Our Favourite sailing family have taken on an adventure with Greta Thunberg!
Riley, Elayna and Lenny from Sailing la Vagabonde answered young Swedish environmental activist, Greta Thunberg’s call for help after she was stranded in the USA with no way of getting to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (#COP25) in Madrid, Portugal at the end of 2019. The young family of 3 offered to sail Greta and her father 3200nm across the Northern Atlantic in what was sure to be treacherous conditions so that she would be able t carry on doing the amazing work that she has been doing for our environment.
Since 2015 when Greta started spending her school days outside the Swedish parliament to call for stronger action on climate change by holding up a sign reading Skolstrejk för klimatet (School strike for the climate), she has since travelled around the world to talk at global summits and environmental conferences as a representative of the younger generations of the globe. She has taken the task of helping the environment in every aspect of her life, including travel. Which means that she does not fly or drive anywhere! Greta only uses public transport or sustainable modes of transportation such as sailing.
In 2019 Greta sailed to New York from Plymouth, U.K onboard Malizia II with a team of sailors for the United Nations Address in New York. Malizia II is a high speed racing monohull built for the 2016-17 single-handed, non-stop round-the-world Vendée Globe race. Her plan after attending this conference was to travel to Chile for the next summit. However the conference was moved to Portugal and she was left stranded.
Sailing la Vagabonde have released a 6 part video series on their youtube channel documenting the journey with Greta and her father, Svante. The journey took them across the Northern Atlantic Ocean during the colder months of the year and certainly proved to be more challenging than their usual routes of choice.
