Bonkers. Atlantic rowers......

[capnsensible]

The Talisker race started this afternoon from La Gomera. You really got to hand it to those guys and gals, brave and determined.

Can be followed on yellow brick races.

I kinda know one guy in it. Good luck to them all. :encouragement:

 

[Blue Sunray]

The Talisker race started this afternoon from La Gomera. You really got to hand it to those guys and gals, brave and determined.

Can be followed on yellow brick races.

I kinda know one guy in it. Good luck to them all. :encouragement:

An acquaintance (sort of, he has a tendency to walk sideways) did it a few years back - all bar the last mile for which he got a tow. Up there with walking to the S Pole these days for proving ones ability to put up with an experience that somehow combines tedium and danger. Good luck to them indeed, particularly these two: https://www.grandadsoftheatlantic.com/the-grandads.

 

[Seajet]

Books well worth reading are ' A Fighting Chance ' by John Ridgeway & Chay Blythe - SAS guys who made it - and ' The Penance Way ' about two civilians who didn't.

At the late lamented Exteter Maritime Museum they had ' Puffin ' as found, complete with rusty transistor radio, it brought a tear to the eye.

 

[capnsensible]

Go Grandads!

Some years ago I was prepping in Gomera for a sails transat. On the night before the race, we met up with some Bootys and we all got well splashed. However in the finest traditions of the Royals, they were up and ready, full of energy at start o'clock.

I waved.....

 

[AndrewB]

It feels not quite right that they go knowing that many if not most will need to be rescued. Should they be quite so prepared to take for granted other people's charitable instincts?

 

[Blue Sunray]

It feels not quite right that they go knowing that many if not most will need to be rescued. Should they be quite so prepared to take for granted other people's charitable instincts?

Which charities operate Mid Atlantic Rescue services? (Although I am a fan of the Hasler approach to such matters)

 

[mjcoon]

I kinda know one guy in it. Good luck to them all. :encouragement:

But they could have rows at home!

Mike.

 

[capnsensible]

It feels not quite right that they go knowing that many if not most will need to be rescued. Should they be quite so prepared to take for granted other people's charitable instincts?

I think that's why they have two safety yachts in company.....

 

[Halcyon Yachts]

I love crossing the Atlantic, but this is something else... These guys are indeed bonkers!

This video gives a nice insight into what it's like:

Pete

 

[sailorman]

Which charities operate Mid Atlantic Rescue services? (Although I am a fan of the Hasler approach to such matters)

:encouragement:

 

[Impaler]

Grandads are Parachute Regiment...Peter Ketley and I served together.

Go Grandads!

Some years ago I was prepping in Gomera for a sails transat. On the night before the race, we met up with some Bootys and we all got well splashed. However in the finest traditions of the Royals, they were up and ready, full of energy at start o'clock.

I waved.....

 

[JumbleDuck]

At the late lamented Exteter Maritime Museum they had ' Puffin ' as found, complete with rusty transistor radio, it brought a tear to the eye.

They never found the chap who tried to row across in this (in the Scottish Maritime Museum):

It's thought he got almost to Ireland; the boat washed up in Norway.

 

[Blue Sunray]

Grandads are Parachute Regiment...Peter Ketley and I served together.

They are interviewed in this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06gcqy2

 

[GHA]

It feels not quite right that they go knowing that many if not most will need to be rescued. Should they be quite so prepared to take for granted other people's charitable instincts?

Word in Gomera was that Madrid hating it cos they had to sort out picking up the pieces. Know 2 boats went out to help, one to get a guy off - got bashed and boat work payed for to make good. Another to salvage whatever was left floating around after a tanker picked the rowers up. Hard old slog back up to canaries. Dunno how much they got paid.

 

[prv]

It feels not quite right that they go knowing that many if not most will need to be rescued. Should they be quite so prepared to take for granted other people's charitable instincts?

Which charities operate Mid Atlantic Rescue services?

I didn’t see Andrew’s post as referring to organised charities like the RNLI, rather other seafarers who might have to divert from their business to perform a rescue. Of course anyone who goes to sea should be willing to rescue others, but such actions are not without cost. Working ships cost tens of thousands of dollars per day, and an oceanic rescue could take several days to achieve.

That said, the charity the Tall Ships Youth Trust did rescue a pair of American ocean rowers from their capsized boat some years ago, introducing them to tea, porridge, and square rig sailing for the remainder of the crossing

Pete

 

[Blue Sunray]

I didn’t see Andrew’s post as referring to organised charities like the RNLI, rather other seafarers who might have to divert from their business to perform a rescue.

Fair point, but that would, as I'm sure you know, be requirements under UNCLOS rather than charitable instincts. (I'm still with Hasler though).

 

[zoidberg]

Books well worth reading are ' A Fighting Chance ' by John Ridgeway & Chay Blythe - SAS guys who made it - and ' The Penance Way ' about two civilians who didn't.

I rather suspect there are some stalwarts of The Parachute Regiment around who would prefer that 'Them' got the blame for Ridgway and Blythe, and are grateful to Seajet for 'shifting the blame' a bit.

As for 'being with Haslar'..... in such matters I prefer Arthur Ransome's outlook "If duffers...... If not duffers...."

 

[capnsensible]

What are people missing here about 'they have two safety yachts in company'?

 

[capnsensible]

Grandads are Parachute Regiment...Peter Ketley and I served together.

I kinda got that from the colour of their hats. The guys I met had green ones, which for a bit, matched their faces....

Mine was rather blue.

 

[Seajet]

I rather suspect there are some stalwarts of The Parachute Regiment around who would prefer that 'Them' got the blame for Ridgway and Blythe, and are grateful to Seajet for 'shifting the blame' a bit.

As for 'being with Haslar'..... in such matters I prefer Arthur Ransome's outlook "If duffers...... If not duffers...."

Bilbo, though in the book they claim to be Para's, I also read elsewhere they were SAS.

When asked by our wonderful tutor at our book club recenty I recounted

' Better drowned than duffers, if not duffers won't drown '

The - mothers in the class - 10:2 - were outraged.

At the second to last International Festival Of The Sea I went aboard the ' Nancy Blacket ' - which is ' Goblin ' in my favorite Ransome book


' We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea '

The ladies looking after Nancy Blacket were wearing pirate uniform - I must admit I had something in my eye being on that boat from my childhood dreams.