Arctic Row 2026: Swiss Expedition Plans Historic Row Across the Arctic
Four Swiss adventurers will begin the Arctic Row 2026 expedition at midnight between 3 and 4 July 2026, departing from Svalbard. Their goal is to complete a historic human-powered row of more than 3,000 kilometres to the edge of the Arctic sea ice and then continue all the way to mainland Scotland.
After arriving in Svalbard on Monday, 29 June, the Arctic Row 2026 team departed Longyearbyen harbour at midnight between Friday and Saturday, marking the start of a challenging rowing expedition in one of the last frontiers of ocean rowing: the Arctic Ocean. The four-man team, consisting of Florian Ramp, Roman Möckli, Ben von Mitzlaff and Frederik Jacobs, will first row towards Ny-Ålesund before continuing north towards the edge of the polar ice cap. There, the team hopes to break the current world record for the northernmost latitude reached by a rowing vessel in Arctic open waters, which stands at 79° 55′ 500” N. The current record was set in 2017 by a four-man team rowing from Longyearbyen to the island of Jan Mayen. For this year’s team, however, Jan Mayen will only be the second waypoint after reaching the ice. The expedition is then planned to continue towards the eastern tip of Iceland, before passing the Faroe Islands and finally ending in northern Scotland. Overall, the journey is expected to cover around 3,100 km and take between 40 and 60 days, meaning the team will average roughly 120 km per day. Shortly before their departure, the team of Polar Journal had the chance to speak the team of Arctic Row 2026.
After arriving in Longyearbyen, what did the last days for the team look like?
Ben: After arriving on Monday, we put our boat into the water and went on to check everything. Are all tools in place? Load the boat. Do we have everything? Is a carbineer fastened to everything? That actually took longer than expected. And of course buying the last things and going for a practice row.
Frederik: It has been two months since we shipped the boat off towards Longyearbyen and certain procedures got a bit rusty. How do you change crew, how do you arrange your cabin? Our desalination plant had algae growth, so we had to disassemble and clean it. We tried to get a good understanding of the boat again.
Rowing all the way towards the edge of the ice cap is a serious challenge. How do you come up with such a crazy plan?
Roman: Florian and I actually know each other from rowing across the Atlantic in “The World’s Toughest Row”. Florian took part in it in 2019, and I in 2021. That’s how I got into contact with ocean rowing and had a great experience. Then the question is: what to do next? For me, the main race, the Atlantic, was nice, but the other race, the Pacific, would be a pretty similar experience. So it would be cool to do something completely different. The World’s Toughest Row is also a race, so the competition is also more in the foreground. But a bit more exploration would be really nice. So let’s go and do something that nobody has ever achieved before. After seeing a documentary about Olly Hicks and George Bullard, who paddled from Greenland to Scotland in a kayak, I got inspired by the impressive nature. At the same time, it felt like for this passage from Greenland to Scotland something was still missing. That’s when I got the idea to start from Svalbard, row north and then back south towards Scotland. You’ll have untouched nature and a route nobody has done before.
How did you prepare, both as a team and individually?
Ben: We built it up gradually, with sessions lasting a few hours or sometimes up to 40 hours straight for a day. And besides that, there was a lot of self-training, especially on the physical side. We also had a team meeting once a week, always on Fridays at 12:15, where we updated each other on how things were going, who had accomplished what.
How did you all meet?
Roman: I met Flo during the race, and he had done it two years before me. He was that crazy Swiss guy who started as a pair but finished alone, because the other one had to drop out due to sea sickness. Then I asked him what it was like and learned a lot from him. He gave me tips on campaign management and fundraising, and I thought he was a good guy who was open to that, so that’s really how we found each other. Then Flo brought Frederick along, and I brought Ben. We know each other from the military, from the Swiss army, and you know each other from rowing together.
With the ice retreating further each year, how far north are you prepared to row?
Ben: The current plan is to reach at least 80N. But that doesn’t mean we will turn around there; we will really try to go up to the ice and as far as it is safely possible.
What does life on board look like?
