People ask many questions regarding a NW Passage - asking questions is one of the many ways of learning but what I'm observing is they ask often and fail to build skills that will support their ability to solve problems for themselves - especially in real-time - that is an important skill set for making a NW Passage or any long distance passage for that matter. You need to build sources of third-party informations that you can, in a moments time, locate and query for use in formulating your decision.

I'd like to provide this real world NW Passage problem to anyone interested in learning about some of the considerations and sources to making informed routing decisions during a NW Passage.

1. M/V POLAR BOUND departed Great Britain on July 31, 2016 on a westward NW Passage attempt. The planning for this voyage had been in the planning stages for three years.
2. Upon arrival Greenland the vessel's 5,000 nm range fuel tanks were 'topped off', fresh provisions purchased and crew joined.
3. A day before departure, weather, ice and notice to mariners checked. The original decision was confirmed as valid to attempt the planned NW Passage Route-7 West through Labrador Narrows in Fury & Hecla Strait.
4. The transit forecast changed in real time enroute and went from good to bad to worse... what was know in advance was the extreme tides, currents and three years of weather patterns... during the transit the weather lived up to its reputation as horrendous with 7m seas stacked up against outflowing tidal "Spinners' and currents strengthened from winds gusting 60 knots. The crew was steadfast and knew there was a price to be paid and would not yield to see their goal accomplished.
5. On August 26, 2016, M/V POLAR BOUND and her good crew made the world record first transit of Labrador Narrows in Fury & Hecla Strait westbound.
6. On August 28, 2016, M/V POLAR BOUND anchored at the east side of Bellot Strait in Fort Ross to take a break and stretch their legs without hopefully coming face-to-face with polar bears.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, <a bit of Mission Impossible rhetoric>, is to recommend how to continue the voyage from this point forward - the ultimate goal is to cross the finish line at the Pacific Ocean Arctic Circle in the Bering Sea.

What would you propose as the next leg(s) of this voyage from Fort Ross?
What sources of information will you reference in supporting your recommendations?

Please use the Comments below to succinctly post your recommendations by VOYAGE LEGS with supporting references (urls etc).

Example:
Leg1: Fort Ross to Beechey Island 195nm SOA (speed of advance) 6kts = 32.5hrs.
Ref1 (http://...)
Ref2 (http://...)
Ref3 (http://...)
Comments: xxx

Leg 2...
Leg 3...
Leg 4...
etc.

This is a real-time exercise - start now - the window closes tonight. i.e. a departure decision is going to be formulated for tomorrow at sunrise 0611 hours local Bellot Strait time.

Up to the task? Ready to learn?

Lets close this out at 1800 hours tonight PDT,

I'll then post my recommendations here.

Then at your earliest chance post comments - the goal is to learn... so lets keep the spirit light.

Start learning...

“When the time for decision arrives, the time for preparation is past.”

― Thomas S. Monson


UPDATE 20160829-1801 PDT

I'm disappointed that with hundreds of potential people interested in the Northwest Passage that few have not take this opportunity to learn more... I cannot force you to drink at the fountain of knowledge...

Would the few who did post comments below contact me privately at voyageadviser (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll send my recommendation with urls to some great resources.

Here are today's ice maps and yesterday's sat image for the rest of you to ponder over since you think you're on the track to figuring various routings.

Note: Click image for a larger size.