Vuelta Vertical: when B&G sails where the world ends

A 20-metre aluminium sailboat. Two Spaniards. Forty thousand miles connecting the two poles of the planet. And in every manoeuvre, every routing decision, every night watch among icebergs; B&G technology is always present.

There is a line on the charts that sailors recognize before they ever reach it. Not because of what the map shows, but because of what the body feels. At 50 degrees south, the ocean changes character. Waves are no longer just swell: they become moving architecture; ten-meter water structures shaped endlessly by the wind, uninterrupted for centuries because there is no land to stop them. Those who have been there speak of it with a mix of respect and something close to fascination. Those who have not yet arrived sense it in the weather reports.

Paula Gonzalvo and Pedro Jiménez have already crossed that line.

They are in the Southern Ocean aboard Alegría Marineros, a 20.5-metre (68-foot) aluminium sailboat designed specifically to withstand what very few boats in the world are built to endure. And they are doing so as part of Vuelta Vertical, an expedition that, since November 15th, 2025, redefines what it means to circumnavigate the globe under sail: not from east to west, as dictated by the trade winds and ocean tradition, but from south to north — from Antarctica to the Arctic — crossing five oceans and the Equator twice in a journey of more than 40,000 miles to be completed within twelve months.

This is not just another round-the-world voyage. It is, quite possibly, the most ambitious circumnavigation ever to depart from a Spanish port.

The idea no one had executed

Vuelta Vertical begins with a simple yet uncomfortable question: why has no one connected both poles in a single sailing expedition? The answer has several layers.

The first is technical: a vessel capable of navigating Antarctic latitudes and then forcing its way through the Arctic’s Northwest Passage requires a combination of strength, autonomy and redundancy that very few sailboats possess.The second is logistical: a route like this demands meticulous planning, extremely tight weather windows and a crew capable of enduring twelve months without real interruption. The third is human: it requires sailors who have already been to these places and understand that previous experience guarantees nothing — but does teach better decision-making.

Paula and Pedro meet all three conditions. But from the very beginning, they also knew that without the right technology, none of the above would be enough.

Paula Gonzalvo: the captain who turned the ocean into narrative

There is something about Paula Gonzalvo that surprises those who hear her speak for the first time. She talks about the sea with the technical precision that only miles can provide — more than 65,000 of them — and at the same time with a narrative rhythm that turns every night watch into something worth telling.

An architect by training, an ocean skipper by profession and a communicator by vocation, she has become one of the most recognizable voices in nautical storytelling in Spain through her platform Allende los Mares.

In Vuelta Vertical, Paula takes on two roles that are usually separate in most expeditions: she is the one making routing decisions, and the one explaining them to the world. That dual role — sailing and storytelling — is a core part of the project’s DNA. “We want anyone to feel what it means to sail in the poles and understand why protecting them is vital,” she has explained on multiple occasions.

Her ability to make the technical accessible without losing the truth of life onboard is, in many ways, what turns Vuelta Vertical into more than an elite expedition — it makes it a shared experience

Pedro Jiménez: the captain who puts the boat first

Pedro Jiménez acumula más de 200.000 millas navegadas, un número que, para quienes no viven el mar, es difícil de dimensionar y que para quienes sí lo hacen equivale a haber dado la vuelta al planeta unas ocho veces. Founder of Alegría Marineros, his sailing platform and community, Pedro represents the archetype of the offshore sailor: someone who has learned that the difference between arriving and not arriving rarely lies in courage, and almost always in preparation.

His experience includes multiple polar expeditions — three in Antarctica among them — as well as Atlantic and Pacific crossings that would have been enough to define an entire ocean career. Vuelta Vertical is, in that sense, the accumulation of everything learned in a project that demands every ounce of that knowledge.

He speaks about the sea with professional calm — the kind that comes when routine has become organized survival. “The ocean reminds us that everything is connected: what happens at the poles affects every corner of the planet,” he summarizes with the economy of words of someone who knows the sea always has the final say.

The boat: aluminium, redundancy and no margin for failure

Alegría Marineros is not a racing yacht. It is not designed for speed, but for something more difficult: endurance. Its aluminium hull makes a critical difference in polar regions compared to fibreglass, especially when navigating among floating ice. At 20.5 metres in length, 5.4 metres in beam and 3.2 metres in draft, it combines enough living space for a year-long journey with the structural strength required for extreme latitudes.

The core design principle is redundancy: two autopilots, two radars, multiple GPS sources, triple satellite communication. In high-latitude ocean sailing, systems do not fail one by one. When conditions deteriorate, demands increase simultaneously. A boat without backup systems is not a polar vessel — it is a gamble.

