Wednesday, October 19, 2011

G ADVENTURES INTRODUCES QUAD CABINS ONBOARD POLAR CRUISES


M/S Expedition will carry more passengers due to introduction of quad berths.
Following recent reports that the price of cruising in the Antarctic is set to rise, adventure travel specialist G Adventures is pleased to announce the introduction of its brand new and better value quad berths onboard the M/S Expedition.  The quad berth cabins will be available for the 2012 Arctic and Antarctic season providing more capacity for travellers onboard; welcome news at a time when industry prices are set to rise, due to the recent introduction of new fuel regulations banning the use of heavy oil in this region.

Realm of the Polar Bear
Price: £2269pp (US$3586pp on 20111019) Trip Code: XVRPNX, category 1A QuadDeparture: 6 July 2012 Duration: 8 days (US$448.26/night)

Spot whales and polar bears, explore incredible scenery, brave the Arctic waters swimming, encounter Ny-Ă…lesund, birdlife and glaciers, discover breathtaking ice-covered fjords, glimpse herds of Svalbard’s many species of reindeer and take in daily lectures.
For more information  visit www.gadventures.com or The Cruise Line.    Why not subscribe to World of Cruising magazine.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Powerboat Circumnavigation Challenge


Fiat Engine, Castoldi Waterjet for Powerboat Circumnavigation Challenge

By George Backwell at October 15, 2011 08:19
Filed Under: General
The goal of veteran adventurer Alan Priddy as he sets out in his 90 ft (27.4 m) wave-piercing powerboat Good Heart later this year is to try one more time to better the 61-day record for a world circumnavigation set almost a decade ago by the trimaran Earthrace. The record-breaking attempt, comprising five separate legs, will start and finish in Gibraltar, and in accordance with rules set by the Union Internationale Motonautique both the Suez and Panama canals are to be transited en route. How is the boat being constructed and with what propulsion for this epic 24,000 mile race against time?

Construction
Not a traditional boat builder, but  metal-working fabricators, Micklewright Structures, situated at Dudley in the U.K. were chosen to build the uniquely designed powerboat and fashion the aluminium plates of its futuristically shaped hull on to steel structural members: "I particularly wanted their engineering skills and welding capability" explains Priddy.

The ‘dreadnought-style’ bow form is designed to pierce through waves at high speed rather than ride them, so too is the aerodynamically shaped narrow hull form (beware water on deck) where the proportion of Good Heart’s 16 ft (4.9 m) maximum breadth to its 90 ft (27.4 m) length overall speaks for itself; a unique design that Priddy (on his 'Global Circumnavigation Challenge' website) attributes to knowldge gained through his own extensive ocean racing experience.

The Fiat main engines are as fuel-efficient as any, yet fuel tanks for a 5,800 nm maximum range are of necessity huge, with a 30,000 ltr (7925 US gallon) capacity, and there will also be a walk-in engine compartment; accordingly, crew accommodation will be basic.

Good HeartImage credit – Alan Priddy/Global Circumnavigation Challenge
Propulsion

The propulsion setup on which the success of the venture largely depends will consist of a pair of well-proven Fiat PowerTrain type C13 500  6-cylinder in-line marine diesel engines  rated at 500 hp (368 kW) each at 2000 rpm driving twin Castoldi waterjet pumps. These CastoldiJet type 490 HC units have an integrated gear box that allows the centre of thrust to be kept low in the water (helps prevent unwetting in rough weather, improves manoeuvrability) and also saves space in the machinery space. Maximum light displacement speed is expected to be 47.5 kts, while a 27.5 kt average speed is targeted for the record attempt.

