When new marine underwriting agency RedSky Insurance came to life in December 2019 and had its launch party in February 2020, little did its founders know that a global pandemic would hit soon thereafter. The crisis, however, has not stopped the team from sailing on – even supporting adventurer Lisa Blair (pictured) in her attempt at another record.
Blair was the first woman to sail solo around Antarctica in 2017, with one stop, as well as the first woman to solo-sail non-stop around Australia in 2018. She also holds the record for the fastest solo and non-stop circumnavigation of Australia in a monohull sailing vessel. This time around, the ocean sailor plans on securing a fourth world record, with the insurance backing of RedSky.
“Since we started in 2019, RedSky has been looking for a cause, something that we could get behind,” said managing director Jill Murphy, an avid sailor herself who completed the Melbourne to Hobart Yacht Race before. “And given the two founders, myself and Heather Roberts, being women, we were looking for something that was reflective of our values and where we’ve come from and who we are.”
The business is sponsoring Blair, who intends to circumnavigate Antarctica all by herself in record time. “Fedor Konyukhov, the person who established the record, did it in 102 days, and I’m aiming at taking 90 days,” she told Insurance Business.
Blair’s journey, which will start from Albany in Western Australia either in late December or early January, won’t all be about the record attempt, though. Onboard her boat, which is called “Climate Action Now,” is a rented subsea research unit that will be collecting data through a flow-through radar.
“It reads things like acidity levels, salinity levels, and how much carbon is trapped in the ocean,” noted Blair, who is collaborating with different organisations to make the information available to scientists. “It will take all these measurements the whole way around Antarctica.
“The data is going to be loaded up onto free-source platforms so that any scientist in any location around the world will be able to use that data to support their modelling and to support our understanding of ocean health and climate science.”
The abovementioned initiative, according to Murphy, was among the things that drew them in partnering with the environmentally aware sailor.
The MD, whose credentials include time spent at AIG and Agile Underwriting, asserted: “I think one of the biggest challenges at the moment is climate change – the unpredictable nature of our weather. That was another attraction with sponsoring Lisa, is because of the research that she’s doing and the data collection. That was another part of why we wanted to get involved with what she’s doing.”
“The Antarctic was one of my passions,” added the RedSky boss, “being a sailor and being in marine insurance. So, it ticked a lot of boxes for us – just the adventure of the strong-willed, motivated person that Lisa has to be to actually do that. It was an easy thing to say ‘yes’ to.”
What had not been easy, at least for Blair, was securing coverage.
She noted: “There’s not a lot of places in the world that will insure solo sailors, period, let alone solo sailors sailing around Antarctica. From a risk management point of view, it’s something that’s quite hard to get insured. RedSky, they do things differently. They approach insurance quite uniquely, and they’re very open-minded to looking at projects like mine.”
Murphy, in her interview with Insurance Business, confirmed the above, saying: “We are providing insurance cover, which has been difficult for her because, as a solo sailor going where she is going particularly, it’s difficult to get insurance. We’ve been lucky that the Lloyd’s syndicate that we write business for has agreed to be part of it as well.”
A “huge chunk” of the policy, according to Blair, is the coverage for the science equipment she will be using for her research at sea.
“You got to know that everything’s going to be insured and covered,” she declared. “Specifically, the science unit, I’m not allowed to have picked that up as a rental without having that fully insured for the duration of the voyage.”
The multiple record-holder went on to state: “When I first sailed around the world in 2011 to 2012, with the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, I was pretty shocked at how much debris and rubbish was out in the ocean. There was one moment where, at 48 degrees south in the Southern Ocean, there was a [polystyrene foam] box floating past.
“It was like a horror story, because you could see this raw, completely natural environment so far from land and people and you’re finding pollution there. So, I always wanted to be able to use the platform that I have through sailing, and through doing records, to raise awareness and educate people.”
