What qualifies as “extreme” when we talk motorcycle design? Is it the use of exotic materials? The fitment of the latest gadgets to turn it from one motorcycle into something entirely different? Or is it just a design so perfectly executed that it makes the other models pale in comparison?
Admittedly, the term is indeed subjective, yet it doesn’t make it any less valuable. Radical design and performance have long gone hand-in-hand with motorcycle building, be it from Honda’s special HRC (Honda Racing Corporation) wing to a builder working in subzero temperatures in Russia.
A few years back, we looked at a dozen bikes that blew us away, and we thought it was time to go for another round. With that in mind, here are another 15 examples that we consider among the most extreme motorcycles on the planet—each a game-changer, a leader in its field or just something so outrageous that it qualifies by default. You might want to wear a helmet.
PHOTO : PHOTO: COURTESY OF HONDA MOTOR COMPANY, LTD.
Honda RC213V-S
In 2015, Honda released the approx. $262,000 RC213 V-S. Based heavily off Marc Marquez’s 2013 MotoGP World Championship–winning RC213 V, the V-S remains the closest thing anyone can buy to a real MotoGP racer for the street.
The motorcycle was neutered when it came to America, limited to just 75kW so it could get through testing. But Honda also released a full HRC Sport Kit for the V-S that unlocked all 160kW from the 1000cc V-4. Couple this with HRC’s best possible production chassis, and you have a sports motorcycle without peer.
PHOTO : PHOTO: COURTESY OF VYRUS.
Vyrus Alyen 988
Italian custom stalwart Vyrus is not known for subtlety, with bikes sporting its trademark double swingarm/hub-centre-steering suspension set up. But the Alyen 988, released in March, is over-the-top even for Vyrus.
A Ducati Panigale 1299 motor is wrapped in a magnesium Omega chassis and cloaked in load-bearing carbon-fibre bodywork that, when layered in the uni-direction format, has the appearance of high-quality woodgrain. The entire package rolls on carbon-fibre Rotobox wheels. With the look of a frilled-neck lizard transformed into a motorcycle, the Alyen 988 won’t be for everyone, but we’re very glad shops like Vyrus still exist.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF MV AGUSTA MOTOR S.P.A.
MV Agusta F4 LH44
Formula 1’s Lewis Hamilton has enjoyed a fruitful relationship with MV Agusta and, over the years, has released a number of motorcycles bearing his famous LH44 label. But none have come close to the visual feast that is the MV Agusta F4 LH44.
Based heavily off the WorldSBK race replica F4 RC—in fact, it is the same bike, just with incredible paint—the LH44 retails for nearly twice the price as the F4 RC at approx. $95,000. However, when you see an LH44 in the flesh, any thoughts of it not being worth the extra cash go out the window. The red and black paint is a true masterpiece from MV Agusta, so much so that it would almost be a shame to get it dirty by riding…almost.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF INDIAN MOTORCYCLE.
Appaloosa: A Nitro Drag racer From Indian Motorcycle
Commissioned by Indian Motorcycle Europe’s head office to race in first the Sultans of Sprint series and later the Baikal Mile ice sprints in Siberia, this Appaloosa is about as far removed from the donor machine as you could get.
A dustbin fairing encapsulates a custom chassis, swingarm and motor that’s got an extra 22k shot of nitrous at its disposal when flying down the strip. With tyres wrapped in studs and 97kW on hand, this has to be the most extreme Indian build we’ve seen for many years.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF CUSTOM WORKS ZON.
The ‘Stealth Crow’ BMW K 1600 B by Custom Works Zon.
The K 1600 B is basically a brattier version of the gentlemanly K 160 GTL touring motorcycle from BMW, but even the stock 1600 B can’t hold a candle to the machine emanating from Japan’s motorcycle house, Custom Works Zon. What’s impressive is that every part you see here bolts to a standard BMW chassis. Designed to give the look of a monocoque, the ‘Stealth Crow’, as CW Zon calls it, is an otherworldly design exercise to see just what can be done with a standard chassis. The result is a breathtaking journey in carbon-fibre manufacturing, and a machine that looks unlike anything else on the road.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF HAZAN MOTORWORKS.
The Musket by Hazan Motorworks
Based in Los Angeles, custom builder Max Hazan designs machines that have been flooring the motorcycle industry for the past few years, and he continues to carve out an artistic niche few can match.
One of Hazan’s most famous designs is the Musket. It’s built around two 500cc Royal Enfield single-cylinder motors cast together by Ohio-based Royal Enfield motor modifier Aniket Vardhan. Every other piece you see here, aside from the wheels and tires, was created by Hazan, including the tank, fenders, frame and seat unit. Made to order, of course, the model is rumoured to run for approx. $256,000.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF LAZARETH.
