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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 12, 2013 - 06:50pm PT
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Many consider this one THE one.
PACIFIC JOURNEY
Ed Gillet's account of his solo kayak paddle from California to Hawaii
When I said that I was planning to paddle across 2200 miles of open ocean in a twenty foot kayak, people looked at me as though I had told them I was going to commit suicide. My listeners projected their deepest fears on my trip. Wasn't I afraid of losing my way on the trackless ocean, starvation, thirst, going mad from lack of human contact, or being eaten by sharks? They were seldom reassured when I told them of my thirty thousand miles of sailing experience and ten thou-sand miles of kayaking along the most formidable coastlines in the world.
But I was confident that my kayak and I would arrive safely in Hawaii. Most people think large vessels are the most seaworthy ones. But this is not always true.
Survival at sea depends on preparation, experience, and prudence - not on boat size. I turned my kayak into one of the most seaworthy little boats in the world. I did not need to carry a life raft - I paddled a life raft. Inside my kayak, I crammed 60 days food and 25 gallons of fresh water. With my reverse osmosis pumps, I could make unlimited amounts of additional drinking water from sea water. I carried fishing gear, tools, and spare parts. In a waterproof bag I had, a compact VHF radio to contact passing ships, and an emergency radio beacon to alert aircraft fly-ing overhead in case I needed to be rescued. Flares, sig-nal mirrors, a strobe-light, and a radar reflector ensured that I would be seen.
My kayak was as stoutly built as any fiberglass sailboat. I wanted to paddle a true kayak across the ocean - not a specialized sailboat masquerading as a kayak. I used a stock Tofino double kayak with no mast, sail, centerboard, or keel. My boat had a foot-operated rudder and a wooden floor inside so that I could sleep a few inches above the water sloshing back and forth in the bottom of the boat. To stabilize my kayak while I slept, I inflated pontoons which I lashed to both sides of the boat. When the pontoons were deployed I could move around in my kayak with-out fear of capsize. A sailor's safety harness fastened me securely to my boat.
To find my way at sea I used a sextant and a small calculator programmed to work out navigation sights. I could figure my position to within a few miles - when I could see the sun. I chose the crossing to Hawaii because the summer weather pat-terns are stable and the winds and currents are almost always favorable. The trip seemed to me to be the kayaking equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest. It was the most difficult trip I could con-ceive of surviving.
On a cold, foggy morning three kayaks glided out of the har-bor at Monterey. My wife Katie paddled one of the boats. At the one mile buoy off Lover's point, we said goodbye, embracing from the kayaks. Pointing my kayak west and heading out to sea was the hardest thing I have ever done. Tears rolled down my face and I could hear Katie crying. I looked back from fifty yards away and I knew that we were thinking the same thought: that we might never see each other again.
I felt foolish attempting to paddle to Hawail. Who did I think I was to attempt such an improbable feat?
Despite extensive preparation, my confidence was soon shat-tered by the relentless pounding swell of the Pacific Ocean. I had underestimated the abuse my body - especially my hands -would take on the 63 day crossing. After only a few days at sea, my butt was covered with saltwater sores and I could find no comfortable positions for sitting or sleeping. Within a week, the skin on the backs of my hands was so cracked and chapped that I took painkillers to make paddling bearable.
Running downwind off California, I wore several layers of synthetic pile and polypropylene clothing - the type of clothing which is touted to be warm when it is wet. I stayed warm as long as I wore everything I had, but I was certainly wet.
I was miserable but I spurred myself on with the thought that when I reached the southern trade wind latitudes, warm, sunny weather awaited...
Sailors can have two distinct waking nightmares: too much wind and too little wind. Heading south from Monterey, California, I lived through the first bad dream. The howling grey northwesterlies nearly devoured me. For two weeks I headed southwest before thirty knot winds, surfing down fifteen foot high breaking swells. The seas snapped my half-inch thick rudder blades as easily as you might break a saltine cracker. I needed every bit of skill and strength just to stay upright.
The nights were unspeakably grim. I set out two sea anchors and stretched out on the floor of my kayak. Tortured by salt water sores, I snatched a few moments of sleep while green waves crashed over my kayak, forcing themselves into the cockpit. As the ocean slowly filled my boat, I tried to ignore the cold water soaking through my sleeping bag until the rising tide forced me to sit up and pump out the kayak. Then I settled into the bilge and the miserable cycle repeated.
The cold wind was relentless. When I poked my head out in the mornings I screamed into the wind, "I don't want to die!" I felt as exposed and as stressed as I had on long rock climbs. I relied on my skill and equipment for survival - even a small mis-take could prove fatal.
