The Polar Ocean Challenge

Ben Edwards was fourteen when he embarked upon what many would consider to betheir 'adventure of a lifetime', to be the first to sail a small yacht around the North Pole ina single season.The world is shrinking and the Golden Age of exploration and discovery, in which men(for it was then exclusively a male preserve) set off into the unknown, is now long past.Flight, satellite navigation and instant communication from even the most remote parts ofthe world ensure the almost impossibility of becoming lost. Those of us left at home canfollow an expedition every step of its way - just as was possible when Ben and the crewof Northabout set out on the Polar Ocean Challenge in 2016. Indeed, much of the purposebehind the expedition was to encourage others to follow the crew as they attempted theircircumnavigation of the North Pole in a single season, thus bringing to the world'sattention the effects of the warming oceans and the rapid ice melt that has wrought suchextraordinary and rapid change to our polar regions.Having Ben aboard Northabout provided expedition leader, Sir David Hempleman-Adams, with an ideal foil on which to promote his educational charity, Wicked WeatherWatch - its website aimed at schools to help increase students' awareness of changes toour rapidly warming world. As it turned out, Ben was the only crew member to completeall four legs of the voyage and thus, through his daily blogs and video reports, he becamethe charity's ideal ambassador.Ben himself refuses to be drawn too deeply into the heated debate that discussions onGlobal Warming so often create. The same pragmatism that saw him successfully overcomethe considerable challenges aboard Northabout, he also applies to his considerationof the circumstances the world currently faces, choosing rather to explore ways we canmeet the challenges ahead. He is not alone among his peers to look positively at thefuture but those of us who hand on an uncertain future to his generation should be thankfulfor their cheerful intelligence and determination to succeed.