Lazareth LM 847
French custom dynamo Ludovic Lazareth gets his kicks by making truly outrageous designs, but none have been as outlandish as the LM 847. Built around a 350kW V8 Maserati motor with four single-sided swingarms, rim-mounted brakes and hub-centre steering, the LM 847 is essentially a leaning quad bike, just one with about 10 times the power. At 2.6-metre in length and weighing 400kg, the Lazareth LM 847 easily takes the mantle as the most extreme quad bike we’ve ever seen.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF BARESTEEL DESIGN.
Stingray by Baresteel Design
Electric motorcycles are very much in vogue with the world’s custom builders right now, and British Columbia’s Baresteel Design has pushed the limits of the market segment further with the incredible Stingray. Designed for the Haas Moto Museum & Sculpture Gallery in Dallas, Tex., Jay Donovan crafted an electric masterpiece with hints of retro, modern and futuristic café racer.
“I wasn’t sure what that was going to look like but I was very curious about the relationship between quality and modern technology, Donovan told pipeburn.com. “And I knew that I wanted to expand my understanding of design and engineering, their boundaries, both hard and soft, and their dynamic and philosophical relationship to one another.”
PHOTO: COURTESY OF KAWASAKI HEAVY INDUSTRIES LTD.
Kawasaki Ninja H2 R
Kawasaki Heavy Industries is a major international transport company, with a board of directors and various shareholders it answers to. As such, it makes the existence of the H2 R even more amazing, for this is a 998 cc supercharged production motorcycle—and one that comes with a factory warranty. The H2 R is the halo machine in Kawasaki’s lineup. It’s a 231kW monster, complete with the rattlesnake hiss of the supercharger, and reserved for only the bravest and skilled of riders.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF BANDIT9.
Eve Lux by Bandit9
Daryl Villanueva of Bandit9, located in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, is no stranger to the pages of Robb Report. We’ve featured his numerous times, consistently blown away by is avant-garde custom motorcycles. Commissioned by Hong Kong luxury retailer Lane Crawford, Eve runs an engine that is, frankly, the opposite of extreme—a 1967 Honda SuperSport 125cc single-cylinder motor. But it’s wrapped in Villanueva’s pressed steel chassis and sci-fi-inspired one-piece bodywork.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF ROLAND SANDS DESIGN.
KRV5 Tracker by Roland Sands Design
There are customs, and then there are customs from Roland Sands Design. And there’s never been a Roland Sands build quite like the KRV5 Tracker. This board track–inspired treasure uses a genuine Proton KR5 MotoGP motor as its heart, donated by American racing legend Kenny Roberts, encased in a minimalistic tubular steel chassis and garish green and red paint. No one before or since has created a custom motorcycle using a real MotoGP motor, making the RSD KRV5 Tracker one of the most bar-raising builds we’ve ever seen.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF EASTERN BOBBER CUSTOM CYCLE.
Bone X by Eastern Bobber Custom Cycle
Where does one start with the Bone X by Eastern Bobber Custom Cycle? The motorized piece of abstract art was created by Omar Jumiran in his workshop in Malaysia and uses a 1961 AJS 350 cc single-cylinder engine. The machine also features a single-sided swingarm front and rear suspension setup and 21-inch billet 6061 CNC-machined wheels. Demonstrating Jumiran’s creative vision and master craftsmanship, the Bone X took second place in the 2018 AMD World Championships for Custom Motorcycles.
PHOTO : PHOTO: COURTESY OF ZILLERS GARAGE.
Zillers Garage BMW R nineT
Dmitry Golubchikov of Moscow-based Zillers Garage used the start of 2020 to launch one of his most ambitious projects to date—this shape-shifting BMW R nineT. Keeping the stock BMW motor and not much else, the Zillers machine can change heights at the push of a button, using a pneumatic system to raise and lower the motorcycle’s stance. The body is a total deviation from Zillers usual style that leaves the motor free of a fairing and in open view. The inspiration for this custom comes from the world of aviation.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF BLACKSTONE TEK.
BST-HyperTEK
South Africa’s Blackstone Tek (BST) is one of the leading lights in carbon-fibre technology, mainly focusing on wheel production for cars and motorcycles. Yet in 2019, it teamed with another famous South African, Pierre Terblanche, the man responsible for the Ducati Supermono (among many other designs).
The result of the collaboration is the all-electric BST-HyperTEK. powered by a DHX Hawk electric motor that produces 80kW and 119Nm of instant torque. The BST-HyperTek is paired with its own Cross X1 smart helmet, where all the bike’s critical information is flashed up on the visor for a data presentation as futuristic looking as the bike itself.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF THRIVE MOTORCYCLE.