Castoldi Type 490 HC Waterjet: Image courtesy of CastoldiJet

Win a Fly Fishing Adventure in Alaska!


by Kirk Deeter


That time you spend behind the computer daydreaming about fishing in wild and exotic places (like right now) might actually pay off! In celebration of the release of the book Fifty More Places to Fly Fish Before You Die, by my friend Chris Santella (pictured here), Fly Water Travel and Fishing Bear Lodge in the Wood-Tikchik State Park in southwestern Alaska have started the "Where Would You Fly Fish Before You Die?" contest.
All you have to do is write--in 200 words of less--about your dream fly fishing trip. Where would you go, and why? Simply visit www.flywatertravel.com and click on the "contest" prompt. You can also learn more about the lodge here.
All entries must be received by January 15, 2012, and you have to live within the United States to enter. Santella himself will be the judge, and he'll announce the lucky winner on March 1, 2012.
Fishing Bear Lodge is a family-run operation at the mouth of the Peace River. The fishing here is some of the most diverse and rewarding to be had anywhere, with grayling, char, sockeye salmon, northern pike, and yes, plenty of the fabled Alaskan "Leopard" rainbow trout to be caught in myriad lakes and rivers near the lodge. The winner will have to arrange his/her own air travel, but the value of the stay at the lodge is $3,600. (Not a bad reward for 200 words.)
Knowing Santella like I do, I'd say you don't have to limit your wishes to Alaska (though that's never a bad place to start). He's looking for honest, compelling thoughts on fly fishing, and based on what I've read in the FlyTalk comment threads over the years, I'd say there are some strong contenders in our midst.
Good luck.


from YooperRyan wrote 15 hours 43 min ago
Deeter, thanks for the hot tip.
For Fly Talk consumption, here is my submission, just under the wire at 199 words...
I must say, I find it a bit ironic that the prize for best "Dream Fly Fishing Trip" will, in all likelihood, involve the technique-optional drifting of miniature tennis balls under a strike indicator, er bobber, to the most enthusiastically cooperative trout under the sun, forgiving even to casts delivered with the mechanical grace of a rusty lawn chair and presentations that would make a bulldozer jealous - about as close to fly fishing as a Toyota Prius is to a formula one race car. No Sir, I don't much care for that plastic-bottle brand of stick waving that passes for "fly fishing" in some circles. That grown men claim to get their jollies at such adolescent activity is beyond me. Please pardon the purist attitude, but let the record show that I prefer my angling pursuits sans training wheels.
Now, to answer your question,my dream fly fishing trip would be to chase rainbow trout in southwest Alaska, at the peak or near post of the salmon spawn, utilizing patterns that have names like "failed souffle" as in too many eggs and not enough rise.
Hey, who doesn't fancy the occasional game of checkers after countless rounds of chess?
0 Good Comment?  |  | REPORT
from weedless97 wrote 15 hours 3 min ago
I can't find out how to enter the contest, I don't see any any contest button. Please help!

VIDEO - Boulder Mountain Fishing - Southern Utah fishing oasis

Fall fishing on Boulder Mountain is one of the best times of the year to fish for the colorful Colorado River cutthroat and Brook trout. The state record brook trout was caught on Boulder Mountain. Does a fish that will best the record exist? Maybe, but it might be tiger trout. Colorado River cutthroat, rainbow and Arctic grayling are also found on this high-mountain fishery in Southern Utah.

Monday, October 17, 2011

X-PRIZE - Exploration Prize Group offers tiny $10,000 grand prize after Oil Spill X-PRIZE of $1,000,000 - create a video project? Embarrassing!

http://www.xprize.org/prize-development/exploration

The goal of the Exploration Prize Group is to expand the use of space, the ocean and other unexplored frontiers in order to improve life on Earth and extend life beyond the confines of land. We believe we can achieve these objectives by researching space and Earth’s oceans, accessing and conserving their resources, catalyzing private, non-governmental activity, and tapping into our innate wonder about the Earth, the Universe and our place within each.














The X PRIZE Foundation wants to spread the word about the importance of Exploration in today's world. As humanity faces an increasing number of challenges, it has become increasingly important to explore the boundaries of our knowledge, and to uncover innovative new ways of thinking about our planet and ourselves.
We invite you to upload a video about why you prize exploration. What drives you? Where do you explore? What do you hope to achieve?
Please feel free to use the assets provided on this site to supplement your video.
Get Started














http://www.xprize.org/prize-development/exploration

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Silver Treasure, Worth $18 Million, Found in North Atlantic


BURIED An expedition last month identified the wreck of the British steamship Mantola, which steamed out of London on her last voyage on Feb. 4, 1917

Sea explorers announced Monday the discovery of a new sunken treasure that they plan to retrieve from the bottom of the North Atlantic.


