The softly spoken retired co-founder and CEO of Triton Submarines, Bruce Jones, spent over three decades involved in the civilian submersible business spearheading some of the most exciting projects in the deep blue sea. Until recently, his collection of toys spilled over into aviation, including a hot air balloon, a Robinson R44 Raven II helicopter, and a Diamond DA62 twin-engine plane. Now, he and his wife Liz (who also had a Vans RV-12 plane) are focusing their efforts on trips of a lifetime aboard Gecko, their 65-foot Vripack-designed Elling E6. And the 5,300-nautical-mile Viking route they navigated might just be their most daring trip yet.
Named after the Norse explorers who voyaged as far as Nova Scotia a thousand years ago, the Viking route remains the ultimate northbound thrill. It took them from the Netherlands to England, Scotland, and the Faroe Islands, then up to Iceland and Greenland, before crossing the North Atlantic into Canada and the U.S. They hit 34 ports, cruised at 10 knots, and only refueled three times (including a three-day wait in the sparsely populated town of Port au Choix in Newfoundland). “Liz had tried to convince me that our transatlantic days were behind us, but the allure of sailing Gecko back home to the Pacific Northwest proved too strong,” says Jones. “I sold the company in 2022, and we’ve done nothing but travel and have a good time since.”
The pair are self-confessed boat people–“Liz had sailed around the world before I met her”–while Jones grew up in Southeast Asia aboard a 69-foot steel-hulled DeFever that his parents built in the 70s. “We cruised that boat all over the world. My father was a master mariner for many years, a fleet captain for American President Lines, before he moved into the heavy construction business.”
Over the years, the couple have owned several sailboats and a 58-foot Diesel Duck trawler, but Gecko, their third powerboat which they bought in July 2022, is a new experience. Jones had “definite ideas” about the kind of boat he wanted, until he spotted an E6 at the 2019 Ft. Lauderdale boat show whose beautiful workmanship blew him away. Unlike their steel-hulled passagemaker, the E6, built in the Netherlands by Neptune Marine, is a lightweight semi-displacement boat with a 22-knot top speed and a huge, inviting pilothouse. “Vripack is one of my favorite design companies and I loved everything about the boat, but at that point we couldn’t afford it,” he says.
After selling Triton Submarines, finding their dream vessel became a priority, and they tracked down a 2018 E6 model. “It’s got a 3,000-nautical-mile range, is Class A rated (meaning it can handle winds over 40 knots), and is self-righting,” he enthuses. “We saw Gecko and just fell in love.”
They spent the first two summers leisurely cruising the Netherlands, including navigating the Rhine and the Danube to the Black Sea, through Istanbul, and into the Mediterranean. Soon, however, putting the E6 to the test became their objective. Even Jones, who has visited 124 countries and lived in 20, had yet to sail to Greenland. They set off from Rotterdam in July 2024, along with a 24-year-old deckhand they’d met and hired at the TrawlerFest in Anacortes, Washington, with husband and wife taking turns at the helm and only having a rough idea of their itinerary.
“I started sailing way back in the ‘70s when there was no GPS and we did everything with a chronometer sight, reduction tables, and a sextant,” says Jones. “Now vessel bridges are so advanced, and weather forecasting makes it easy as far as I’m concerned, so I don’t pre-plan like I would back in the old days.”
Gecko’s previous owner had double-insulated the boat with heated glass, which eradicated the threat of condensation. Jones further prepared by having DMS retrofit their rotary Magnus Masters stabilizers on the boat, “which are just incredible with low energy consumption,” and installed a FLIR thermal camera, a low-light camera, Starlink, a forward-looking sonar, watermaker, and “enough spare parts to practically build a new boat.”
