My last shift with Denis consisted of zero rowing. We started rowing but were making no progress due to the stiff headwinds so we spent three and half hours pushing the boat through the shallow water – we made 5.5 km in four hours. If we had calm conditions, we could row this in one hour with far less effort.
Over this time, my mind began to wander and realizing we can control so little up here, I began thinking about what we can control. My thoughts drifted to things we can do to give ourselves the best chance of moving forward. It’s probably stating the obvious but all we can control is our actions and nothing else. I suppose when you think about it, this is no different from life in general.
How I (or anybody else) performs in life is really down to focusing on what one can control. Whether it’s on this expedition, in my business or just life in general the only thing I can really control are my actions. There are so many things beyond my control so why bother worrying about them – like the actions of others, what anybody says or thinks of me, the economy…….the list is endless but yet it’s so easy to allow things like these occupy our head space.
Exactly. Humans don’t control the climate and they should quit wasting their summer on this idiotic trip.
Another possibility would be what Agamemnon did, sacrifice their first born to make the wind stop blowing.
Why is it they don’t allow comments?
Not sure they could handle the dose of reality they’d get from posters on top of the dose of reality they’re dealing with in person.
You can comment, evidently, on their Facebook page.
I see that they have a potential break coming: Winds are predicted to be from the west over the next week or so. This is the only way they can move east with any speed, apparently.
So far, their average (over two weeks) has been less than half the speed needed to make this trip. And, as @njsnowfan pointed out below, there is an ice buildup right on their path. That is a couple of days away, as is the wind — and wind pushing them into the ice could bring its own danger.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Road block ahead and it is a big one. Thick ICE
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS40CT/20130719180000_WIS40CT_0007168053.gif
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS40SD/20130719180000_WIS40SD_0007168058.gif
Will it turn out to be a rescue mission in time? My bet is they will not make it to where they want to end. Is there a Las Vegas line bet on it? I want then to all survive but I say they will need air lift when SKIM ice comes back early this year. Unless some way they can turn that very bad design of a wind catching row boat into a Ice boat odds are low.
Oh I forgot, they should of used a sail, the Romans had sails and oars on their ships right?…Oh the sail is not allowed because of the mini wind turbine that is on board by a sponsor?
Their point is a human-powered trip. However, the westerlies that they might benefit from would make progress possible, which begs the question of “human powered.” A 12kt wind in their face seems to stop them dead. So a wind like that behind them is providing as much power as the rowers on full tilt.
This means that the “human powered” would need an asterisk, were they even to complete the voyage. Asterisk they take when they need a bit of a cheat to succeed.
As an aside, the sponsor has paid for solar panels, but not (evidently) a wind turbine. A small turbine in the ice, salt, and bad weather would probably not be worth its maintenance headaches anyway. Now, a gas turbine (hooked up to a propeller) would have been very useful at this point…
When the ship was intentionally capsized, to test its self-recovery ability, it was evident that the nearly flat bottom has no projection expected of a sailboat. This lack affects the rowers, too, as they report that the wind just blows them sideways.
Perhaps when they get back, they will go complain to the boat designer about the lack of this essential feature that has caused them so much grief: “I KEEL you!”
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Life is a series of lessons.
Lessons will be repeated until learned.
These boys are going to have a lot of painful, tedious learning as they drag their boat along the shore and get smacked around by ice floes.
A lot of learning.
Reading between the lines in the rowers comments. Is despair setting in? Have they under estimated reality?
They sound a bit pissed off too.
Welcome to the real world warm-mongers.
I’ve started tracking their progress, including daily and ping-to-ping speed. And I’m continually updating a prediction on their time to complete. Obviously, they’re behind.
You may find the result interesting:
http://www.dehavelle.com/2013/07/everyone-knows-its-windy-in-the-arctic/
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Excellent work Keith … I enjoyed that post.
Excellent calculations Keith, thanks:)
I’m hoping the team will give it another go next year, for the entertainment aspect of course!
Keith has their expected arrival date as Nov 28. 🙁
Maybe one more day to go, then they’ll be facing either an extremely long walking/pushing if they stay to the shallows, or an actual open water run.
Maybe next year they can row around Antarctica surviving on only Penguin eggs…..or not.
🙂
These guys would have as much luck harnessing Polar Bears and having them pull the crew to success than they will rowing to Pond Inlet-:)
Their Facebook page used to have a place where interested parties could talk about the expedition without making off-topic comments on a MSFL post. That section seems to have disappeared from the MSFL Facebook page. It’s a shame. I learned quite a bit about current Arctic ice conditions from the items people left.
The Irish Times has an article “Cold with a chance of grizzlies: nobody said it would be easy”
http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/travel/long-haul/cold-with-a-chance-of-grizzlies-nobody-said-it-would-be-easy-1.1466593
“A wall of ice may ultimately prevent us from finishing. We have very little control over how this pans out.”
Yet we can control the climate through a very trace reduction of this trace gas. This is a bloody joke and a fraud.
Is it time for a suicide watch?
Looks like Reggie already took himself out as a commenter here.
If they make a TV program out of this, it should be required viewing for all climate scientists, and every member of Congress and the White House (and the governments of every other nation willfully enacting policies–ruinous or not–based upon “global warming”). Better yet, they should all be required to make the next attempt.