Off Ireland in 1917, a German torpedo sank the British steamship Mantola, sending the vessel and its cargo of an estimated 20 tons of silver to the seabed more than a mile down. At today’s prices, the metal would be worth about $18 million.
Odyssey Marine Exploration, based in Tampa, Fla., said it had visually confirmed the identity of the Mantola with a tethered robot last month during an expedition and had been contracted by the British Department for Transport (a successor to the Ministry of War Transport) to retrieve the lost riches.
In recent years, strapped governments have started looking to lost cargoes as a way to raise money. They do so because the latest generation of robots, lights, cameras and claws can withstand the deep sea’s crushing pressures and have opened up a new world of shipwreck recovery.
“A lot of new and interesting opportunities are presenting themselves,” said Greg Stemm, the chief executive of Odyssey. The new finding, he added, is the company’s second discovery of a deep-ocean wreck for the British government this year.
In such arrangements, private companies put their own money at risk in costly expeditions and split any profits. In this case, Odyssey is to get 80 percent of the silver’s value and the British government 20 percent. It plans to attempt the recovery in the spring, along with that of its previous find.
Last month, Odyssey announced its discovery of the British steamship Gairsoppa off Ireland and estimated its cargo at up to 240 tons of silver — a trove worth more than $200 million. The Gairsoppa was torpedoed in 1941.
Both ships had been owned by the British Indian Steam Navigation Company, and both were found by Odyssey during expeditions in the past few months. Odyssey said that the Mantola’s sinking in 1917 had prompted the British government to pay out an insurance claim on about 600,000 troy ounces of silver, or more than 20 tons.
Mr. Stemm said the Mantola’s silver should make “a great target for testing some new technology” of deep-sea retrieval.
The Mantola was less than a year old when, on Feb. 4, 1917, she steamed out of London on her last voyage, bound for Calcutta. According to Odyssey, the ship carried 18 passengers, 165 crew members and diverse cargo. The captain was David James Chivas, the great-nephew of the Chivas Brothers, known for their Chivas Regal brand of Scotch whiskey.
Four days out of port, a German submarine fired a torpedo, and the ship sank with minimal loss of life.
In an expedition last month, Odyssey lowered a tethered robot that positively identified the wreck. The evidence included the ship’s dimensions, its layout and a display of painted letters on the stern that fit the words “Mantola” and “Glasgow,” the ship’s home port.
Photographs show the hulk covered in rivulets of rust known as rusticles, which look like brownish icicles. One picture shows a large sea creature poised near the ship’s railing

Saturday, October 8, 2011

SV ESHAMY Arctic Circle (Latitude 66.5622°N) Circumnavigation? No - Polar Circumnavigation? Yes?


Jeffrey Allison


A RETIRED engineer has made history by becoming the first person to circumnavigate the arctic circle clockwise by boat. (UNSUPPORTED CLAIM)
Jeffrey Allison, who set off in June from Hartlepool, in his 52ft Amel Mango craft Eshamy with Australian crewmate Katherine Brownlie, 28, has also become the first Briton to make the journey in either direction.

