59º North Team

Andy started 59° North with Mia back in 2014 with the idea to share his passion for offshore sailing with like-minded people. He’s sailed close to 100,000 miles offshore, crossed the Atlantic 8 times, & skippered ISBJØRN to 80º North in Svalbard. Andy started our podcast, On the Wind, in 2013. The show now reaches over 15k listeners per episode and has featured legends like Sir Robin Knox Johnston, Dee Caffari, and John Kretschmer. Andy writes regularly for publications like Yachting World and Sail Magazine.

Mia grew up in the countryside in Sweden, a non-sailor until meeting Andy in New Zealand in her early 20s. Her first sailing trip was aboard a 28-foot charter boat in the Marlboro Sounds on NZ’s South Island. Since then she’s sailed over 60,000 miles offshore, crossed the Atlantic 8 times (on 4 different boats), sailed ISBJØRN to 80º North and earned her Yachtmaster Offshore license. Mia is behind our standard of serving amazing, home-cooked food on our passages.

August was raised on a tiny island on the west coast of Norway, where his family were the only inhabitants. A remote and self-reliant childhood near the water translated perfectly to long-distance offshore sailing. After serving a year in the army on the Norwegian-Russian border, he started film studies in Bergen. While studying film production, August renovated an old Baltic 37, and then proceeded to circumnavigate the Atlantic with her after he got his degree. He then spent several years working in the film industry focusing on documentaries, as his father and grandfather before him. After hearing the call of the sea once more, August became a professional skipper, operating mainly in the challenging and harsh Norwegian Arctic. He became fast friends of Andy & Mia after lending them a rifle for polar bear protection for their trip to the Arctic, and later meeting them on Svalbard, skippering an expedition in the same waters. August became a dad in 2021 and again in 2024, and lives with his two sons and his partner Karoline in the fjords outside of Bergen, Norway.

Alex’s experiences vary from light, high-performance racing yachts to big, heavy expedition yachts. Alex started sailing at the young age of 4 and he's been hooked to the ocean ever since, either sailing or surfing. He has accumulated over 160,000 nautical miles over the past years as a professional sailor, racing all over the world as part of a team in the Clipper Round the World race, working on an expedition yacht in the Arctic Circle and doing a variety of deliveries. He had his own Mini Transat boat and has been doing single-handed and crewed offshore races for several years.

Adam was supervising the FALKEN rebuild and worked alongside the boatyard there to ensure the project was completed on time and to our demanding high standards. Traditionally the ‘boatswain’ (bosun) was a ship's officer responsible for maintenance of the ship and it’s equipment. Which is exactly what Adam is doing for both FALKEN & ISBJØRN today. Adam has worked around the world as a chef, a leader of youth expeditions to Africa and Asia, climbed to Everest Base Camp and sailed across the Atlantic. Adam and his wife are now based in Scotland where they sail a Hallberg-Rassy 312 mk II, which they converted to a full-electric OceanVolt drive.

Mary grew up in northwest England, spending most of her childhood outdoors in the Lake District. She didn’t start sailing until her early twenties, when she impulsively signed up for a leg of the Clipper Race. She met Alex Laline [59º North skipper & mate] her first week there, and he basically talked her into doing the whole circumnavigation! Since then she has accumulated about 100,000 miles offshore including skippering adventure yachts in the Pacific and west coast of Scotland, First Mate for the Clipper Race, as well as freelance instructing work in the Caribbean and UK.

Delaney began her professional sailing career on the Schooner Woodwind in Annapolis after graduating college during the pandemic, to pursue a fun summer job. This fun summer job led to working on sailing yachts in the Caribbean and Mediterranean, gathering over 20,000 nm in two years, and then returning to the Woodwind as a Captain in 2024. Sailing is also a family affair. Delaney first went sailing on a catamaran in the BVIs when she was two years old. Fast forward 20 years and she completed the Annapolis to Bermuda race in 2022 on her family’s sailboat with her dad, two uncles, two cousins, and best friend. When not sailing, Delaney likes reading with a cup of hot tea, birdwatching, baking, deadlifting, and practicing stick and poke tattooing on any willing participants.

Erik grew up on the west coast of Sweden – never far from boats and sailing. Both sailboat racing and cruising have always been a big part of his life. Being a professional meteorologist Erik has been involved in several major sailing events and races across the globe including the America’s Cup, Volvo Ocean Race, Vendée Globe and many more. As a sailor Erik has raced and compete in the exciting Figaro Class in France. Erik joined us in 2023 as a relief skipper on FALKEN and has been skippering ISBJØRN, FALKEN and our new program on the Swan 70 ADRIENNE II.

