Steve Bradley Svalbard and Norway Recommended Reading
Jon Amtrup of Explore North has written three excellent books that I recommend anyone planning to sail the higher latitudes should read and have aboard, they are available on Kindle or Paper: Sail to Svalbard – High Latitude Sailing – Sail the Norwegian Coast
The Cruising Association has a very comprehensive cruising guide – Cruising in Norway
Norwegian Cruising Guides Volumes 1-5 provide the most comprehensive and up to date information for cruising in Norway and Svalbard, these are available as paper or your favourite e-book format.
Den Norske (Norwegian Pilot guides) are an excellent source of information, mainly in Norwegian but volume 7 (Svalbard 7 Jan Mayen) is available in English and contains a wealth of information, all the guides can be downloaded here
Snow Bear Sailings blog posts for Svalbard are rich with resources and information and can be viewed here
Charts
Everyone has a personal view and a preference when it comes to charting but after a lot of research and comparing paper and electronic charts we decided to exclusively use electronic charts for cruising these waters. as a backup in case we had a catastrophic failure of all our electronic systems we had Kartverket large scale paper charts coving the areas we would cruise but made no reference to them other than comparing up to date paper and electronic charts for various anchorages prior to the voyage.. (No differences were found)
We have Raymarine Axiom displays on the boat and used Raymarine Lighthouse Charts as our primary navigation system and we have IPads running TImeZero Iboat as our backup with TimeZeros offline Vector charts. (Importantly the Iboat is using NMEA data over our boats wireless network for GPS position, you should not rely on the IPads internal GPS which will typically be delayed a few seconds, accuracy of GPS positions and of your compass readings will be less reliable the further north you go)
The use of Drones has become very restricted (see below) but it may still be possible to fly from the boat to check for shallows and reefs around an anchorage.
It’s also worth mentioning that IPads and most Tablets do not like cold weather. This shouldn’t be too much of a problem in Svalbard during summer months but our experience is that once the devices core temperature drops battery life quickly drops and then when the device temperature drops below 0C it will stop charging until its heted. (Ipad operating range is 0C to 32C) We now have a 100W 12V heating pad that we use intermitantly to keep it charging in sub zero temperatures.
Whatever charts you use they will not always represent what you see around you, many areas in Svalbard are still poorly charted and where glaciers are present the depths will be constantly changing, so observation, monitoring depth and taking things slowly are all key to keeping safe.
With glacial melting you will often appear to be on land when you look at the chart, but metres away from the shore when you look around you and in deep water!
Planning Resources and Downloads
Svalbard 2025 Regulations
New regulations have been introduced in 2025. You should first work out if you will be classified as Individual Traveller or a Tourist.
Tourists include anyone on a trip organised by a tour operator, cruise ship or commercial company and can be defined as anyone taking part in a journey or visit made possible by paying for a service or services. Individual Travellers include private yachts, private groups and researchers. The following three scenarios should cover everyone intending to sail or visit Svalbard by boat.
- You are booking a cruise, sail or expedition with a tour operator, or directly with a boat with a professional crew and guides? Whether you are on board with 1000 passengers and 100 crew, or whether the crew consists of one person, perhaps ten skipper, and you are helping prepare dinner, watch keeping and setting sails yourself, the trip will be classified as Tourist and landings will be restricted to the 43 locations designated in the protected areas. As a “passenger” you would not be submitting applications for permission to sail in Svalbard but it’s important to ensure that the boat you are on is fully compliant with the regulations and has all the correct permissions.
- You are coming to Svalbard with your own private sailboat or one that you have privately chartered? You might have family and a few friends on board, but no one else and you are not paying crew or guides, and the crew and guests are not paying you. (Apart from sharing reasonable cruising expenses*) Congratulations, you are travelling privately and your group will be classified as Individual Travellers and are therefore free to choose your landing sites in the protected areas. You must still apply for permission to sail in Svalbard, provide a Cruising plan and apply for landing permits.
- You are the skipper or owner of a commercially operated boat, or you are chartering a boat commercially, or you are using your own private boat but selling crew spaces/accomodation for the trip. Perhaps you are paying for crew, a skipper or a guide. Are you advertising the trip for a fee or in any way operating commercially. Then you and any passengers or crew will be most likely be classified as tourists and the landing sites will be restricted accordingly. You must still apply for permission to sail in Svalbard, provide a Cruising plan and apply for landing permits.
If you are in any doubt, please check with the Sysselmesteren before you register and submit your application and cruising plan. As you will have now read, just paying for a guide ro accompany your otherwise private trip will instantly make you Tourists.
Decisions will always be made on a case-by-case basis and be prepared to answer questions, we were asked to confirm again that our boat was private, and asked if any crew would be paid, despite having explicitly stated this in the application.
Restricted Landings. Tourists are now restricted to 43 designated landing sites that are identified on these official maps.
The protected areas shown in red are closed to tourists from January 2025. The 43 places in these protected areas that will be open to tourists are marked with dots. The green dots are without limitation of the number of persons The blue dots allow a maximum of 39 people ashore.