Katherine Brownlie, www.unisa.edu.au
“He is such an unassuming man, but is so brave and determined." said Prue Allison. (Mr. Allison's wife)
The achievement was made all the more impressive as 73-year-old Mr Allison only took up sailing when he retired.
Last night, Mr Allison’s family told The Northern Echo they were extremely proud of him, and he was tired, but in good spirits.
Mr Allison, from Middleton Tyas, between Darlington and Richmond, has made several attempts at the voyage, with one in 2009 resulting in him being almost sunk by the Russian coastguard, who accused him of sailing in the Barents Sea without the necessary permission.
Despite insisting that he was sailing in international waters, he and his two crewmates were arrested, and a Russian court found Mr Allison guilty of the offence and fined him 2,000 roubles (£40).
His visa was also revoked – meaning he can’t return to Russia until 2014. The delay also thwarted his record attempt.
However, this did not deter Mr Allison, whose journey took him from the North-East to Iceland, Greenland, around Alaska and Russia, then on to Scandinavia.
He is now in Norway and is expected to return home soon.
The trip, which at one point saw the duo spend 40 days and 40 nights sailing without seeing land, was made possible due to retreating ice in the Arctic.
Mr Allison’s wife, Prue, said: “He is such an unassuming man, but is so brave and determined.
“He is to be admired and respected for his achievements. Good things come out of Hartlepool and return.”
Mr Allison has also previously sailed across the Atlantic Ocean six times, through the Panama Canal, and across the Pacific, Indian and Arctic Oceans.
His daughter, Fiona Cook, said: “We are extremely proud. It is such a big achievement for a 73-year-old man. We are amazed he’s done it.
“I don’t think he has any idea how much we worry about him, but there is no stopping him.
“We’ve spoken to him and he’s tired, but absolutely thrilled. He’s been planning this for a long time and he’s finally achieved it – it is amazing.”
She added he had not been put off by his previous experiences with the Russian authorities.
“He just said he would deal with it if he gets into trouble again. He’s so determined, he wasn’t going to let anything like that put him off. The whole family are very proud.”
BLOG COMMENTS...
MR. ALLISON CLAIMS TO HAVE CIRCUMAVIGATED THE ARCTIC CIRCLE CLOCKWISE - IS IT AN OFFICIAL RECORD IF YOUR COURSE IS BELOW (SOUTH) OF THE CLAIMED LATITUDE? I DO NOT THINK IT IS ACCURATE TO SAY "ARCTIC CIRCLE" IN A CLAIM OF CIRCUMNAVIGATED THE POLAR ARCTIC. JUST THINK ABOUT THIS LOGICALLY - IN ANY RECORD SETTING ROUTE - YOU CANNOT GO OUT OF BOUNDS - OTHERWISE THE RECORD MUST STATE THE FACTUAL ROUTE - POLAR CIRCUMNAVIGATION IS ACCURATE - BUT NOT ARCTIC CIRCLE CIRCUMNAVIGATION.

HERE IS AN ARCTIC CIRCLE MAP - DECIDE FOR YOURSELF:



STARTING FROM ENGLAND WHICH IS NOT ABOVE THE ARCTIC CIRCLE MEANS YOU MUST BASE YOUR CLAIM ON A STARTING POINT AT OR ABOVE THE ARCTIC CIRCLE - I.E. ICELAND OR NORWAY AND REMAIN AT OR ABOVE THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. AND LIKEWISE, YOU MUST RETURN TO FINISH AT THE SAME STARTING POINT.

 MR. ALLISON HAS A FINDMESPOT.COM GPS BEACON - PLEASE PROVIDE THE DATA TRACK TO PROVE YOUR CLAIM. (HERE IS proof OF THE EXISTENCE OF A SPOT TRACKER WITH HYPERLINK & PASSWORD ON THE SHIP'S CALLSIGN BLOG SITE WHICH LINKS TO FINDMESPOT.COM)





ESHAMY blog: http://www.sailblogs.com/member/eshamy/?show=fulltoc

BY THE WAY - I'D REALLY LIKE TO SEE YOUR TRACK OVER THE TOP OF GREENLAND - NAVIGATING AROUND THE SOUTHERN GREENLAND CAPE WOULD BE CONSIDERED 'OUT OF BOUNDS' AND DISQUALIFY YOUR "ARCTIC CIRCLE" CLAIM
.



CLOCKWISE EAST TO WEST POLAR CIRCUMNAVIGATION? LIKELY, KUDOS!!!
CLOCKWISE EAST TO WEST ARCTIC CIRCLE CIRCUMNAVIGATION? - NO! 


FIRST? - I DO NOT THINK SO - MAYBE S/V ESHAMY IS THIRD... TIME WILL TELL IF PROVEN.


FIRST TO DO A CLOCKWISE - EAST TO WEST POLAR CIRCUMNAVIGATION? UNKNOWN, I'LL WAIT TO SEE THE FINDMESPOT GPS ROUTE PROOF SINCE I HAVE NOT FOLLOWED THE ENTIRE VOYAGE. IT WOULD BE A SIMPLE MATTER TO POST THE ENTIRE FINDMESPOT GPS DATA LOG AS PROOF.

