast in the sea ice approximately three kilometres from the Eastern Baffin Island community of Qikiqtarjuaq, Nunavut. Vagabond is an expedition yacht designed for sailing in ice. Built in 1978 by Polish design, Eric Brossier purchased her in 1999 and since 2000 Brossier has created, prepared and outfitted it as a unique logistical support vessel, a floating and moving base camp for scientists, adventurers and artists alike. With no keel, the steel-hulled 14-ft wide sailboat is ideally suited
to travelling in and around ice in the Polar Regions. In recent years, starting in 2005, Eric and his wife France Pinczon began over wintering the yacht in Spitsbergen (Svalbard) in the Norwegian Arctic. For five years they made this High Arctic wilderness their home and workplace. With large fuel tanks on board, Vagabond boasts a 5,000 nautical miles range, powered by twin diesel engines. Brossier, a geophysicist, was fascinated to learn more about the environment in which he was now very much a part of. In short, he made the decision to trade the traditional bricks and mortar science laboratory for perhaps the
above & beyond
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