Thrive T 22 Synthesis
To build a custom motorcycle, you have to loosen the grip on convention. To build a custom dragster, you have to let go completely. Indonesia’s Thrive Motorcycle has done just that with its T 22 Synthesis. No longer recognizable from the donor Kawasaki Ninja 150 RR it was born from, the T 22 Synthesis is a twin-engine two-stroke dragster totalling 300cc, wrapped in aluminium tubing for the chassis and a monocoque body—just like the halo drag bikes of the 1960s.
In our quest to locate the most exclusive and exciting wines for our readers, we usually ask the question, “How many bottles of this were made?” Often, we get a general response based on an annual average, although many Champagne houses simply respond, “We do not wish to communicate our quantities.” As far as we’re concerned, that’s pretty much like pleading the Fifth on the witness stand; yes, you’re not incriminating yourself, but anyone paying attention knows you’re probably guilty of something. In the case of some Champagne houses, that something is making a whole lot of bottles—millions of them—while creating an illusion of rarity.
We received the exact opposite reply regarding Armand de Brignac Blanc de Noirs Assemblage No. 4. Yasmin Allen, the company’s president and CEO, told us only 7,328 bottles would be released of this Pinot Noir offering. It’s good to know that with a sticker price of around $1,800, it’s highly limited, but it still makes one wonder what’s so exceptional about it.
Known by its nickname, Ace of Spades, for its distinctive and decorative metallic packaging, Armand de Brignac is owned by Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy and Jay-Z and is produced by Champagne Cattier. Each bottle of Assemblage No. 4 is numbered; a small plate on the back reads “Assemblage Four, [X,XXX]/7,328, Disgorged: 20 April, 2023.” Prior to disgorgement, it spent seven years in the bottle on lees after primary fermentation mostly in stainless steel with a small amount in concrete. That’s the longest of the house’s Champagnes spent on the lees, but Allen says the winemaking team tasted along the way and would have disgorged earlier than planned if they’d felt the time was right.
Chef de cave, Alexandre Cattier, says the wine is sourced from some of the best Premier and Grand Cru Pinot Noir–producing villages in the Champagne region, including Chigny-les-Roses, Verzenay, Rilly-la-Montagne, Verzy, Ludes, Mailly-Champagne, and Ville-sur-Arce in the Aube département. This is considered a multi-vintage expression, using wine from a consecutive trio of vintages—2013, 2014, and 2015—to create an “intense and rich” blend. Seventy percent of the offering is from 2015 (hailed as one of the finest vintages in recent memory), with 15 percent each from the other two years.
This precisely crafted Champagne uses only the tête de cuvée juice, a highly selective extraction process. As Allen points out, “the winemakers solely take the first and freshest portion of the gentle cuvée grape press,” which assures that the finished wine will be the highest quality. Armand de Brignac used grapes from various sites and three different vintages so the final product would reflect the house signature style. This is the fourth release in a series that began with Assemblage No. 1. “Testing different levels of intensity of aromas with the balance of red and dark fruits has been a guiding principle between the Blanc de Noirs that followed,” Allen explains.
The CEO recommends allowing the Assemblage No. 4 to linger in your glass for a while, telling us, “Your palette will go on a journey, evolving from one incredible aroma to the next as the wine warms in your glass where it will open up to an extraordinary length.” We found it to have a gorgeous bouquet of raspberry and Mission fig with hints of river rock; as it opened, notes of toasted almond and just-baked brioche became noticeable. With striking acidity and a vein of minerality, it has luscious nectarine, passion fruit, candied orange peel, and red plum flavors with touches of beeswax and a whiff of baking spices on the enduring finish. We enjoyed our bottle with a roast chicken rubbed with butter and herbes de Provence and savored the final, extremely rare sip with a bit of Stilton. Unfortunately, the pairing possibilities are not infinite with this release; there are only 7,327 more ways to enjoy yours.
Bill Henson is one of Australia’s best-known contemporary photographers. When a show by this calibre of artist opens here, the art world waits with bated breath to see what he will unveil.
This time, he presents a historically important landscape series that chronicles a time in New York City that no longer exists. It’s a nostalgic trip back in time, a nocturnal odyssey through the frenetic, neon-lit streets of a long-lost America.
Known for his chiaroscuro style, Henson’s cinematic photographs often transform his subject into ambiguous objects of beauty. This time round, the show presents a mysterious walk through the streets of Manhattan, evoking a seedy, yet beautiful vision of the city.
Relying on generative gaps, these landscapes result from Henson mining his archive of negatives and manipulating them to produce a finished print. Sometimes, they are composed by a principle of magnification, with Henson honing in on details, and sometimes, they are created through areas of black being expanded to make the scene more cinematic and foreboding. Like silence in a film or the pause in a pulse, the black suggests the things you can’t see.
