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This teenager had a lucky escape after he was almost crushed to death by a huge ice arch.

Tybalt Peake had posed for a photograph underneath the 100m high structure only nine minutes before it came crashing down.

And the 15-year-old sailor would have stayed exploring the stunning glacier off the coast of Greenland for longer had his friends not warned him it was probably a bad idea.

Tybalt told Wales Online : "We found it and I thought it would be a good idea to take a few pictures under it with my banner.

“Nine or ten minutes after I finished it collapsed right where I was.”

The adventurer became the youngest Brit to sail the Pacific Northwest passage last year.

“It was a good job I was not under it,” he said.

“I would have been killed. It was quite nerve-wracking.

“I had wanted to play around and have an explore but everyone told me that was a bad idea.”

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He was with family friends Krystina Scheller and Frances Brann, who are both experienced sailors.

“They said there was a chance it would collapse because it was a warm day,” Tybalt said.

“It was a bit like playing with fire.”

When it fell it sent “a massive wave across the water.”

The wave could have flipped Tybalt and his dinghy into the freezing water had he not got out in time.

“They were taking pictures from the boat then they were checking them on the laptop,” he said.

“It collapsed about five minutes after I got back on the boat.”

That was not the only hairy moment on his trip though.

In August he came face to face with a polar bear after taking photos of walruses at Philpots Island.

“I walked up to a ridge on my own, about a hundred feet from the group, and there was a huge polar bear taking a nap,” Tybalt, grandson of the Marquess of Queensberry, said.

“He woke up and started yawning and walking after us.

“I ran back to the group. We fired a few gunshots.

“They’re not too afraid of gunshots because it was right next to a glacier and they are used to hearing them collapse.”

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Getting back to their boat – Snow Dragon II – was tricky.

“We had to find a different way back because the bear was between us and the boat,” Tybalt said.

“We followed a river running through a little valley and that led back to the boat.

“It sort of vaguely followed us for a bit which was quite scary and then we ran back to the boat as fast as we could.”

The youngster stayed cool.

“All we had in mind was getting back to the boat,” he said.

“I was not panicking, I just knew I had to get back to the boat.

“It was quite quiet when we got back aboard.

“We talked about how everyone acted and did what they were supposed to do.

“Then we just sort of chilled out and didn’t say much after that.

“That was the closest we got to a polar bear although we saw eight in total.”

Wildlife was not the only risk.

“Once we hit an iceberg that broke the lifelines that go around the boat to stop you falling overboard,” Tybalt said.

That took about six hours to fix.

“When you hit an iceberg there is a massive bang which is pretty alarming when you’re asleep,” he said.

“It was a huge bang in my room. There’s not much happens then, you just keep on sailing after you check the hull for damage and check it is not leaking.”

Tybalt set off from his home in Capel Curig, Snowdonia , last May.

The trip has changed his outlook on life.

“Climate change was not something I had really thought about before I went,” he said.

The keen skier contacted climate change group Protect Our Winters – set up by pro snowboarder Jeremy Jones.

It is a POW banner he is holding under the arch.

“I expected it to be so much colder and icier in the Arctic Circle, but often I was in a t-shirt,” he said.

“You could see things melting away before your eyes.

“We have got to cut down on all our fossil fuel use and drilling in the Arctic. Shell have just pulled some of their rigs there.

“Simple things like turning off lights and not leaving doors open and stopping littering all help.”

(Image: Barcroft)

Sitting on deck in a T-shirt watching melting icebergs “just didn’t feel right.”

“I wanted to be able to get inside everyone’s computer screens and shout at them that human activity is the root cause of global warming,” Tybalt said.

“In the past 20 years, scientific research has shown that climate change is occurring in all parts of the globe and the undeniable conclusion is that human activity is the root cause of this phenomenon.

“However, the biggest obstacle is that the areas worst affected by warming temperatures are far away from the places most people live.

“We need to get over this ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality and act now.”

Living on a boat made Tybalt aware of his “global footprint.”

“You never leave lights on and don’t run the engine when you don’t need to,” he said.

“We were always conserving fuel, water, food and power.

“If everyone could live on a boat for a few months they’d start to live a simpler life and would really appreciate washing clothes or eating fresh produce.

“People have to stop destroying the planet.”

“The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world and in the last 30 years three-quarters of the sea ice has vanished,” Tybalt said.

“In my lifetime, the North Pole will become open water.

“If we don’t do something the next generation will never see an iceberg.”