"This can't be!" I shouted at the empty blue sky. For about the fiftieth time, I looked at my pilot chart. Sitting motionless in my kayak in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a thousand miles from land, I cursed the winds that had abandoned me. There was no swell, no wind - no sound. Without the boisterous trade winds and the westward current they spawn, it would take me two more months to reach the Hawaiian Islands. I did not think that I could survive that long. I had been at sea in my twenty foot kayak for thirty days.
A thousand miles southwest of my starting point I found the flip side of the nightmare - calm weather. In the calm conditions, I dried my sleeping bag and clothing and my skin lesions healed, but my progress slowed dramatically.
As night overtook me, I snapped a lightstick and placed it over my compass. However slowly, I had to keep my kayak mov-ing towards Hawaii. Where were the trade winds? The night was so still that the bowl of bright stars over my head shimmered and danced in the calm sea. I felt as though I was paddling off the edge of the earth and into space.
For two weeks I pushed my kayak westward, until I reached longitude 140 west. Nine hundred miles from my goal, the trade winds blew strongly enough to launch my parafoil kite. This col-orful flying sail did not replace paddling, but the kite's pull doubled my speed, and I averaged fifty miles a day.
A school of blue and gold mahi-mahi fish played about my boat, frolicking and jumping in my bow wave. Catching them was easy since they always seemed voraciously hungry -fighting each other to be first to bite the lures which I trailed behind on a hand-line. I even trained them to gather close to my boat when I knocked on my hull by feeding them cut up pieces of bait. Once a day I slipped a fish hook into a piece of bait and another mahi-mahi became sashimi.
Those days were the best of the trip. The strong trade winds were ideal for paddling. The royal blue surging swells were no more than six feet high and my yellow bow skipped over the waves as if my kayak knew the way to the islands.
Three hundred miles from the islands, I was caught up in a northerly cur-rent. The wind shifted from northeast to southeast, and the strong current set me north at the rate of thirty miles a day. If that current had not changed, I would have landed in Japan, miss-ing the islands by hundreds of miles.
I thought that if I was soon to become a life raft, I ought to prepare my life raft equipment. I rummaged through my storage compartments, collecting my emergency radio beacon, flares, and signal mirrors. If I were going to miss the islands, my best chance for rescue would come when I crossed the shipping lanes fifty miles north of me.
On my sixtieth day at sea, I ran out of food. My school of mahi-mahi had left me a week before. I had eaten my toothpaste two days earlier. There was nothing edible left in the boat, and no fish were biting my lures. Looking up, I watched a line of jet airplanes heading for Hawaii. I thought about the passengers eat-ing from their plastic trays. My food fantasies were so real and so complete that I could recreate every detail of every restaurant I had ever visited. I could remember the taste, texture and smell of meals I had eaten several years ago. I thought about how I should have gone to a grocery store in Monterey and bought fifty cans of Spam, or chili, and stuffed the cans into my boat.
I had nearly completed the world's longest open ocean cross-ing, but I did not feel any closer to land. I had been scribbling different latitude and longitude numbers on the side of my boat, but I had no sense of progress. My kayak trip seemed as though it would last forever. In my 63rd day at sea, I was taking my usual noon latitude sight. When I swung my sextant to look at the southern horizon, I was annoyed by the mountain filling my sextant viewfinder and fouling up my view of the horizon line. "That damned mountain..." I thought. Seconds later, I realized I was looking at land! That dark mountain had to be Mauna Kea, 80 miles away on the 'big island' of Hawaii. The island of Maui 40 miles ahead was hidden under a blanket of squally clouds. As the clouds cleared, Haleakala reared its head and I knew I was almost home.
I whooped for joy when I saw land. I had only been pretending to be a sea creature. I was a land creature traveling through a hostile environment. My survival depended on the life support system I carried in my kayak, and my support system was exhausted. Nearing land, I felt as though a weight was being lift-ed from my shoulders.
After paddling and kite sailing all night, I brought my kayak into the calm lee of Maui outside Kahului harbor. The scents of rainwashed soils and lush tropical plants washed over me like waves of perfume. No one greeted me when my bow dug a fur-row into the sandy beach. Stepping onto the beach for the first time in more than two months, I could not make my legs obey me. They crumpled underneath me and I sat down heavily in the shallow water. A local character staggering down the beach asked me where I had come from. When I told him that I had paddled my kayak from California, he whistled.
"That's a long way," he said. "Must've taken you two or three days, huh?"
"Yeah," I said.
I talked him into helping me drag my kayak up the beach, then he wandered off. Reeling like a drunken Popeye, I lurched off in search of a junk food breakfast.
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Captain...or Skully
climber
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Apr 12, 2013 - 06:57pm PT
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There aren't words that can accurately say just how badass that was.
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jbaker
Trad climber
Redwood City, CA
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Apr 12, 2013 - 07:03pm PT
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Amazing.