Henson’s illustrious career has spanned four decades and was memorably marred by controversy over a series of nude adolescent photographs shown in 2008, which made him front-page news for weeks. This series of portraits made Henson the subject of a police investigation during which no offence was found.
In recent years, Henson has been a sharp critic of cancel culture, encouraging artists to contribute something that will have lasting value and add to the conversation, rather than tearing down the past.
His work deals with the liminal space between the mystical and the real, the seen and unseen, the boundary between youth and adulthood.
His famous Paris Opera Project, 1990-91, pictured above, is similarly intense as the current show, dwelling on the border between the painterly and the cinematic.
Bill Henson’s ‘The Liquid Night’ runs until 11 May 2024 at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
Piaget, the watchmaker’s watchmaker, has once again redefined the meaning of “ultra-thin” thanks to its newest masterpiece, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon—the world’s thinnest tourbillon watch.
In the world of high-watchmaking where thin is never thin enough—look at the ongoing battle between Piaget, Bulgari, and Richard Mille for the honours—Piaget caused a furore at Watches & Wonders in Geneva when it unveiled its latest feat to coincide with the Maison’s 150th year anniversary.
Piaget claims that the new Altiplano is “shaped by a quest for elegance and driven by inventiveness”, and while this might be true, it’s clear that the Maison’s high-watchmaking divisions in La Côte-aux-Fées and Geneva are also looking to end the conversation around who owns the ultra-thin watchmaking category.
The new Altiplano pushes the boundaries of horological ingenuity 67 years after Piaget invented its first ultra-thin calibre—the revered 9P—and six years after it presented the world’s then-thinnest watch, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept. Now, with the release of this unrivalled timepiece at just 2mm thick—the same as its predecessor, yet now housing the beat of a flying tourbillon, prized by watchmaking connoisseurs—you can’t help but marvel at its ultra-thin mastery, whether the timepiece is to your liking or not.
In comparison, the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Tourbillon was 3.95mm thick when unveiled in 2020, which seems huge on paper compared to what Piaget has been able to produce. But to craft a watch as thin and groundbreaking as its predecessor, now with an added flying tourbillon complication, the whole watchmaking process had to be revalued and reinvented.
“We did far more than merely add a tourbillon,” says Benjamin Comar, Piaget CEO. “We reinvented everything.”
After three years of R&D, trial and error—and a redesign of 90 percent of the original Altiplano Ultimate Concept components—the 2024 version needs to be held and seen to be believed. The end product certainly isn’t a watch for the everyday watch wearer—although Piaget will tell you otherwise—but in many ways, the company didn’t conjure a timepiece like the Altiplano as a profit-seeking exercise. Instead, overcoming such an arduous and technical watchmaking feat proves that Piaget can master the flying tourbillon in such a whimsical fashion and, in the process, subvert the current state-of-the-art technical principles by making an impactful visual—and technical—statement.
The only question left to ask is, what’s next, Piaget?
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Model: Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon 150th Anniversary Diameter: 41.5 mm Thickness: 2 mm (crystal included) Material: M64BC cobalt alloy, blue PVD -treated Dial: Monobloc dial; polished round and baton indices, Bâton-shaped hand for the minutes Monobloc disc with a hand for the hours Water resistance:20m
Movement: Calibre 970P-UC, one-minute peripheral tourbillon Winding: Hand-wound Functions: hours, minutes, and small seconds (time-only) Power reserve: 40 hours
Availability: Limited production, not numbered Price: Price on request
A century ago, an expedition to the North Pole involved dog sleds and explorers in heavy, fur-lined clothes, windburned and famished after weeks of trudging across ice floes, finally planting their nations’ flags in the barren landscape. These days, if you’re a tourist, the only way to reach 90 degrees north latitude, the geographic North Pole, is aboard Le Commandant Charcot, a six-star hotel mated to a massive, 150-metre ice-breaking hull.
My wife, Cathy, and I are among the first group of tourists aboard Ponant’s new expedition icebreaker, the world’s only Polar Class 2–rated cruise ship (of seven levels of ice vessel, second only to research and military vessels in ability to manoeuvre in Arctic conditions). Our arrival on July 14 couldn’t be more different from explorer Robert Peary’s on April 6, 1909. On that date, he reported, he staked a small American flag—sewed by his wife—into the Pole, joined by four Inuits and his assistant, Matthew Henson, a Black explorer from Maine who was with Peary on his two previous Arctic expeditions. (Peary’s claim of being first to the Pole was quickly disputed by another American, Frederick Cook, who insisted he’d spent two days there a year earlier. Scholars now view both claims with skepticism.)