Who was first to circumnavigate the Arctic in one season?

FIRST CLAIM - SV NORTHERN PASSAGE (FROM OSLO MAKING A WEST TO EAST PASSAGE)



The “Northern Passage” claims to be the first boat to make a successful Arctic circumnavigation in one season. We crossed our wake north of Bergen, Norway, on the morning of 14 October (2010). It is now clear that the “Northern Passage” was also the first boat to sail through both the Northeast and Northwest Passages during one and the same season.

GPS ROUTE PROOF MAP: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&source=embed&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=210636317529186392520.00048a91284e3f2d83fd2

WEBSITE DETAILS: http://www.ousland.no/category/northern-passage-2010/




SECOND CLAIM - SV PETER I (FROM ST. PETERSBURG MAKING A WEST TO EAST PASSAGE - UNSUPPORTED CLAIM AS OF 20111008 - WEBSITE?)



The Russian yacht, Peter I, has completed the circumnavigation of the seas of the Arctic Ocean and returned to St. Petersburg, from whence she started her voyage on June the 4th (2010) (AND ENDED NOVEMBER 19, 2010? - SECOND?)

According to the captain of the yacht Daniel Gavrilov, before now no vessel in the world could have made a similar journey.

For the first time in the history of seafaring a ship has rounded the Arctic, after passing through the Northeast and the Northwest Passage in a single navigation, without the help of icebreakers.



NO EVIDENCE HAS BEEN PROVIDED (I.E. GPS VOYAGE DATA FILE AND THE SHIP'S LOG BOOKS) TO BACK UP THE CLAIM.

http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/11/17/34846328.html




Russia’s Peter I yacht sets record with Arctic voyage




The Russian yacht Peter I arrived back in St. Petersburg from an “icy” round-the-world voyage, setting a new world record for circumnavigating the northern sea route in only 109 days


http://en.rian.ru/video/20101115/161344788.html


http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_europe/2010-12-07/970165058460.html


UNSUPPORTED CLAIM - INCOMPLETE PROOF: http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view?trip_id=214079


Wednesday, October 5, 2011

David Cowper aboard POLAR BOUND completes 6th Circumnavigation on October 4th, 2011 at Whitehaven Cumbria UK

July 16th - Dutch Harbor to England via 4th Arctic Northwest Passage to complete 6th circumnavigation!



