The 39ft Danish-built ketch Teddy is a familiar sight in the heart of the Connacht coast, snugly berthed along the tidal quayside at Clifden in Connemara. And when she’s not there, we can usually be sure that owner-skipper Nick Kats - a specialist nutritionist who voyages extensively despite being very significantly hearing-impaired - is in high latitudes, on an Arctic cruise to Iceland, Jan Mayen or Greenland.

A long way from extreme weather in the Arctic Ocean – Nick Kats’ much-travellled Teddy (centre) at Cifden Quay

He sails with a like-minded crew of multiple talents recruited through many channels, and this year they took themselves off to southwest Greenland. And then, having transitted west-east through the magnificent Prinz Kristian Sund in south Greenland, they took themselves across to Reykjavik in Iceland to facilitate crew changes and prepare for the homeward voyage

The Teddy Tracks: Nick Kats’ Arctic voyages in recent years

As usual at the conclusion of such ventures, Teddy was expected back in Clifden around September 15th. So in anticipation of this – and while waiting to see if our prediction of sea breezes finally brought life today (Saturday) to the ICRA Nats at Howth - we fired off a signal to Teddy’s skipper to hear the latest word on progress.

MIND-BLOWING RESPONSE

The mind-blowing response engendered visions of sea states and weather conditions just about as far as you can get from a calm Indian summer’s day on the Fingal coast. In fact, we’re still processing it, and we reckon it speaks very eloquently for itself if we simply re-post it in its raw form as it came from Nick, for it’s something which leaves any thoughtful sailor temporarily at a loss for words:

TWO COMPLETE KNOCKDOWNS

Teddy was in a bad storm, 61N x 30W, two complete knockdowns, plus lots of semi-knockdowns. Main mast broke halfway between spreaders & masthead. A-frame bow pulpit gone. Main boom broken. Most shrouds stretched, the majority severely.

Variety of lesser stuff. No injuries, just a nice collection of bruises. Turned to nearest harbour, Grindavik, Iceland under staysail with remainder of mast held up by running backstays, and help of engine.

Cleaning up now. Sorting out next move, may take her to Djupivogur, East Iceland, where I have a good fisherman friend - he has sailed with me from Iceland-Ireland, and Teddy
has over-wintered there before, under his care.

WINTER LAYUP IN ICELAND?

Maybe I could leave her there for the winter, do solid temporary repairs in the late spring, and sail her to Hegarty's at Oldcourt above Baltimore, where they’ve done good work for me before.

Should not be difficult - a week maybe - bulldog clamps & thimbles for the loose shrouds, a bowsprit with ring to run out the jib Galway hooker style, move masthead cap to the stump of the mast, splint the boom etc. These repairs I already know will be adequate for North Atlantic standards, so no worries there.

I'm actually looking forward to this part - repairs and the sail home maybe via Shetlands and Stornoway.

However, the other option is shipping her to Ireland. It’s early days yet – we got in to Grindavik only two days ago. I'll update the blog in the next day or two.

For the moment, any further comment from us in comfort here in Ireland would be superfluous to the point of impertinence. You can get further insight into this remarkable man in his blogspot Teddytoarctic2023.blogspot.com

In a world of his own in a league of its own – Nick Kats of the Teddy

When the workmanlike-looking 39ft ketch Teddy returned to her familiar drying quayside berth in the deep shelter of Clifden Harbour in mid-September, it marked the completion of skipper Nick Kats’ tenth voyage to the Arctic, and his third detailed visit to the majestic coast of East Greenland.

As ever with the Teddy’s ventures, there was extra purpose to it all, as Nick is a dedicated nutritionist whose researches may lead to him inviting the Teddy’s crews to join him in testing some seemingly revolting local “delicacy”. Years of this seem to have toughened the Kats’ digestion system, for during 2022’s voyage he found one such tested item very nourishing, but a crewman was violently ill. Happily, all got home safe and sound to complete a particularly satisfying voyage.

The pressures of assembling an ocean-going crew on-line in the highly-constrained times of Coronavirus may have been a factor in experienced Arctic voyager Nick Kats’ decision to cut short what would have been his third cruise from Ireland to East Greenland in his 39ft steel ketch Teddy. Having left Clifden last week, Teddy was making reasonably good progress in the Atlantic and was approaching the halfway stage to Iceland, but the skipper – who has overcome deafness from birth to make some extraordinary voyages – had the feeling that things weren’t working out to create a sufficiently experienced seagoing team among his three new shipmates.

Over the years, he has drawn on the experience and teachability of a total of 35 widely-varied crewmates for long voyages, recruiting them through the Internet. But that was in periods of less pressure, and without limitations on the ports he could visit. However, during this past week, while sailing north, he has reckoned there was insufficient time and space available to have a properly seaworthy setup in place as Teddy sailed into the really demanding seas and weather of the high latitudes.

So the decision was taken to head back, stopping for a rest at St Kilda, and then heading on for an Irish port at Tory island so that the crew could disperse in an amicable fashion. “They were very disappointed but were graceful about it, and we parted on decent terms” the American skipper messaged to Afloat.ie. “These are three great people, and I hope to stay in contact with them. Getting solid crew is the hardest part of my trips. I had not met any of them before, but that has been the case with most of the 35 total that I’ve taken on my trips. Which isn’t ideal but it is reality, yet in this case it just wasn’t to be.”

Nick Kats decided with a heavy heart that this was the voyage that he had to curtail