"It's going to be incredible to set a record never done before, but should it be celebrated?" Ella Hibbert asks herself. "No, I don't think so."
After three years of preparation, Ella is about to take on a journey long considered impossible: a solo circumnavigation of the Arctic. This daring attempt is only possible now due to the region's rapid sea ice decline. Ella has always been captivated by the Arctic, and the more she learned about how the climate crisis affected it, the more determined she became to showcase the region to the world.
Born in Germany, Ella's family moved to England when she was three. By age five, her dad had her sailing dinghies on a lake in Suffolk, England, called Alton Waters — mostly to keep her out of trouble during school holidays. She fell in love with sailing. Later, when the family moved to the South of France, her dad bought a 40-foot Moody sailing yacht. Summers were spent cruising to Corsica, deepening her love for the water.
After spending several years as a young adult pursuing her other passion, horses, through Australia and Germany, Ella joined the yachting world as a deckhand and dive master, working on luxury motor yachts in the Mediterranean and Caribbean.
"As much as I loved the diving, I absolutely hated being on the motor yachts," says Ella. "It is so different from what I grew up with, and it's not an industry I feel aligned with."
Determined to find her path, Ella pursued her sailing qualifications. By 24, she was a Yachtmaster Offshore and, shortly after, a cruising instructor; and at 25, the second-youngest female Yachtmaster Instructor certified by the Royal Yachting Association.
Since then, she's been teaching sailing full-time—until last year, when her sponsors at Capital.com, began covering her living expenses so she could dedicate herself entirely to training and planning for her circumnavigation.
Finding the perfect boat for this expedition was challenging; Ella had a pretty specific checklist. It needed to be under 40 feet long and be a ketch plan—two masts with the smaller one at the back—for ease of handling the vessel alone. Indoor steering and a steel hull were also necessities for the temperatures and potential hazards in the Arctic.
One evening, after a year of looking, Ella took a school boat into a marina for the evening and spotted Yeva, a 1978 steel ketch, on her way to dinner. Yeva wasn't for sale, but undeterred, Ella reached out to the owners, and they agreed to sell.
"She needed quite a bit of love," says Ella. "It's been hard work, but it's really nice to repurpose a boat designed for doing what I'm trying to do."
Last summer, Ella and Yeva embarked on sea trials, covering over 3,500 miles. From Portsmouth to Southern Norway and a solo return crossing between Tromsø and Svalbard, Ella pushed both herself and Yeva to their limits.
Ella anticipates two significant dangers on her journey: ice and sleep deprivation. During last summer’s crossing, she didn't sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time. To navigate ice hazards, she's relying on a camera mounted on Yeva's mast, thermal imaging binoculars, and real-time satellite data from her sponsor, Drift and Noise.
"If it were easy, someone would've done it by now," says Ella with a smile.
Ella's ground support is comprised of her parents and a friend. Her father, a former British military helicopter pilot, will handle weather, ice routing and SATCOMs. Her mom will run her social media, and Lee, a former member of the British Coast Guard and current employee of Yellow Brick Tracking, will be her first point of contact in emergencies.
Ocean Films will document her experience and offer an unfiltered look at the rapidly changing Arctic, highlighting both Ella's personal journey and the urgent realities of the climate crisis.
Her Arctic mission extends beyond storytelling—she is taking action. Through her expedition, she is raising awareness and funds for two organizations: Polar Bears International, which focuses on polar bear conservation and education, and Ocean Conservancy, which advocates for Arctic protections and regulations on shipping traffic.
She'll also contribute to the SeaKeepers Society's Seabed 2030 project, depth-mapping uncharted areas of the Arctic Ocean. With them, Ella will also develop lesson plans for schoolchildren worldwide. During her journey, she'll share updates, sightings, and discoveries to engage kids in real time.
"I originally wanted to see the Arctic because I knew it was disappearing," Ella says. "Showcasing it on a larger scale has become one of my driving factors. For me, this isn't about setting a record—it's bittersweet that it's even possible."
Follow her journey as she sets off in May 2025.
Shop Ella's offshore jacket of choice