Our 300-plus party’s landing, on Bastille Day, features the captain of the French ship driving around in an all-terrain vehicle with massive wheels and an enormous tricolour flag on the back, guests dressed in stylish orange parkas celebrating on the ice, and La Marseillaise, France’s national anthem, blaring from loudspeakers. After an hour of taking selfies and building snow igloos in the icescape, with temperatures in the relatively balmy low 30s, we head back into our heated sanctuary for mulled wine and freshly baked croissants. Mission accomplished. Flags planted. Now, lunch.
As a kid, I was fascinated by stories of adventurers trying to reach the North Pole without any means of rescue. In the 19th century, most of their attempts ended in disaster—ships getting trapped in the ice, a hydrogen balloon crashing, even cannibalism. It wasn’t until Cook and Peary reportedly set foot there that the race to the North Pole was really on. Norwegian Roald Amundsen, the first to reach the South Pole, in 1911, is credited with being the first to document a trip over the North Pole, which he did in 1926 in the airship Norge. In 1977, the nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika became the first surface vessel to make it to the North Pole. Since then, only 18 other ships have completed the voyage.
Visiting the North Pole seemed about as likely for me as walking on the Moon. It wasn’t even on my bucket list. Then came Le Commandant Charcot, which was named after France’s most beloved polar explorer and reportedly cost about US$430 million (around $655 million) to build. The irony of visiting one of the planet’s most remote and inhospitable points while travelling in the lap of luxury doesn’t escape me or anyone else I speak with on the voyage. Danie Ferreira, from Cape Town, South Africa, describes it as “an ensemble of contradictions bordering on the absurd”. Ferreira, who is on board with his wife, Suzette, is a veteran of early-explorer-style high-Arctic journeys, months-long treks involving dog sleds and real toil and suffering. He booked this trip to obtain an official North Pole stamp for an upcoming two-volume collection of his photographs, Out in the Cold, documenting his polar adventures. “Reserving the cabin felt like a betrayal of my expeditionary philosophy,” he says with a laugh.
Then, like the rest of us, he embraces the contradictions. “This is like the first time I saw the raw artistry of Cirque du Soleil,” he explains. “Everything is beyond my wildest expectations, unrelatable to anything I’ve experienced.”
The 17-day itinerary launches from the Norwegian settlement of Longyearbyen, Svalbard, the northernmost town in the Arctic Circle, and heads 1,186 nautical miles to the North Pole, then back again. As a floating hotel, the vessel is exceptional: 123 balconied staterooms and suites, the most expensive among them duplexes with butler service (prices range from around $58,000 to $136,000 per person, double occupancy); a spa with a sauna, massage therapists, and aestheticians; a gym and heated indoor pool. The boat weighs more than 35,000 tons, enabling it to break ice floes like “a chocolate bar into little pieces, rather than slice through them”, according to Captain Patrick Marchesseau. Six-metre-wide stainless-steel propellers, he adds, were designed to “chew ice like a blender”.
Marchesseau, a tall, lanky, 40-ish mariner from Brittany, impeccable in his navy uniform but rocking royal-blue boat shoes, proves to be a charming host. Never short of a good quip, he’s one of three experienced ice captains who alternate at the helm of Charcot throughout the year. He began piloting Ponant ships through drifting ice floes in Antarctica in 2009, when he took the helm of Le Diamant, Ponant’s first expedition vessel. “An epic introduction,” Marchesseau calls those early voyages, but the isolated, icebound North Pole aboard a larger, more complicated vessel is potentially an even thornier challenge. “We’ll first sail east where the ice is less concentrated and then enter the pack at 81 degrees,” he tells a lecture hall filled with passengers on day one. “We don’t plan to stop until we get to the North Pole.”
Around us, the majority of the other 101 guests are older French couples; there are also a few extended families, some other Europeans, mostly German and Dutch, as well as 10 Americans. Among the supporting cast are six research scientists and 221 staff, including 18 naturalist guides from a variety of countries.
The first six days are more about the journey than the destination. Cathy and I settle into our comfortable stateroom, enjoy the ocean views from our balcony, make friends with other guests and naturalists, frequent the spa, and indulge in the contemporary French cuisine at Nuna, which is often jarred by ice passing under the hull, as well as at the more casual Sila (Inuit for “sky”). There are the usual cruise events: the officers’ gala, wine pairings, daily French pastries, Broadway-style shows, opera singers and concert pianists. Initially, I worry about “Groundhog Day” setting in, but once we hit patchy ice floes on day two, it’s clear that the polar party is on. The next day, we’re ensconced in the ice pack.
