A speck on the sea — 40 years of solo voyages
All Outdoors
2 comments below
This week marks the 40th anniversary of the first solo row across the Atlantic, accomplished by the Englishman John Fairfax, in the 20-foot rowboat Britannia. Two similar voyages, one made last year and one now in progress, have given Shelter Island, and all of us by extension, a loose connection to bold seafarers like Fairfax.
John Mollison, who left here several weeks ago in the Shelter Island-built multi-hulled rowboat, Orca, is presently somewhere off Nova Scotia, bound for his native Scotland at a couple of miles an hour. Orca, you may recall, has crossed the ocean before, in the opposite direction, skippered by Islander Roy Finlay. That trip put Orca into the Guinness Book of World Records as the first multi-hull ever rowed across any ocean.
So, improbable or not, the boat has proven that it's up to the job. Still, Mollison is making the west-to-east crossing in northern latitudes, a route considered much more difficult than going the other way. Both Finlay and Fairfax took the comparatively mild east-to-west route from the Canary Islands, yet both ran into rough weather and had to sit out many hours riding to a sea anchor. Mollison barely got offshore before he got hit with big wind and waves and has spent whole days going nowhere or even backwards.
It takes unusual grit to press on in the face of that kind of opposition. Mollison is a businessman in Scotland, but he's also the sort of old-fashioned adventurer you don't hear about much anymore, having trekked to the North Pole and across the Gobi Desert. This puts him in company with men like Fairfax, who left home at the age of 13 to live in the Argentine jungle “like Tarzan” and survived by hunting and bartering skins with local peasants. In Panama, he fell in with pirates and ended up spending three years smuggling guns, whiskey and cigarettes. He finally escaped the pirates and the authorities and rode back to Argentina on a horse. Not your everyday kind of guy.
Fairfax's boat, Britannia, was, like Orca, professionally designed specifically for the job, and both are examples of the most advanced technology available at the time they were built. So, those boats are really not all that “improbable.” But people have crossed oceans in boats you might not trust any further than from here to Greenport. Alain Bombard crossed the Atlantic in a rubber raft. Hugo Vilhen did it in a “capsule boat” just 5'4” long. Stephane Peyron went from New York to France in 46 days on a sailboard. And Remy Bricka, a one-man band by profession, donned a pair of 14-foot-long canoe-like “shoes,” and pulling a raft behind him on which he slept at night, strolled 3,500 miles from Tenerife to Trinidad. You can read about these adventurers and many more in “A Speck on the Sea,” which is available at our local library, or will be as soon as I return it.
You say none of those are improbable enough for you? In 1997, Poppa Neutrino, aka William David Pearlman, sailed a homemade raft made from recycled materials from North America to Europe, becoming the second person to sail a raft across the Atlantic and the first and probably only person to do so on one made from trash. Neutrino said he was inspired by a documentary in which Australian aborigines periodically burned their homes and walked away naked, free to start a new life. Neutrino moved to Vermont recently — clothed, one hopes.
In light of all that, John Mollison's trip in the proven ocean-crossing rowboat, Orca, seems like it ought to be a cakewalk. But getting across an ocean in safety and comfort can be problematic even if you're on the QE2.
John has already run into plenty of tough going, and he's just starting out. You can follow his daily progress via satellite and read his reports on the website of his adventure group, commando-joe.com.
The Shelter Island Reporter is pleased to offer readers the ability to comment on stories. We expect our readers to engage in lively, yet civil discourse. The Shelter Island Reporter does not edit user submitted statements and we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted in the comments area. Responsibility for the statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not The Shelter Island Reporter. Please be reminded, however, that in accordance with our Terms of Service and federal law, we are under no obligation to remove any third party comments posted on our website.
2 comments found
ORCA across the Atlantic : 7/31/2009
On July 14, 2009 The Ocean Classroom 125 ft Schooner SPIRIT of MASSACHUSETTS bound for Halifax NS came upon Mr Mollison in his Orca about 1/2 way between Boston and Yarmouth NS. It was a calm day with light winds and fairly flat seas. He declined our offer of beef stew and wished us well on our journey. I thought of him a week later as we were fighting 20-30 kt wnds and heavy seas on our way back to Boston. We wished him Fair Winds and Following Seas.
Barter with me. : 7/22/2009
What a Story! John should try www.barterquest.com to trade with me. I offer travel service, design service and vacation rental.
