Friday, April 10, 2009sad news
Day 80 'tis a rough old cruise indeed...I was sitting on a pile of ropes and drogues on deck looking at the moon and contemplating life and the wondrous solitude of the seas when the sea made itself known in the more physical sense of a wave over the boat and me... After many weeks deliberation and consultation on various elements of the journey so far it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that we will be suspending the Global Row in New Zealand. There are numerous reasons behind this bitterley dissapointing decision. The main reason is our incredibly poor progress, simple arithmetic shows that in 80 days I have covered approx 1600 nautical miles, the straight line distance from Tas-NZ is only 800 miles, and I am still apporx 160nm from NZ. Thus our mileage made good is miserable and would works out if I was to carry on regardless in completion of the end goal in about 5 years..... In large this poor progress is down to problems with the boat. She does not like to go downwind of her own accord or indeed once the wind gets above 20knots not even under oars. SInce the average windspeeds in the SOuthern Ocean are 20-30kts this is obviously something of a problem. The boat is also incredibly heavy about 2 tonnes and on a calm day I can make only about 1.4kts average which is v slow. We had anticipated making about 1000nm a month as per my Atlantic boat but evidently this has not been borne out. Another fact taken into consideration was that this is the worst year on record for drift ice coming out of the Ross sea. With Icebergs over 5km long reported in the region. This is obviously a great problem to me being solo and thus oft asleep as well as not maneuverable enough to avoid these larger icebergs. We are also now very apparently moving into Winter and it is not recommend to winter in the deep south in any vessel - let alone a wee red rowing boat. So in short it would be belligerence and folly to continue regardless into the deep south in our current state. Thus I am making for NZ where we will have a beer and then go back to the drawing board. We will look at modifying the boat, consider increasing the crew, etc.. All options will be looked at in order to try and complete the GLobal Row. Thhe main criteria is being able to go fast enough to cross half the Southern Ocean in 6 months - ie, the summer. So, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the decision has been made, thank you to Lee Bruce at Tactical Weather for his help and the continued support of all our stalwart sponsors, Virgin, Google, SPB, Wedlake Bell, OC Vision, Expedition Foods, Musto, Fourth Element, Glycine watches and all the others. Thank you also to everyone who has sent me emails and messages they really are a wonderful support and food for thought on the longer days, and apologies for the lack of a response but rest asssured they are being received and a terrfic fuel for the FC crew... Now it still remains to make a safe landfall in NZ in the next few weeks before we can look at the way forward after what we will treat as a very useful sea trial with many lessons learned, GLobal Row MK1 perhaps... picture= morning visitor, Pintado or Cape Pigeon - rather wonderful friendly fellows, v inquisitve and energetiic.
posted by Olly Hicks @ 4:27 AM