Veterans of Arctic journeys immediately feel at home. Ferreira, often found on the observation deck 15 metres above the ice with his long-lensed cameras, is in his element snapping different patterns and colours of the frozen landscape. “It feels like combining low-level flying with an out-of-body experience,” he says. “Whenever the hull shudders against the ice, I have a reality check.”
“I came back because I love this ice,” adds American Gin Millsap, who with her husband, Jim, visited the North Pole in 2015 aboard the Russian nuclear icebreaker Fifty Years of Victory, which for obvious reasons is no longer a viable option for Americans and many Europeans. “I love the peace, beauty and calmness.”
It is easy to bliss out on the endless barren vistas, constantly morphing into new shapes, contours and shades of white as the weather moves from bright sunshine to howling snowstorms—sometimes within the course of a few hours. I spend a lot of time on the cold, windswept bow, looking at the snow patterns, ridges and rivers flowing within the pale landscape as the boat crunches through the ice. It feels like being in a black-and-white movie, with no colours except the turquoise bottoms of ice blocks overturned by the boat. Beautiful, lonely, mesmerising.
Rather than a solid landmass, the Arctic ice pack is actually millions of square kilometres of ice floes, slowly pushed around by wind and currents. The size varies according to season: this past winter, the ice was at its fifth-lowest level on record, encompassing 14.6 million square kilometres, while during our cruise it was 4.7 million square kilometres, the 10th-lowest summer number on record. There are myriad ice types—young ice, pancake ice, ice cake, brash ice, fast ice—but the two that our ice pilot, Geir-Martin Leinebø, cares about are first-year ice and old ice. The thinness of the former provides the ideal route to the Pole, while the denseness of the aged variety can result in three-to-eight-metre-high ridges that are potentially impassable. Leinebø is no novice: in his day job, he’s the captain of Norway’s naval icebreaker, KV Svalbard, the first Norwegian vessel to reach the North Pole, in 2019.
It’s not a matter of just pointing the boat due north and firing up the engine. Leinebø zigzags through the floes. A morning satellite feed and special software aid in determining the best route; the ship’s helicopter sometimes scouts 65 or so kilometres ahead, and there’s a sonar called the Sea Ice Monitoring System (SIMS). But mostly Leinebø uses his eyes. “You look for the weakest parts of the ice—you avoid the ridges because that means thickness and instead look for water,” he says. “If the ‘water sky’ in the distance is dark, it’s reflecting water like a mirror, so you head in that direction.”
Everyone on the bridge is surprised by the lack of multi-year ice, but with more than a hint of disquietude. Though we don’t have to ram our way through frozen ridges, the advance of climate change couldn’t be more apparent. Environmentalists call the Arctic ice sheet the canary in the coal mine of the planet’s climate change for good reason: it is happening here first. “It’s not right,” mutters Leinebø. “There’s just too much open water for July. Really scary.”
The Arctic ice sheet has shrunk to about half its 1985 size, and as both mariners and scientists on board note, the quality of the ice is deteriorating. “It’s happening faster than our models predicted,” says Marisol Maddox, senior arctic analyst at the Polar Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “We’re seeing major events like Greenland’s ice sheet melting and sliding into the ocean—that wasn’t forecasted until 2070.” The consensus had been that the Arctic would be ice-free by 2050, but many scientists now expect that day to come in the 2030s.
That deterioration, it turns out, is why the three teams of scientists are on the voyage—two studying the ice and the other assessing climate change’s impact on plankton. As part of its commitment to sustainability, Ponant has designed two research labs—one wet and one dry—on a lower deck. “We took the advice of many scientists for equipping these labs,” says Hugues Decamus, Charcot’s chief engineer, clearly proud of the nearly US$12 million facilities.
The combined size of the labs, along with a sonar room, a dedicated server for the scientists, and a meteorological station on the vessel’s top deck, totals 130 square metres—space that could have been used for revenue generation. Ponant also has two staterooms reserved for scientists on each voyage and provides grants for travel expenses. The line doesn’t cherrypick researchers but instead asks the independent Arctic Research Icebreaker Consortium (ARICE) to choose participants based on submissions.
The idea, says the vessel’s science officer on this voyage, Daphné Buiron, is to make the process transparent and minimise the appearance of greenwashing. “Yes, this alliance may deliver a positive public image for the company, but this ship shows we do real science on board,” she says. The labs will improve over time, adds Decamus, as the ship amasses more sophisticated equipment.
Research scientists and tourist vessels don’t typically mix. The former, wary of becoming mascots for the cruise lines’ sustainability marketing efforts, and cognisant of the less-than-pristine footprint of many vessels, tend to be wary. The cruise lines, for their part, see scientists as potentially high maintenance when paying customers should be the priority. But there seemed to be a meeting of the minds, or at least a détente, on Le Commandant Charcot.
