Other than the fact that it is July 14 and the rowers are still stuck in the McKenzie River Delta and that they have 2,500 km left to go and that the weather will turn nasty in three weeks and that their route is blocked with ice, I can’t see see anything keeping them from completing their Brawndo powered trip.
The Canadian Air Sea Rescue has developed Operation Blowtorch to save the rowing team from disaster. However, with the ban on Carbon based fuels, they must use dog sleds and will have to wait for the ice to return before they can start the mission. Bon Voyage to the rowing team on Bastille Day.
Every year their daring-do gets more and more daring-can’t. lol What clowns and with Reggie as the ringmaster would could possibly go wrong.
The only thing that will stop this crasse stupidity every year will be when someone dies. Hopefully no time soon?.
Unfortunately, one died already. Explorer Philip Goodeve-Docker freezes to death on second day of trek across Greenland. RIP
https://www.facebook.com/philip.goodevedocker?viewer_id=0
The movie list has “The Age of Stupid”.
Exactly where are they? I go to the site that tracks their progress. See where they made a run for it yesterday, then at about 4:30pm they did a turn around and nothing after that. Am I not getting the fully updated version, or did they turn their transponder off and head back to the McKenzie?
They don’t keep updating their location when they aren’t moving. I am surmising they have anchored in shallow water because the wind was blowing to hard or the seas were too rough to make headway. They are in open water now, and their boat doesn’t seem to be one that I would like to be in in rough seas.
Since they are going in circles, should we describe their progress as dizzying?
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that they’ve grounded out and are waiting for the tide to lift them off the mud
This never was about dramatizing climate change. If they wanted to show that the arctic has less ice than it used to, they could have made the trip in a powered boat. One of the crew once rowed across the Atlantic. This is about extreme rowing. The climate change angle was just an angle to get funding and attention.
Or it is about book deals, movie rights and an Oprah interview?
A happy byproduct.
I can see the title of the book: Coping with Failure.
Movie deal in the works:
Working title is “Scott in the Arctic reloaded”
Plot pretty much the same as the first film except the polar bears win. (spoiler alert)
what kind of idiots would design a boat, from scratch…..that you can’t even row in 15 mph winds
They should have done this back in 2000 when the NWP was free of ice. 🙂
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/918448.stm
Love the quote from the expedition leader Pedro Delgado.
Jim not Pedro. I’ve been watching the Tour de France too much.
And it took the Canadian patrol boat 9 weeks to do it. Of course, they did the whole route. But still, it looks unlikely that the rowers will make it.
Barely any wind on the Tuktoyaktuk current / forecast site but the rain and near freezing temps may have prompted them to hunker down until it improves. Soaking wet and 0 C is not a nice combo for any activity.
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/canada/northwest-territories/tuktoyaktuk
So far sea ice has been the least of the rowers troubles. The next few weeks will be interesting & I noticed that on the DMI website the long term average temps roll over in ~10 days but perhaps this year will be as slow to start cooling as it was to warm. However I would bet the opposite … that cooling starts earlier and perhaps a bit faster than past years. No science there just an old guys gut feeling.
Reggie did you really take a glacial geomorphology course or a geomorphology course with some glacial content? If yes where and what level? Was Tim Ball your prof?
“I noticed that on the DMI website the long term average temps roll over in ~10 days but perhaps this year will be as slow to start cooling”
At that latitude they will start to experience sunset and night fall starting in about…..10 days. It will get progressively colder as the radiant cooling to the night sky begins to offset the daily insolation.
They are just north of the arctic circle. They may be seeing the sun set already.
http://www.athropolis.com/sun-fr.htm
That few degrees of latitude make a difference. The arctic circle is 66.56N and the rowers are at 69.7N. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_circle
I was using this: http://www.sunearthtools.com/dp/tools/pos_sun.php
The center of the sun is at the horizon on ~7-24 and gets to -0.833 elevation (official sunset with the top of the disc below the horizon) on the 7-26. Hence, approximately 10 days. If they row past the point at Baille Island and start south, they’ll get to the setting sun in less than 10 days.
Obviously, this is for an ideal horizon and landforms could elevate the local horizon with the sun setting behind the local features.
Cool. Thx.
I suggest a pool on a rescue date.
Anyone want to make a side bet on rolling out a 4 the hard way?
Losers do just that, they lose.
Mental instability always plays a role in a loss of this nature, and this one should make them pause and take stock in reality.