Frederik: Life on board happens in a two-hour rhythm. Two hours rowing, two hours sleeping or doing other things. 24 hours a day. Every day until we reach our goal. Of course, other things happen besides sleeping, like cooking, cleaning up, and a team meeting every day. Otherwise, you actually just see the person from your cabin [the boat has two cabins, one aft and one stern] only shortly when handing over for the next shift.
That sounds like you are actually a bit on your own even though there are four people on the boat. How do you hold up motivation?
Florian: It’s actually not so much about motivation. It’s more about rowing your shift. You should not let your teammates down and arrive late to your shift, no matter if you want to row or not. Of course, that’s different if there is a medical condition.
Frederik: We are on a boat. But everyone has to make their own individual contribution. We are responsible for each other, rowing and for finishing and stepping on land still as friends.
Roman: Rowing can actually be quite a meditative thing to do; you just repeat one motion endlessly. There’s that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, isn’t there? At the bottom are the basic needs — sleep, safety, food — and at the top is self-actualisation. And what you’re actually doing in this project is slipping back down to the bottom layer of Maslow’s hierarchy. It’s all about camaraderie, health, and the simple things in life. That means you no longer have certain “First Life Promises,” but instead you really focus on what matters most. And how your mental state changes varies from person to person.
Florian: I think you really do have time to think about where you are in life and also to reflect on life — I think that’s it. And also about things you’ve always done in life, where you might find yourself saying: You know what, I don’t want to do that anymore. And it really is important to realise that you only have this one life to live. You really do need to make sure that you do what you genuinely want to do, rather than living other people’s lives or trying to organise your life around the expectations you want to live up to.
Are there any plans to step foot on land?
Ben: In Scotland. Yeah. And in Ny-Ålesund. As a last stop before civilization ends.
Florian: What we cannot say is how long we will be able to stay there; it really depends on the weather. We hope to make relatively quick progress, because once we’re in the rhythm, we want to keep going. But for us, it’s also about reducing the risk of the whole situation. That means having two days until we reach the ice, with stable weather, is much easier to plan for.
Won’t it be really tempting to just stop at some point, especially when passing so close to Jan Mayen and later Iceland?
Florian: You can’t really see very far. I think that will determine the route. But usually, also because of the curvature of the Earth, you actually can’t really see it at all. It would probably be better, though, if you didn’t even get tempted in the first place to see the land. But the plan would actually be that, depending on the weather, we might be able to row near the Faroe Islands. That would be a beautiful landscape. And from there, it’s only 300 to 400 km to Scotland. Then you can also say: you easily do these last 300 to 400 km. And with Jan Mayen, you know there are still 1,300 km left. That’s a bit different… Jan Mayen, I’d say, is more of a temptation. But this gives you these intermediate sections, where you know, okay, in this section we are now for two days, five days, ten days of the journey. And that helps us a bit mentally with the whole thing. In the day-to-day routine on the boat, nothing changes.
An expedition this far north carries a lot of inherent risk, especially when traveling in a small row boat. How are you prepared for risks, for example polar bears and things like that?
Frederik: I think the biggest risk is ourselves, not the boat. The boat is actually designed like a lifeboat. It can capsize, overturn, and right itself again. So if something happens on the boat, it is most likely our own fault. For example, if someone leaves a hatch open, a wave comes, water gets in, and the boat fills with water. I think the best way to minimize the risk is good training and good preparation. That’s what we have done. That includes, for example, weapons training with Ben, how to use a flare pistol against polar bears, and going through those scenarios. We know what to do if we see a polar bear. We’re trained for that. We know what to do if there’s a hole in the boat. We know what to do if the weather turns bad. We’re not entirely on our own in this project. We also have a team around us that watches over us and follows along. We have one of our meteorologists, who basically observes the weather for us every day. And then we have someone responsible for our safety. So this person is essentially the central hub and in an emergency also the communication link to initiate everything with rescue services, family members, and so on.
How can our readers follow and support your expedition?
Frederik: You can follow and support the trip mainly in two ways: via Instagram at TeamArcticRow, where the GoFundMe link is also listed and where there will be more social-media updates, and via the website TeamArcticRow.ch, which will include a tracker, content, more details, and support options.
PolarJournal, Dr. Jan-Benedict Spannenkrebs