“We discuss this a lot and are aware of the downsides, but also the positives,” says Franz von Bock und Polach, head of the institute for ship structural design and analysis at Hamburg University of Technology, specialising in the physics of sea ice. Not only does Charcot grant free access to these remote areas, but the ship will also collect data on the same route multiple times a year with equipment his team leaves on board, offering what scientists prize most: repeatability. “One transit doesn’t have much value,” he says. “But when you measure different seasons, regions and years, you build up a more complex picture.” So, more than just a research paper: forecasts of ice conditions for long-term planning by governments as the Arctic transforms.
Nils Haëntjens, from the University of Maine, is analysing five-millilitre drops of water on a high-tech McLane IFCB microscope. “The instrument captures more than 250,000 images of phytoplankton along the latitudinal transect,” he says. Charcot has doors in the wet lab that allow the scientists to take water samples, and in the bow, inlets take in water without contaminating it. Two freezers can preserve samples for further research back in university labs.
Even though the boat won’t stop, the captain and chief engineer clearly want to make the science missions work. Marchesseau dispatches the helicopter with the researchers and their gear 100 kilometres ahead, where they take core samples and measurements. I spot them in their red snowsuits, pulling sleds on an ice floe, as the boat passes. Startled to see living-colour humans on the ice after days of monochrome, I feel a pang of jealousy as I head for a caviar tasting.
The only other humans we encounter on the journey north are aboard Fifty Years of Victory, the Russian icebreaker. The 160-metre orange- and-black leviathan reached the North Pole a day earlier—its 59th visit—and is on its way back to Murmansk. It’s a classic East meets West moment: the icebreaker, launched just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, meeting the new standard of polar luxury.
The evening before Bastille Day, Le Commandant Charcot arrives at the North Pole. Because of the pinpoint precision of the GPS, Marchesseau has to navigate back and forth for about 20 minutes—with a bridge full of passengers hushing each other so as not to distract him—until he finds 90 degrees north. That final chaotic approach to the top of the world in the grey, windswept landscape looks like a kid’s Etch A Sketch on the chartplotter, but it is met with rousing cheers. The next morning, with good visibility and light winds, we spill out onto the ice for the celebration, followed by a polar plunge.
As guests pose in front of flags and mile markers for major cities, the naturalist guides, armed with rifles, establish a wide perimeter to guard against polar bears. The fearless creatures are highly intelligent, with razor-sharp teeth, hooked claws and the ability to sprint at 40 km/h. Males average about three metres tall and weigh around 700 kilos. They are loners that will kill anything—including other bears and even their own cubs. Cathy and I walk around the far edges of the perimeter to enjoy some solitude. Looking out over the white landscape, I know this is a milestone. But it feels odd that getting here didn’t involve any sweat or even a modicum of discomfort.
The rest of the week is an entirely different trip. On the return south, we see a huge male polar bear ambling on the ice, looking over his shoulder at us. It is our first sighting of the Arctic’s apex predator, and everyone crowds the observation lounge with long-lensed cameras. The next day, we see another male, this one smaller, running away from the ship. “They have many personalities,” says Steiner Aksnes, head of the expedition team, who has led scientists and film crews in the Arctic for 25 years. We see a dozen on the return to Svalbard, where 3,000 are scattered across the archipelago, outnumbering human residents.
The last five days we make six stops on different islands, travelling by Zodiac from Charcot to various beaches. On Lomfjorden, as we look on a hundred yards from shore, a mother polar bear protects her two cubs while a young male hovers in the background. On a Zodiac ride off Alkefjellet, the air is alive with birds, including tens of thousands of Brünnich’s guillemots as well as glaucous gulls and kittiwakes, which nest in that island’s cliffs, while a young male polar bear munches on a ring seal, chin glistening red.
On this part of the trip, the expedition team, mostly 30-something, free-spirited scientists whose areas of expertise range from botany to alpine trekking to whales, lead hikes across different landscapes. The jam-packed schedule sometimes involves three activities per day and includes following the reindeer on Palanderbukta, seeing a colony of 200 walruses on Kapp Lee, hiking the black tundra of Burgerbukta (boasting 3.8-cm-tall willows—said to be the smallest trees in the world and the largest on Svalbard—plus mosquitoes!), watching multiple species of whales breaching offshore, and kayaking the ice floes of Ekmanfjorden. Svalbard is a protected wilderness area, and the cruise lines tailor their schedules so vessels don’t overlap, giving visitors the impression they are setting foot on virgin land.
Chances to experience that sense of discovery and wonder, even slightly stage-managed ones, are dwindling along with the ice sheet and endangered wildlife. If a stunning trip to a frozen North Pole is on your bucket list, the time to go is now.