Moored in Unalaska's small boat harbor is a striking yellow boat that looks like it belongs to a scientist or perhaps a research institute. But it is the sturdy little vessel of David Scott Cowper, the world's premier solo navigator. Mr. Cowper has circled the world five times and soon it will be six. The first two round the world trips were by sailboat, the rest have been in a motorized craft. The pretty yellow boat, Polar Bound, he had built specifically for solo long-distance voyaging. It is all aluminum and when fully loaded displaces almost 50 tons.
"The boat was basically designed for operating in ice," said Cowper, standing in the boat's business-like wheelhouse. "She can take full ice pressure. She's got watertight compartments, she's got double hull in the engine room, and double-bottomed in the forward hold as well as the engine room itself. So there'd have to be a catastrophic failure for the boat to go down or be obliterated. Basically she has 100% safety."
"She's designed for my sole use and benefit. She is self-righting. But in open water it's highly unlikely, even under perfect storm conditions that she would roll. But she has that capability with all her watertight hatches and dogged doors. In a nutshell, she is an all-weather vessel."
"This is the third time she's been around the world. I've gone from the high arctic to the Antarctic. I've been across the southern ocean, around the horn four times, she's done the Northwest Passage three times, she's been to Dutch Harbor and down the Bering Strait a number of times. She's encountered heavy seas and I must say that she's looked after me exceedingly well."
Polar Bound is 48 feet in length with an 18 foot beam and a six foot draft. She's propelled by a Gardner 150 hp 8-cylinder engine.
"On Polar Bound I carry ten tons of fuel which is approximately two and a quarter thousand US gallons. I cruise at about six knots, as that's the economical cruising speed. At that I'm doing about 900 revs through a twin disc, two-to-one reduction box. So you could say 400 or 450 at the propeller end. On average I do about 150 miles a day, 1,000 miles a week, and I'm burning just about two and a half gallons an hour. I've got a range of 5,000 miles, a safe working range." If he were headed south, which he's not at this stage of the voyage, he would motor to San Francisco, and then to Valdivia, Chile, near the southern tip of South America.
What about serious weather? Certainly on his travels Cowper has dealt with storms.
"She's more comfortable in very heavy seas where sometimes I have to lay a hull, and I'm just broadside on to the sea and the pressure of wind against the wheelhouse keeps the boat steady and because this boat is so well insulated against the cold I don't hear the howling wind that's outside. So I can quite comfortably have a cup of tea sitting as we are now in the wheelhouse."
What about sustenance? How does a solo sailor maintain his health and energy on a long voyage yet remain trim and agile?
"I'm told I eat very badly," said Cowper. "I try and eat sensibly. I'm not a good cook and I'm not really interested in cooking. So you've got two negatives thee. For breakfast I'll have cereal and two slices of bread, which I might toast. A cup of tea, or a cup of coffee. Maybe cheese and biscuits for lunch, or I'll have a bowl of soup, or noodles. My main meal is in the evening. I'll try and make a bigger job of that. I'll have either fish or meat and have a curry. Or I'll get some chicken legs and do those in the pressure cooker. I'll have those with potatoes or peas. But I must say, you don't want me to be your chef for a great meal while onboard."
"In the Falklands the farmers would give me geese. I would pluck those and freeze them. And then when I required a goose I would roast one in the oven. I'd have two meals from the roasting, and then I'd have a cold one. Then I'd make soup and stock out of the remainder. A goose would last me about six days. And that was the height of my luxury."
"Another thing I'm keen on is Christmas puddings. When I set off on this last trip I'd been to Marks and Spencers after Christmas when they have the sale of all their Christmas puddings and I purchased about 200. Now I have about 30 Christmas puddings left."
These are the traditional English Christmas puddings which require a good ration of brandy be poured over the dessert and then set alight.
"Certainly the brandy helps to warm one up a bit," he said. "Also brings out the flavor of the currants."
Cowper uses a computer very little on the boat because he doesn't have internet access. But he downloads weather grid files over the Iridium telephone, "at great expense," he says. He expresses appreciation that the USA provides the service free of charge and praises their accuracy.
"When I first did circumnavigation in 1979 there wasn't GPS, there wasn't radio communication apart from amateur radio. But know everything has changed. It's just like as if you're on land."
The Northwest Passage is an interesting topic because of the issues global warming raises. Cowper is now headed for his fourth passage of the fabled route.
"Compared with almost 30 years ago, the first time I went through the Northwest Passage, it took me nearly four years with the boat being iced in. The second time I did it was a full year because the boat was iced in. Then the third time I was held up just 24 hours by ice. This time I hope to make a clean pass."
Will the Northwest Passage become a practical route for commercial ship traffic? Two German freighters accompanied by a Russian icebreaker recently made the trip. Cowper is less than enthusiastic about the prospects.
"It's possible, but they will have to have icebreaker assistance," he said. "They can't take the same route that I take." His route is too shallow for big ships, following the coast. "They might be coming across multi-year ice. But the way the ice is melting at the present moment, it's all going to be first-year ice. This is the difficulty for the polar bears."
When the weather looks good and Cowper makes his way out to the open Bering Sea, he'll head for Nome.
"I go up past Nome and then up to Point Barrow, which is roughly 1200 miles from Dutch Harbor and then I turn right and go along the coast of Herschel Island." With luck he'll reach his home port in Scotland in a few months.
Cowper has spent time in Dutch Harbor on several of his trips and he speaks highly of the port.
"Everyone in Dutch Harbor has been very kind and helpful," he said. "I feel like this is sort of a second home. Over the years I've made some good friends among the fishermen and they've been very helpful."
On land David Scott Cowper is a surveyor, a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. He has a wife and a grown son who wait in Newcastle, the city where he was born and still lives. He is 70 years old but is fit and lean. Why is he still doing this at an age when most of his peers having chosen more sedentary activities?
"Unfortunately, I have the mind of an 18 year-old," he said. He believes the health and safety culture has taken all the fight out of England. So he sails on. Six knots, 150 miles a day, 1000 miles a week.

