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Aussie Tycoon hosts wild yacht party in the Northwest Passage
Anything and everything anytime
National Post
Australian tycoon sails Northwest Passage — racks up thousands in alcohol and fireworks fines on the way
The forbidding Northwest Passage killed Sir John Franklin and turned away James Cook, but it appears to have been a breeze for a booze-laden Australian luxury yacht that sped through the High Arctic leaving behind a trail of illegal fireworks, paintballs and bounced cheques.
In early September, the Fortrus, a 34-meter, seven-stateroom luxury yacht anchored just outside Cambridge Bay, a Nunavut community of 1,500. The ship had been brought there by Paul McDonald, a 51-year-old resource tycoon from Noosa, Australia, who was leading the yacht on a circumnavigation of North America.
According to Nunatsiaq News reporter Jane George, the visiting ship hosted “a wild party where men overwhelmingly outnumbered women” and in which an underage girl was seen diving overboard into the frigid waters of the Beaufort Sea.
An alcohol-fuelled yacht party is easily noticed in Cambridge Bay, where liquor is only allowed under special permit from Nunavut authorities. It did not help that passengers were reportedly firing illegal fireworks from the Fortrus’ decks.
On Sept. 7, local RCMP boarded the vessel and immediately seized 200 liquor bottles with as estimated “street value” of $40,000 (in the dry community, black-market alcohol prices can run to hundreds of dollars per bottle). Mounties also seized $15,000 worth of illegal fireworks.
The officers appear to have been acting on a tip-off from the community. “The Cambridge Bay RCMP would like to thank the public for their continued support in combatting illegal activities in the North,” police wrote in a Sept. 20 news release.
Mr. McDonald was charged with providing liquor to a minor and possessing liquor “other than when authorized.” Each charge carries a fine of $5,000.
“They have until November the 15th to pay those fines,” said Sgt. Kristine Wood. of the Cambridge Bay RCMP.
It is not known whether Mr. McDonald intends to fly back to the remote community to face justice. But a $10,000 cheque Mr. McDonald left with Cambridge Bay authorities bounced, according to Nunatsiaq News, and on September 20th the Fortrus successfully entered the Pacific Ocean, via the Bering Strait, and is now headed for the Panama Canal.
On the Australian website Sail-World.com, fellow sailors worried Monday that their country’s reputation in northern waters may be at risk, as the Fortrus incident could “affect all Australian cruising sailors in the future who try to transit the great Passage.”
RCMP images of the liquor seized in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut from the Fortrus.
Details of the raid were carefully omitted from the expedition’s official blog, TrackingFortrus.com. “Due to some weather, we decided to stay in Cambridge Bay for a few extra days,” reads a Sept. 10 post.
Photos on the website shows passengers corralling muskox by using ATVs, posing on deck with paintball guns and zipping around icebergs on skidoos.
It was only 106 years ago that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first to traverse the Northwest Passage in a demanding three-year voyage. With the virtual disappearance of summertime ice cover, however, Arctic communities have been increasingly exposed to waves of sailboats, luxury yachts and the occasional reckless thrill seeker.
In April 2010, Australian Tom Smitheringale had to be pulled from the Arctic by Canadian search and rescue teams after his bid to ski solo to the North Pole was foiled by rough weather. Two years earlier, a British skier had similarly summoned an Arctic rescue helicopter after getting stuck on a block of ice.
The liquor seized in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut from Fortrus.
In 2007, the crew of the Norwegian sailboat Berserk II were arrested in Cambridge Bay after illegally cruising into Canadian waters carrying a pair of former criminals facing a deportation order.
In 2006, a man with the same name — Paul McDonald — also from Noosa, turned up in the news after an even more hazardous yachting mishap. He was hosting a Boxing Day gathering on his 11-meter yacht when the vessel was suddenly shaken by an onboard explosion. The blast blew his 12-year-old son more than 30 metres overboard and severely burned his sister-in-law. No one was killed.
2012-10-02 12:01:59
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