Straight answers

Malabar is built in Strongall aluminium, a high-yield grade, 10 to 25 mm thick on the hull. Under impact, aluminium bends rather than tears, and it can be repaired cold with the tools on board.

Steel is just as tolerant, but it doubles the weight and means a constant fight against corrosion. Composite cannot be repaired cold.

With the board up, draught drops to 1.3 m: Malabar can reach the coves of Patagonia and dry out at low tide for maintenance. With the board down, he has 3.2 m of lateral plane to sail upwind.

The 5.2 tonnes of ballast sit in the board, not in the bottom of the hull.

Two stays, two headsails: sail is reduced from the cockpit, without fighting on the foredeck in heavy weather.

For Antarctica, Malabar changes set-up in Puerto Williams: the genoa furler comes off, a small genoa is hanked on the stay, and the staysail stays on its furler. A furler frozen at the moment you must reef means a flogging sail that tears everything apart.

An inboard for everyday propulsion, and a 60 hp outboard on the stern. In the Patagonian channels, against katabatic wind and current, an engine that stalls puts the boat beam-on in thirty seconds.

With two engines, he can motor upwind against the current, get off a shoal, get out of an ice trap. Redundancy turns into usable margin.

First the hull: insulated aluminium, anti-condensation treatment, wooden lining inside. Then a main diesel heater, and finally backup heaters that do not rely on electricity, including a wood stove.

Nobody freezes on Malabar as long as there is fuel left.

A 60-litre-per-hour watermaker produces water underway, and two inside stainless tanks hold a 600-litre reserve. At 10 to 15 litres per person per day, no showers, that reserve covers twenty days for two if the watermaker fails.

Beyond that: rationing and rainwater collection.

PTFE seacocks rather than brass, which seize less in the cold. Sheathed seawater circuits, heated at the critical bends. Diesel treated against waxing from the equator onwards.

Fresh water stays in inside tanks, and the watermaker is flushed between runs. Every system has its own anti-freeze procedure, written in advance.

Three-hour watches in strict rotation, day and night. The one off watch sleeps in warm clothes, ready to take the helm in under a minute. Heavy manoeuvres are done together.

The discipline is hard for the first few days. After the second week at sea, it becomes essential.

The Doppler radar picks up large icebergs at more than 20 miles and small 5- to 10-metre bergy bits at 6 to 8 miles. Below that, it sees almost nothing.

The real trap is growlers: 1- to 3-metre blocks awash, with no radar echo, invisible beyond 30 metres by eye. At 7 knots, that leaves ten to thirty seconds. The answer: reduced speed at night in ice and a permanent visual watch. Thermal cameras would change everything: they are one of the items open to partners.

The Captain is a doctor. Malabar carries a full sick bay: minor surgery, antibiotics, strong painkillers, splints, a defibrillator.

Telemedicine is available day and night by satellite, with a maritime medical service for complex cases. Beyond 60° South an evacuation takes days: on board, you must be able to diagnose, stabilise and decide.

Yes, with more frequent gaps in some sectors. The bandwidth is enough for weather, messages and sending scientific data, not for live video.

Iridium stays on as a permanent backup: two operators, two different constellations. As a last resort, the distress beacon.

French registration, French safety rules, an inspection by the maritime authorities before departure, a registered distress beacon, a medical log.

It is not red tape: it is the framework that makes the expedition verifiable, and therefore fundable.

Because that is where the boat is fitted out. Out of the Mediterranean through Gibraltar, down the Atlantic in the trade winds, fine-tuning in the Canaries and Cape Verde, then Patagonia.

An operational choice, not a symbolic one: every mile before the Drake is a test of the systems on board.

Patagonia is the last place where a mistake can still be fixed. Katabatic gusts of 60 knots, tidal streams, exposed anchorages: it is already serious, but there are still harbours and people.

Past the Drake, a mistake no longer costs time: it can cost the boat. So Malabar stays there as long as it takes.

Sarah has been an offshore sailor since childhood, long before she became a biologist. She stands her watches, reefs, and sails Malabar alone for hours on end.

Everyone on board must be able to do everything alone. That is what makes a crew of two viable on a circumnavigation.