James Mason can be reached at jmason@alaskanewspapers.com, or by phone at 907-581-6850

Monday, October 3, 2011

Hamming It Up on St. Matthew Courtesy of David Cowlper on POLAR BOUND

 
A group of international travelers and one local resident are on their way to St. Matthew Island to set up a small, temporary radio station.
KUCB's Alexandra Gutierrez has more on these ham radio enthusiasts.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Driven to adventure

Sir Ranulph Fiennes


Sir Ranulph Fiennes tells Susan Chenery about his heroes, his fears and his great rivalry with those dratted Norwegians.
SO, WHERE do you start with Sir Ranulph Fiennes, arguably the world's greatest explorer and adventurer, and all his macho feats?
Would it be running seven marathons on seven continents, weeks after triple bypass surgery? ''I went to the surgeon who said he had done the same operation for 3000 people but that none of them had come back so soon after the operation to ask him if he thought they could do a marathon. As nobody had ever asked him he hadn't formed an opinion. He did say that under no circumstances should the heart beat go above 130 beats a minute.''
Would it be casually going out to his shed and cutting off his frostbitten fingers - sustained while trying to salvage a sled from icy waters - with a power saw because they were ''annoying''?
Ranulph Fiennes
Impressively fit at 67. Photo: Bill Prentice
Standing on top of Mount Everest on his third attempt? Heart problems and exhaustion had forced him back 300 metres from the summit on the previous two. ''It was very beautiful because it was about two hours before dawn and the moonlight shining on the tops of the clouds below us and the black tops of other mountains spearing through those clouds way down below. So it was like a proper fairyland and a very starry sky.''
Then there would be climbing the nearly impossible Eiger, in the Swiss Alps, which has claimed the lives of 50 of the world's best climbers, and doing it without enough fingers and with a fear of heights. ''You do devise a mental strategy … you must under no circumstances look down. You mustn't allow your brain to think about down. You must look up and think about what is above.''
On his transglobal expedition he went around the world, pole to pole, without leaving the Earth's surface. He discovered the lost city of Ubar on the Arabian peninsula, after 26 years of looking for it. There is just no end to his courage and achievements.
Paul Rusesabagina
He cites as inspirational the bravery of the Rwandan humanitarian Paul Rusesabagina. Photo: Reuters
Fiennes, known as ''Ran'', talks of all this in a typically understated English way. He gives every appearance of being perfectly sane despite his seemingly suicidal activities. He is quite posh, as you would expect from an old Etonian and a baronet. At 67 he is tall and very fit. He is easy to talk to, seemingly sensitive, and not in the least bit macho, though as a writer and adventurer he is more like earlier generations of men who fought wars and wrote poetry.
In between his expeditions he manages to write a book a year and appears on the lecture circuit.
Reading the chapter on the Eiger in his new book, My Heroes, one has to wonder how he ever had the courage to climb the fabled peak. It documents bodies cartwheeling into the abyss and a climber being strangled on his own rope. Fiennes did it to distract himself from the grief of the death of his first wife, Ginny.
Douglas Mawson
The feats of the Australian polar explorer Douglas Mawson are another source of inspiration.
''I was told not to read a book, by a climber, called The White Spider - 50 of the world's top climbers have come to grief on Eiger. It would have been fatal to have read before the climb.''
In My Heroes, Fiennes talks of the men who tried, and failed, to become the first to climb the Eiger as heroes because ''they did not allow themselves to be intimidated by the most menacing of mountain challenges''.
It seems the writing comes easy. He wrote one book at base camp on Everest. ''[In 2009] we were on our third attempt to try and climb Everest and acclimatising in April and May, which was just before the book needed to be going to the publishers. So I was writing it in a tent at base camp by a gas lamp and being called out to the main tent for meals every now and then, and every third day another acclimatisation climb up the ice falls. It wasn't ideal circumstances and it was a bit of a rush. I try not to rush them because it doesn't have a good effect on the book.''
Fiennes downplays the danger inherent in what he does - ''we try to avoid dangerous situations because that often means that the expedition you are doing fails, if we see a dangerous situation we try not to confront it but to go around it''. But it is increasingly difficult to avoid those dangers. ''The trouble is that over 40 years our group or our rivals, the Norwegians, have knocked off record by record by record. The ones that are now left … have become more and more difficult. And that is why we have to be doubly careful in planning them, so we don't end up dead halfway across.''
