Northeast passage doc on rte1

Did anyone see this doc on rte1 last night. It was pretty interesting in that Ive always wondered what that huge russian frozen coast was like. However I found a few things a bit irritating. Firstly they proclaimed themselves to be the first to traverse this passage westwards in a sailing boat. However the reality was that they either followed or were towed by a russian icebreaker when they became trapped in ice. Secondly they were initially heavily critical of their russian guide (who they were forced to bring with them by the russian authorities). However it was later shown that they would not have completed the journey without him. He used his contacts in the russian navy to make a russian icebreaker sail 100 miles out of its path to free them from ice. Even though I thought it was a very interesting doc I thought they should have been a bit more humility in recognising that they acieved their feat more from russian help than purely from their own graft.

Agreed, Joe - still, these types of program always need a bit of conflict to make them more interesting than they really are.

Well the russian guide wasn`t the singing ,dancing,musician that our irish explorers trebled up on.And he wasn`t there just for the "crack".
However he mellowed out towards the end.
Of course it wasn`t a serious exploration.....what with t.v. crews and mobile phones and big ice breakers at the ready.
But the nature pics were very nice.

I know these guys or at least some of them have done the NothWest passage as well.
But I did find it a bit surprising that they got an icebreaker, and a nuclear opne at that, to break up the pack for them.
Also I had the misapprehension that they actually sailed through.
From what I saw there was a lot of engine power used.

Nevertheless Jarlath Cunnane is from Co Mayo so fair dues to him.
Took a lot of effort and balls.
Nice to see the boat ended back in Clew bay at the end of the trip.