Latest News
Measuring up
20 Aug 2010
The boat is really taking shape
Last Monday, after competing in the Royal Solent Yacht Club Regatta, in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, I took the opportunity to pop in and see how work on the “Ice Boat” was progressing.
Things are moving on apace!
We measured her up for the rowing positions and they should be in place in the next couple of weeks. The boat should be ready to take out onto the water by early October.
More exciting news to follow on who might be sitting in those rowing positions by the way!
While I was there I also bumped into fellow “Old Dunelmian” and former World Lightweight Rowing Champion David Hosking. Along with some other ex Durham students in his crew he’ll be making an attempt to break the Atlantic Rowing Record from the Canaries to Barbados in December.
Interestingly in a trimaran styled vessel called “Triton” which I reminded Dave was the name of the Royal Navy trial vessel they built copied from my Round-the-World Powered Record breaker the “Adventurer”.
It looks like in the next 12 months there will be a fair few “Old Dunelmians” rowing oceans.
Icebergs Ahead
10 Aug 2010
Icebergs will be a serious hazard for the Row to the Pole crew
We are currently talking to a whole number of old friends in the marine industry who are helping with free supplies of some of the best of British goods including Lewmar, Hempel (formerly Blake Paints) and Raymarine.
All are now supplying their excellent kit for the boat which we’ll be fitting over the next few months. One of the more interesting features that Raymarine are talking of supplying is a thermal enhancing camera that will allow us to spot the icebergs in the water.
Hopefully we’ll avoid having any Titanic moments on the expedition!
To boldly go!
04 Aug 2010
It's a brave man who ventures here in a boat.
We are going to be taking a boat into the Arctic waters, rowing through an area where no boat has gone before. It is an area of unique natural beauty that few people on Earth get to experience first-hand.
Its very remoteness means the charts are sketchy and unreliable. They were last plotted in the 1960s. This really is what you call exploration!