PARADIGM SHIP
For those studying polar ice, a berth aboard Le Commandant Charcot is like a winning lottery ticket. “This cruise ship is one of the few resources scientists can use, because nothing else can get there,” says G. Mark Miller, CEO of research-vessel builder Greenwater Marine Sciences Offshore (GMSO) and a former ship captain for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “Then factor in 80 percent of scientists who want to go to sea, can’t, because of the shortage of research vessels.”
Both Ponant and Viking have designed research labs aboard new expedition vessels as part of their sustainability initiatives. “Remote areas like Antarctica need more data—the typical research is just single data points,” says Damon Stanwell-Smith, Ph.D., head of science and sustainability at Viking. “Every scientist says more information is needed.”The twin sisterships Viking Octantis and Viking Polaris, which travel to Antarctica, Patagonia, the Great Lakes and Canada, have identical 35-square-metre labs, separated into wet and dry areas and fitted out with research equipment. In hangars below are military-grade rigid-hulled inflatables and two six-person yellow submersibles (the pair on Octantis are named John and Paul, while Polaris’s are George and Ringo). Unlike Ponant, Viking doesn’t have an independent association choose scientists for each voyage. Instead, it partners with the University of Cambridge, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and NOAA, which send their researchers to work with Viking’s onboard science officers.
“Some people think marine research is sticking some kids on a ship to take measurements,” says Stanwell-Smith. “But we know we can do first-rate science—not spin.”Other cruise lines are also embracing sustainability initiatives, with coral-reef-restoration projects and water-quality measurements, usually in partnership with universities. Just about every vessel has “citizen-scientist” research programs allowing guests the opportunity to count birds or pick up discarded plastic on beaches. So far, Ponant and Viking are the only lines with serious research labs. Ponant is adding science officers to other vessels in its fleet. As part of the initiatives, scientists deliver onboard lectures and sometimes invite passengers to assist in their research.
Given the shortage of research vessels, Stanwell-Smith thinks this passenger-funded system will coexist nicely with current NGO- and government-owned ships. “This could be a new paradigm for exploring the sea,” he says. “Maybe the next generation of research vessels will look like ours.”
As the textile industry makes technological advances, traditional outdoor furniture made from iron, wicker and teak seems ever so throwback-y and, dare we say, inconvenient and even uncomfortable. Gandia Blasco’s Mediterranean roots and architectural approach shine in its Onsen collection of garden furniture. Luxe synthetic-leather straps wrapping a tubular stainless-steel structure paired with long-wearing cushions in a similar shade lend new life to the idea of living with leather outdoors. From about $4,425; soft mat about $620, warm mat about $810; Onsen, Gandia Blasco
Gabri, Bolzan
The pared-down, leggy look of these tripod tables packs a functional punch without foregoing refinement. Designed by Matteo Zorzenoni for Bolzan and made in Italy, the Gabri’s leather-bound frames with subtle topstitching and semicircular notches recall desktop accessories of an analog age. The dark tops with touches of chalky veining are thoroughly of this century: made from neolith stone, they’re temperature-resistant and waterproof, so go ahead and place your martini where you will. Small, about $1,735; large, about $2,603; Bolzan.com
Zenius Lines Giobagnara
Giobagnara’s leather-encased Nespresso machine with vertical- or diamond-quilted detailing is genius in its unfussy application. The leather suits the product; the design channels the look of a luxury Italian sports car. The brand began with the Bagnara family producing household items in 1939, before moving into the luxury realm in the ’70s. Giorgio Bagnara changed its name to B. Home Interiors in 1999 and to the eponymous Giobagnara in 2014. If you like your home appliances with liberal leather detailing, it’s one to follow. About $7,900; Artemest.com
Vague, Tonucci Collection
Fun house–meets-Baroque in this softly symmetrical, wall-mounted mirror that playfully beckons you into another dimension (and will bounce beautiful light around the room). Designed by Viola Tonucci, who took the reins of Tonucci Collection from her father last year, the thick, leather-covered frame introduces architectural interest and a hint of levity to a room, be it traditional or modern. About $8,050; Tonucci.com
DS-707, de Sede
Given Philippe Malouin’s propensity for experimentation, it’s no wonder that Swiss furniture firm de Sede took a whole new approach in manufacturing Malouin’s DS-707 design. He began by noodling around with foam, folding it this way and that before settling on the serpentine shape. Although the silhouette made de Sede wary—creating it required the team to manipulate leather in a manner that could leave it less supple— the project prevailed with great success. The system itself invites experimentation as customers can configure the components to their heart’s content. From $30,450; deSede.com