The early weeks saw them cruise Rotterdam, Newcastle, and spend a few hours in the wind-shaped archipelago of the Orkney Islands before a weather window opened allowing them to head to the Faroe Islands. “We took off and just beat a storm to get across,” he recounts with enthusiasm. They made slow progress due to the elements, waiting up to 10 days in both the remote Faroes–where a pod of friendly orcas came right up to the boat as they left Streymoy Island–and another 10 days in Húsavík in the north coast of Iceland.
It was in Húsavik, a small town renowned for its whale watching, where they experienced the warmest of Icelandic hospitality. When Jones mistakenly left the yacht’s ignition switch on, both engine-start batteries on the main motor died, yet with the help of a friendly local he successfully replaced them after only a few days. Other inhabitants pointed them towards a few must-visit anchorages, such as Skjálfandi Bay, home to around 24 whales species, and they explored the land by foot, hiking the town’s craggy outskirts and driving into rugged mountains by rental car to catch glimpses of the wild Westfjords and thundering waterfalls.
Few yachts venture to the higher latitudes, and they only passed the occasional local vessel or fishing boat as they gently cruised into the frigid waters of southern Greenland. Waiting out the weather proved to be a sensible idea, and Gecko’s 700-nautical-mile crossing to Greenland was both relaxing and comfortable. Not so for a 38-foot boat they had met in Iceland, which tied up alongside Gecko early one morning in Prince Christian Sound. “They had left Húsavik days before us and had a really rough passage,” says Jones. “They were doing it in a primitive fashion, and were cold and hungry, so we had them on board for breakfast and warmth. They were so grateful. I can remember stuff like that from my younger days, but I have no interest in being that miserable again.”
Their adventure-first approach saw the trio wholly embrace all aspects of the experience. That included departing Qaqortoq at night just as it began to get dark, maneuvering for the first 150 nautical miles south of Greenland through a soup of icebergs and bergy bits, their newly installed radars allowing them to scout from the warmth of their pilothouse.
On their first night in Prince Christian Sound, they tied up at the old concrete jetty of an abandoned weather station. “There’s ice floating around, and once or twice a little piece would come up and smack into the hull when we were at anchor,” he recounts. “But it’s an interesting place, and the owner of a boat that had gone the year before had given us advice on how best to make the approach. He told us, ‘Whatever you do, don’t get off the boat, there’s polar bears all over the place!’” True to form, over the next few days, they ventured off, hiking across icy tundra when they were “convinced” there were no bears around.
Besides the wild and little-visited isles, the Viking route’s big draw is how it breaks the transatlantic ocean passage down into smaller, bite-sized chunks. For Jones, who has extensive experience cruising Alaska, it was also the sweeping landscapes, such as those at Prince Christian Fjord, that proved most memorable. “Its geology is young and topographic with high peaks and sheer faces, most of which is volcanic, and the cliffs plunge right down into the water,” he says with excitement. “We had to dodge our way through in a few places, but the icebergs painted themselves brightly on our radars, which helped with navigation.”
When the timing looked right for ice, they plowed through a rough North Atlantic crossing to Battle Harbor in Labrador. “We didn’t plan any of the 20-odd ports after that. I just headed for what looked like it was going to be reasonable and took off,” he says.
It comes as no surprise that Jones’ love for travel includes a fascination for luxury trains, so when in August he found himself the lucky lottery winner of a cabin aboard Japan’s Seven Stars Kyushu train that runs east from Fukuoka to Oita Prefecture, they seized the opportunity. Gecko was moored at Prince Edward Island in Nova Scotia for two months while they rode the train, before returning to sail her down to North Carolina, where the trip ended in November.
Has the experience whet their appetite for more seafaring adventure? But of course. They’re currently in the middle of a year-long journey along The Great Loop, after which Jones has set his sights on the infamous Northwest Passage.
“The boat handles great, and even though it was pretty rough at times, I didn’t get seasick, which I typically do,” he says. “I’m quite enamored with Gecko these days, and we’re now doubling down on piloting her as much as we possibly can.”
This article originally appeared in the March 2026 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