Jon Amtrup is a Norwegian sailor, captain, author, and Arctic explorer. Of his sailing accomplishments, Jon has sailed the entire coast of Norway several times in both winter and summer, circumnavigated Svalbard, crossed the Atlantic, explored Greenland, crossed the North Sea many times, and raced in several national and international double-handed and single-handed regattas. Jon runs his own business consulting with high latitude sailing expeditions on planning, weather, and routing assistance. A member of the The Explorers Club, Jon is the author of several maritime books. Encouraged by Andy, he also hosts his own sailing podcast in Norway. Jon skippered ISBJØRN in the high latitudes in 2022, and returns for more in 2023, 2024 & beyond.

JoJo grew up on boats and spent the first six years of her life sailing from East Africa via the Seychelles, South Africa and Brazil on a 42ft gaff-rigged cutter with no engine or radio. No surprise then, that her sailing methodology is rooted in a traditional sailing ethos, having crossed the Atlantic twice and racked up 20,000 NM before the age of five. Her teenage years were spent sailing in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the US Seaboard and the North Sea before landfall in Falmouth (UK) when an encounter with a circus-theatre troupe brought about a radical change of life-style. Jump forward a few years and JoJo’s bond with sailing was rekindled with an Atlantic circuit with her novice family crew on their 35ft cutter, Island Swift. She has been sailing professionally ever since on larger vessels ranging from Clipper 60s to 100-year-old Bristol Channel Pilot Cutters.

Manot grew up far from the water, at a 1'000m altitude in Switzerland. Sailing remained a dream until he moved near Lake Leman, to study philosophy. There, he stepped onto his first sailboat, and sailed until he became intimate with the alpine lake's temperament. Passionate about many things, and with a strong taste for adventure and exploration, sailing soon became his main endeavor. Aiming to sail to and explore some the most remote places of the planet.

I grew up on the coast of Lanzarote, where my connection to the ocean started early. Over the years, that interest led me into marine biology and commercial diving, but it was moving to Northern Norway for my postgraduate studies that truly changed my path. A twist in circumstances pushed me to buy my first sailboat as a home, and from there everything shifted toward life at sea. As I spent more time sailing, I began steering my career toward expeditions and finding ways to merge practical seamanship with my background in science. Nearly 10 years later, I’ve built a life fully centered around boats: sailing full time, working as a marine technician in the north, and restoring vessels— including a full renovation of the boat I currently live on. Whether I’m on the job, fixing a system, studying charts, or out on the water on my days off, sailing is simply what I do, or perhaps more like fixing boats. I’ve spent most of these years sailing in the Arctic, and I’m always looking toward new adventures.

David grew up in a small village on an island in the archipelago outside Vaasa, on the west coast of Finland. His family roots stretch back many generations of fishermen and mariners on the island. Living just 100 meters from the sea, his childhood was greatly connected the water and laid a foundation for his future. After serving six months in the Finnish Navy’s mortar company, he worked in construction doing concrete diamond drilling for his brother-in-law, while also studying for a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering. During his studies, he gained valuable experience in networking and project management through his active involvement in the student association. During the Covid pandemic, a chance YouTube video introduced him to a style of sailing he hadn’t realized existed. Full-time liveaboard sailors traveling the world sparked his interest to learn sailing himself. Over the next few years, he took sailing and navigation courses and began participating in local sail races. Life took a new turn when he moved with his girlfriend to northeast Sweden. While working as a mechanical designer, he discovered the On The Wind podcast. Listening to the stories from the 59° North team got him truly hooked and inspired him to pursue offshore sailing. He applied and was accepted to sail as an apprentice on FALKEN in 2024. After completing a passage from Sweden to England with 59° North, he continued supporting the business as an apprentice. Since then, he has sailed in the fjords of Bergen aboard ISBJØRN, and most recently crossed the Atlantic from Brazil to the Canary Islands on Adrienne II. He remains part of the 59° North team, contributing to the business and sailing as an apprentice/mate.

Not a sailer I, but that's OK, because I work only behind the scenes on admin tasks :)

Born and raised in Wisconsin, Chad lives in a farmhouse with his wife, Katie. He is a proud veteran of the U.S. Army with multiple combat tours as a scout for the 101st Airborne Division and the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. While listening to 59º North podcasts during my computer science undergraduate homework, Chad reached out to us for sailing-related programming ideas for a capstone project, and the tracking map evolved from that. He quickly realized this was a great way to work on projects involving spatiotemporal data during his graduate studies, as well as a chance to work with a team of professionals he admired. Chad joined FALKEN on the 2nd passage of 2024, sailing from Las Palmas to Mindelo, Cape Verde.