Autonomy is designed for weeks without stopovers: 1,500 litres of water plus a watermaker, 2,500 litres of diesel providing a 3,000-mile range under engine, and an electrical system combining batteries, generator, solar panels, hydrogenerator and wind generator. Onboard there is also a fully functional scientific laboratory: zooplankton pump, microplastics net, CO₂ sensor, environmental DNA sampling, hydrophones and an ROV for observation dives.

B&G: when precision makes the difference

On the navigation system list aboard Alegría Marineros, one presence is constant: B&G.

As technology partners of the expedition, we support the team with an integrated solution based on our systems: chartplotter, wind sensors, sonar, two radars and two autopilots. A navigation architecture designed by B&G to deliver maximum performance on every passage.

On a conventional cruising sailboat, instrumentation quality impacts efficiency and comfort. In the Southern Ocean or the waters of the Canadian Arctic, it impacts something else: survival.

Because in extreme latitudes, sailing is no longer about following a course. It becomes a continuous, simultaneous reading of rapidly changing variables: barometric pressure dropping within hours, wind shifting 90 degrees without warning, heavy seas altering the boat’s behaviour and requiring constant trim adjustments. And above all, the element that rewrites all rules: ice.

Ice is not a static obstacle. It is moving traffic. The A77 iceberg, which the expedition tracked for days in the South Atlantic, was drifting dozens of miles per day. Predicting where a massive ice structure will be tomorrow — when today you are 50 miles away and facing 40 knots of wind — is not a question of bravery. It is a question of data, radar interpretation and real-time information integration. Exactly what B&G systems are designed to deliver.

Pedro Jiménez explained it clearly from onboard: in extreme sailing, “the epic matters, yes — but what determines the outcome is something else: reliability, data, precision.”

The two B&G radars operate independently, ensuring continuous monitoring even if one system requires attention. The autopilots — also B&G — rotate to reduce wear during six-hour solo watches, allowing the crew to delegate course-keeping while managing other demands onboard. In polar conditions, where accumulated fatigue can be as dangerous as the sea state, that mechanical reliability is measured not in miles, but in clear-headed decisions.

63 knots among icebergs and Antarctica in real time

Alegría Marineros crossed the Antarctic Circle after two months of uninterrupted sailing from Castellón, covering 14,000 kilometres and entering the region of the “Roaring Fifties,” where the wind does not blow — it roars. Temperatures dropped rapidly. Systems froze. And the crew began operating in what Pedro described with clinical precision: “We live in storm conditions almost all the time.”

One of the most extreme moments of the expedition was captured in La Hora Vertical #07, the biweekly format where Paula and Pedro open the microphone from the boat to explain strategy, weather and decisions in real time. The title says it all: 63 knots among icebergs. This is not poetic language. It is the operational reality of sailing the Southern Ocean on a 20-metre boat with two people onboard.

Vuelta Vertical is also — and pioneering an expedition of this scale — a 24/7 live communication project via YouTube. Cameras onboard broadcast continuously: watches, manoeuvres, storms and moments of calm. The chartplotter is visible in real time. There is no editing, no manufactured epic — just a real boat and a real ocean. It is the most accessible polar expedition ever made for the general public.

Science in the most remote place on Earth

As Alegría Marineros advanced towards the ice, the onboard laboratory remained active. The scientific mission of Vuelta Vertical is not secondary — it is one of its three foundational pillars, alongside exploration and communication. Institutional support includes the University of Alicante, the Ramón Margalef Multidisciplinary Institute, the IUCN and the UN Decade of Ocean Science programme.

The research lines include marine biodiversity sampling through eDNA, microplastics analysis in polar waters, the measurement of underwater noise and its impact on marine mammals, and the collection of physicochemical ocean parameters. In other words, while the bow cuts through ice, the vessel is also recording the real state of the planet’s most fragile ecosystems, in places where very few scientific platforms can reach.

In the South Atlantic, sightings of orcas and whales accompanying the entry into Antarctic waters were not just moments of wild beauty. For a project that places environmental awareness at the core of its purpose, each encounter with polar wildlife is also a reminder of why.

What lies ahead

The most demanding part of the route still lies ahead. After the Antarctic circumnavigation, Alegría Marineros must cross the Pacific northbound, face the storms of the Humboldt Current, navigate the uncertainties of the Arctic Northwest Passage — ice channels with extremely narrow weather windows — and finally complete the northern arc up to approximately 78 degrees north before heading back to the Iberian Peninsula via the Atlantic.

Fifty percent of the route takes place in ice-infested waters. A number that explains why every system onboard was selected not for what it does in normal conditions, but for what it does when normal conditions are long gone behind the stern.

Paula summarised it simply: “We approach this route through short-term goals. The distance is so immense that we need to break it down into achievable milestones to maintain focus.”

The next milestone: keep moving forward.

The expedition can be followed live at vueltavertical.com and on the Vuelta Vertical YouTube channel, with 24/7 onboard streaming and La Hora Vertical every Wednesday and Sunday at 12:00 UTC.