59º north

SIGN-UP FOR A PASSAGE

Join an offshore sailing passage as paying crew on our Farr 65 FALKEN, our Swan 48 ISBJØRN or as Offshore Racing crew for a couple of iconic events each year on dedicated performance racing yachts.

Sail in safety & learn seam’nship under the watchful eyes of our international team of professional skippers & mates. We sail all over the world and each boat has a distinct sailing schedule depending on your taste. We’re not a formal sailing school and we don’t teach to a curriculum — instead, we teach seam’nship through real-world experience that is impossible to duplicate in the classroom.

We are currently taking bookings for the rest of 2024, all of 2025, and enquiries for 2026. FALKEN will remain in the Pacific in 2026, but the actual passage routes and dates are not yet published. If you’d like to sail in the Pacific in 2026, please complete the standard Sign-Up form and just list “2026 Pacific” as your passage choice. Be sure to register for our newsletter to get first dibs on new passages.

  • S&S Swan 48 'ISBJØRN'

    ISBJØRN covers the High Latitudes outside her home port in Bergen, exploring the Norwegian fjords, High Arctic Spitsbergen, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Scotland, Sweden and the North Sea.

    1972. S&S Design. Built by Nautor in Finland as a classic IOR-era racer-cruiser. Sails with skipper plus 5 crew. The boat that started it all for Andy & Mia when 59º North was founded in 2015.

  • FARR 65 'FALKEN'

    FALKEN sails far and wide, covering 15,000+ offshore miles per year crossing oceans and the Equator and calling at bucket-list ports along the way. Sail across the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans, cross the Equator, cruise the Caribbean and sail northern waters in Alaska, Greenland, Norway & Sweden.

    Built in 1999 by Colvic Craft in the UK to go round-the-world. Modified interior by Bob Perry, electrical systems by Nigel Calder. Sails with skipper & mate plus 8 crew.

  • Offshore Racing

    The Offshore Racing program offers a week of pre-race training with our professional staff followed by the race itself and a comprehensive debrief.

    For 2024, Nikki Henderson will lead crews on two of the classic offshore races — The RORC Caribbean 600 in February; and the Rolex Middle Sea Race in October. We’ve chartered performance XP yachts for each, both boats fully outfitted for offshore racing.


59º NORTH was founded on a simple vision — to explore the world’s oceans & landfalls in safety & style on cool boats with cool people. We are passionate about traditions of the sea, and share our love for the philosophical aspect of ocean sailing with our eclectic crew.
— Andy Schell & Mia Karlsson | Co-Founders

Where We Sail

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.
— T.E. Lawrence

Live Tracker

CREW Say…

59º North runs the most professional offshore training program you can find, and it shows in their leadership, skill, and service.
— Alex Rowson | FALKEN crew

The Quarterdeck

Deep dives on the art of seam’nship

SEA·M’N·SHIP /ˈsēmənˌSHip/: “The skill in, and knowledge of the work of navigating, maintaining, and operating a vessel.”

True seam’nship must be both learned and earned. And preferably in that order. The armchair sailors out there can become excellent prognosticators on preparation, decision making and leadership with their feet propped up in front of the fireplace, but they’ll never know what it takes on the high seas unless they cast off the lines. Likewise, even the greenest landlubber can have a successful voyage by dumb luck. 

True seam’nship, then, is the art of combining both knowledge and practice. Only then can a sailor expect to have the kind of repeatable success on the ocean that elevates sailing to — in our view — the philosophical, even spiritual realm.

Where 59º North’s offshore passages fulfill the earned half of this equation, we aim to fulfill the learned part here on The Quarterdeck.

Founded by Andy Schell & August Sandberg, The Quarterdeck's mission is to go deep into the art of seam’nship by sharing knowledge we've earned over tens of thousands of miles on the high seas, critically examining our own experiences & decision-making, & using the collective wisdom of the group of passionate sailors who join us in The Quarterdeck community to become better sailors ourselves.