You have to wonder what drives a man like him, apart from the glory of being the first person to do what no one else would be crazy enough to even try. Except the bane of his life, his rivals, those Norwegians.
The Scandinavians are why his next expedition has to be top secret. ''We have left it until now because most of our rivals have considered it too difficult,'' he says. ''And we spent three years gradually getting ready to mount this expedition, it is rather nearer Australia than the UK. But
I can't talk about the next expedition because if our rivals the Norwegians hear about it before we are ready they will start and get down there before us.''
Among Fiennes's heroes in his new book is the Australian polar explorer Douglas Mawson. The Englishman says Mawson's ''sheer mental and physical tenacity'' are unrivalled even by his fellow greats of Antarctic exploration, Shackleton, Scott and Amundsen.
Not all of the heroes of the book are explorers, however. Fiennes tells of the bravery of Paul Rusesabagina, who transformed his hotel into a refugee camp during the Rwandan genocide, and highlights the exploits of brave police officers, missionaries and the German officer who tried to assassinate Hitler.
Fiennes artfully dodges persistent questions about what inspires him to take on his own endeavours but there seems to be some complicated psychology about his father - who was killed in World War II, before he was born - and his grandfather, both commanders with the Scots Greys regiment. He, too, would take a command with the Scots Greys and says the feats of bravery for which he was decorated were more about not wanting to be seen to be frightened in front of his men.
Fiennes grew up hearing stories about the courage of the absent father, and says he thinks about him as he is trudging across those frozen wastes or up mountains. Perhaps he is trying to match or impress a father canonised by death into a hero for a bereaved little boy.
Whatever drives him, he does not seem to be slowing down and he continues to take many of the same people on his expeditions. ''Mostly they come from Commonwealth countries like New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and I never pay anybody - they do it for the love of breaking world records and that is what we go for,'' he says. ''They need to be not very excitable so that if things go very well they don't necessarily jump all over the place and if they go badly they don't get despondent. So they need to be on an even keel.''
And while he talks of the beautiful solitude of Everest, Fiennes tells a different story of being isolated and alone in the Arctic. ''We are talking about sea ice and when it is not broken up the wind will make a noise as it rushes through the funny-shaped walls of pressure ice, which is caused by loose ice floes weighing about a million tons hitting each other,'' he says. ''The ice at the front end breaks up and then when the ice flows press together the broken stuff goes up to 30 feet high as a wall of jumbled ice.
''These are called pressure ridges and they are a big problem and they make a hell of a lot of noise as it is happening.
''You can hear the strange grinding of the ice on the move from miles away and it is a noise like none other.
''And if you are trying to camp on the ice that is breaking up it is not good for your imagination. You won't get any sleep if you are in a sleeping bag and you can feel these vibrations. If you have got a storm wall of ice maybe a hundred miles away it will start a tsunami of ice movement breaking up 100 miles ahead of the actual storm.
''So because the ice grows on the sea top at a rate of three feet a year, old ice can be very deep where the currents are strong. Whereas newer ice which is maybe only two feet, or one inch deep will be not so fast moving because the currents near the surface are less fast, and therefore it will be cramped up by the advancing heavy ice, and if you are camped on it and it is cramped up it is not good.''
After his adored wife, Ginny, died of cancer in 2003, Fiennes remarried. He met Louise Millington after she attended one of his lectures, and now has a five-year-old daughter.
Fiennes would die faster of boredom, one suspects, than on an insanely brave expedition, if he were not already planning the next one. He does, under pressure, take weekends off now. ''I would try not to, no, but weekends I work with my wife on the farm. She is doing a farm so I report to her for labour and don't do phone calls or I get unpopular.''


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/driven-to-adventure-20111001-1l25a.html#ixzz1ZdJFrhQw