YACHT: Mr Fuchs, you had to interrupt your trip this year for several weeks for health reasons. Have you fully recovered?
Arved Fuchs: Yes! Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do this tour at all. I sailed the "Dagmar Aaen" back to Flensburg myself, that was no problem. After all, anyone can get sick. But above all, my motivation didn't suffer!
How did your autumn trip from Iceland to Germany go?
Without any problems. We set off in good time before a severe hurricane and sailed first to the Faroe Islands, then across the Shetlands to Stavanger. We spent four days in the wind there. Then we returned to Flensburg.
The sea off Stavanger was six metres high and it was storming at 10 Beaufort. What was that like?
We reached the harbour in good time, so we weren't outside when it got really bad. The crew coped really well, even though some of them had to battle seasickness. The shipboard community worked really well.
What insights have you gained on this leg of your "Ocean Change" tour?
The expedition started last summer in cooperation with the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, the University of Oldenburg and other scientific institutes. The aim was to collect oceanographic data. The "Dagmar Aaen" may look like a traditional sailing ship, but there is a lot of high-tech measurement technology installed below deck. One of the insights we gained: The temperature of the ocean was three to five degrees Celsius above what would have been expected - with a seawater temperature of five degrees. Scientists refer to this as a heatwave. These are the consequences of climate change. It has an enormous impact on flora and fauna.
So is the climate changing even faster than even scientists have been predicting for some time?
I have been travelling in the Arctic for over 40 years. My subjective impression is: yes, the development is progressing faster than the model calculations predicted. I'm not alone in this - it's in line with new findings by Norwegian scientists about the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. And: In Iceland, there was a hurricane of the century in February with a measured wave height of an incredible 40 metres and winds of over 70 knots in the port of Reykjavík. There was another storm of the century in September. How many storms of the century fit into one calendar year? Not necessarily the frequency, but the intensity of the storms is increasing. This is because more heat, i.e. energy, is stored in the sea. If we look at last summer's drought and forest fires or the flood disaster in the Ahr valley, it's not as if all this is still a long way off. It's becoming established here. We can no longer ignore it.
Is the topic currently getting enough attention?
No, unfortunately it's fading into the background at the moment. But we must not lose sight of climate change, which doesn't care about our other hardships and difficulties. If we had implemented the energy transition 20 years ago, we wouldn't be facing this cost explosion today. Now, however, we are running out of time.
What are your next plans?
The ship has to go to the shipyard, and we're going to take a deep breath. Then we'll start the new planning. The "Ocean Change" project will definitely continue.