The following regulations are applicable to all visitors:
Polar Bears – From 2025, there are legal minimum distances: 300 metres for most of the year, 500 metres in spring (1 March-30 June). And there is an obligation to take active evasive action: For example, if your boat is anchored or parked at the ice edge or in drift ice and a curious polar bear approaches you must immediately retreat to maintain the minimum distance.
Walrus Colonies From 2025, certain distances also apply to walruses: 150 meters minimum distance from walrus colonies for boats, and a maximum speed of 5 knots for boats from 300 meter distance. There is no legal minimum distance on land, but there is a recommended minimum distance of 30 metres and 150 metres for herds of cows and calves, which easily become nervous and panic at greater distances.
Bird Sanctuary’s – Regulations restricting access to some bird sanctuary’s and breeding colonies have been in place for some time, especially during the breeding season. in 2025 a new speed restriction has been implemented 500m distance from these protected areas that can be seen on the official maps.
Icebreaking is prohibited. This is now clearly defined in the 2025 regulations and refers to solid fjord ice that is connected to the coast known as Fast Ice. There are only a few exceptions, such as the shipping lanes to Longyearbyen, Barentsburg and Ny-Ålesund.
Drones – are banned in protected areas, national parks and nature reserves. This includes the national parks in Isfjord and it also applies to underwater drones and drones moving on the ground. In addition From 1 April to 31 August, it is not allowed to fly drones closer than 500 metres from bird cliffs. The Svalbard regulations for Drones can be found here
Svalbard Permit Procedure
Whilst these changes are important to understand and observe, for individual private sailboats Svalbard remains very accessible and the procedure to obtain the right permits remains the same.
- You need to apply for a cruising permit, with details of your boat, your crew, your intended cruising routes and landings. For this you will complete “Notification of travel plans in Svalbard for individual travellers and scientists’
- To rent a rifle you need to apply for a firearms permit, to do this you will need to provide evidence of competency to use a rifle as a means of defence, and your police record. You need to complete “Application for loan permit for firearms”
- You will need to apply for landing permits for certain designated sites like virgohamnar.
- You will need to satisfy the individual requirement to have sufficient SAR insurance or provide a financial guarantee. (The amount varies with duration, number aboard, cruising areas etc)
- after you visit you are required to complete a post visit report detailing all your landings.
The Svalbard Governors website has several useful downloads, together with the various laws and regulations, some are in English and some in Norwegian, applications for travel, landing permits and firearms permits should be submitted through the Sysselmesteren Online Portal
Customs and Immigration
There is no customs entry procedure for arrival into Svalbard, or any requirement to report your arrival. But assuming you have sailed from Norway you must clear through Norway customs and immigration before sailing to Svalbard, and clear back in again upon your return.
Norwegian Ice Service is the best resource for Ice Charts in the waters around Svalbard.
Barrents Watch for local Weather, Sea Ice and more
Norwegian Meteorological Institute for local Weather
Ny-Ålesund There is A 10.8 Nautical Mile radius around Ny-Ålesund defined as a radio silent area in the frequency range between 2 and 32 GHz, this means everything that uses WIFI / WLAN /Bluetooth so Phones, Smart Watches, iPads, Computers, Wireless radar and Instruments etc, more details can be found here
General Svalbard Travel Information can be found here
In order to apply for a Rifle permit (must be done in advance of your arrival) you need to submit an application with evidence of competency of using a large calibre rifle in a defensive situation, and a copy of your police record. Various shooting clubs around the world can provide you with training and certification. Steve used the UK National Rifle Association for their Expedition Defensive Weapons Training in the UK, and found that an online Basic DBS check was acceptable evidence of his “clean” criminal record.
Rifle rental in Svalbard
On arrival there are a few places to rent a rifle, and rent or purchase a flare pistol with bangers. http://www.longyear78.com/ and http://sportscenteret.no
Other links
Polar Bears International research and education
Polar Bears International Snow Bear fundraising page
Fundraising Login Page
Experiencing Svalbard’s Wildlife
Norway
For cruising the Norwegian Coast the Harbour Guide is an online subscription resource for anchorages, harbours and marinas that also covers most of Scandinavia, the SW Baltic and the complete E Adriatic coast including western Greece, its accessible online or via your favourite app or play store however you will need an internet connection to access the content.
For finding and paying for harbours in Norway and Svalbard you will need the Go Marina App
Please let us know if there are any errors or omissions to this resource’s page so that we can keep it as up to date as possible,
If you have your own blog from sailing to Svalbard we would be happy to link to it.
And send us your comments and feedback.
*There are many interpretations of shared expenses, our view is that reasonable expenses should simply be a split of food, drinks, fuel and gas, mooring fees, landing permits, communication costs for access to internet offshore and or satellite calls. Daily charges and Anything else and it’s venturing into being a commercial operation and the boat then needs to be commercially compliant / coded and insured as such.