Matt Rutherford // On Adventure, Fear & Solo Sailing Around the Arctic
On the Wind Sailing
Andy Schell
4.8 • 593 Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2026
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Matt Rutherford is back again, this time to talk about perhaps his most audacious plans yet - to sail solo and nonstop around the Arctic. That's back-to-back through the Northwest Passage and NorthEAST passage (above Russia). I caught up with Matt in person to talk about his plans (and lots more, like we always do), back in October in Annapolis. Matt continues to inspire and push me as a sailor. He makes his adventures look easy, does them on a shoestring and is always very humble about the whole thing. Enjoy our chat and follow/support Matt through oceanresearchproject.org.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I mean, look, I've lived a crazy life for a long, long time. |
| 0:03.2 | I lived a street life when I was young for a long time, and that life was completely insane. |
| 0:07.6 | And I got pretty far up in the food chain in the street life. |
| 0:12.4 | And, you know, all sorts of things happened. |
| 0:14.8 | All sorts of people died from, you know, murder and overdoses. |
| 0:18.1 | And, you know, people that caught on fire and blew themselves up cooking dope and |
| 0:21.8 | like all this kind of you know it was it was daily madness you know and I was searching for |
| 0:26.9 | adventure back then I just didn't realize it and obviously I was searching in a very negative |
| 0:30.6 | place a very unhealthy version of adventure but yeah I've I've kind of went and, maybe my brain is wired differently in that sense, |
| 0:39.4 | in a way that's probably not healthy for society in a sense that if everybody had a brain |
| 0:43.8 | wired like me, nothing would ever get done, you know? |
| 0:47.3 | On the Wind is presented this season by two old friends of the podcast. |
| 0:51.3 | Rutgersen Marine, a hardware company in Sweden, close to home for me, |
| 0:55.7 | and OPO, offshore passage opportunities run by our good friend Hank Schmidt, fan of the podcast, |
| 1:00.5 | friend of the podcast, former guest of the podcast, which is a place where you can join |
| 1:05.5 | Hank's mailing list and basically sail for free as a crew member on various deliveries that Hank organizes. |
| 1:12.5 | It's a great way I kind of started my career doing deliveries. |
| 1:15.8 | And obviously we'd love for you to come sail with us at 59 North, |
| 1:18.8 | but if you don't have the time or can't afford it, you can pay. |
| 1:21.3 | I think it's up to 150 bucks a year now to join OPO, |
| 1:24.7 | and you get lots of opportunities to go on deliveries as a crew member. |
| 1:28.9 | So check that out. That's saleopo.com. As for Rutgersen, I am in the process of ordering a new |
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