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snakefoot
climber
cali
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Apr 12, 2013 - 07:08pm PT
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epic to say the least. proud.
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CalicoJack
climber
CA
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Apr 12, 2013 - 07:28pm PT
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That sounds like an amazing solo, and completely horrifying. I've been in some of those waters dodging storms in the late fall, and saw the gnarliest seas I'd ever want, even aboard a 70ft steel longliner. In fact, that trip went a long way toward convincing me that I probably didn't want to be a blue water sailor.
Here's the craziest ocean solo I've ever read, albeit an unplanned excursion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrift:_76_Days_Lost_At_Sea
And Joshua Slocum's first solo circumnavigation also comes to mind, in a boat that he hand build himself no less. That dude seems to have been rock solid (like, later shipwrecked with family on the coast of Brazil or something, created a forge, rebuilt the boat, and then sailed back to the US). All in the late 19th century.
Deep waters!
Cheers,
Andy
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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Apr 12, 2013 - 07:51pm PT
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way cool.
maybe I'm too much of a climber, but Waterman on Hunter blows my mind to this day
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Apr 12, 2013 - 08:31pm PT
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I can't begin to fathom that. I thought Jon Turk's row from Japan to Alaska
was badazz but this makes that pale.
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perswig
climber
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Apr 12, 2013 - 08:35pm PT
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Slocum, and the sailing of Kon-Tiki came to mind.
I had eaten my toothpaste two days earlier.
Jeez-um crow.
Dale
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labrat
Trad climber
Auburn, CA
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Apr 12, 2013 - 08:45pm PT
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Wow!
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GhoulweJ
Trad climber
El Dorado Hills, CA
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Apr 12, 2013 - 08:52pm PT
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So good.
Thanks for sharing.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Apr 12, 2013 - 09:43pm PT
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What a remarkable tale. Thanks for sharing it John. Wow!
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martygarrison
Trad climber
Washington DC
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Apr 12, 2013 - 09:48pm PT
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That is just so bad ass.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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Apr 12, 2013 - 10:02pm PT
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2 months sitting in a kayak in salt water? What's that guy made of? No Comprende!
Man!
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Apr 12, 2013 - 10:31pm PT
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Ned was Minerals' (Brian Law) uncle.
The record for the smallest boat to cross the atlantic is something crazy. Less than ten feet.
I think that Ray Jardine rowed across the Atlantic. That guy has done about everything that you can think of, and he is quite happy to share it with you at his website:
http://rayjardine.com/index.shtml
Seriously. Check out his website. He just can't stand still.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Apr 12, 2013 - 10:38pm PT
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That's nuts....Something you wouldn't do a second time...And no beer...What a terrible oversight...!
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S.Leeper
Social climber
somewhere that doesnt have anything over 90'
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Apr 12, 2013 - 10:42pm PT
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When I told him that I had paddled my kayak from California, he whistled.
"That's a long way," he said. "Must've taken you two or three days, huh?"
"Yeah," I said.
Holy Shit!!!!
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S.Leeper
Social climber
somewhere that doesnt have anything over 90'
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Apr 12, 2013 - 10:46pm PT
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He made this analogy to rock climbing: It was like spending two months on a Porta-ledge hanging bivouac-in the rain.
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briham89
Big Wall climber
san jose, ca
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Apr 12, 2013 - 10:55pm PT
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WOW!!!!!!
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Apr 12, 2013 - 10:58pm PT
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Gillete had previously paddled the Pacific coast of South America in a kayak but had to cancel the trip due to some really bad characters on the beach. Gillete also pioneered the use of kites for kayak cruising. Great and unassuming man.
Couple other boats that we have run across over the years:
"Seacycle"-Pedal the Planet, here in Santa Cruz. Awesome story.
"Winds Will-Harbor in Pappeete Tahiti, boat lost at sea shortly thereafter in a gale between Tahiti and Niue. Trip began in Maine.
"Polar Bound"-Opua, Bay of islands New Zealand. David Cowper's 4th or 5th circumnavigation. This one solo in a boat he designed and built. Met him just after he arrived from South Georgia Island and Antarctica on his way back to England via the NW passage. Very unassuming and talented man in his 70s. What an inspiration.
"Northern Light"- Moorea, French Polynesia-Farthest North and South in one cruise with a winter over in Antarctica on a later trip. Joshua class ketch, sister ship to Bernard Moitessier's famous boat. Rolf and Deborah were awarded the Blue Water Cruising award for their first passage.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Apr 12, 2013 - 11:00pm PT
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I wish I could YouTube the impressions that just went through my head!!!
That was virtually incredable! The use of words.. My God, Sensational!!!!
Take a Bow! On both achievements!
John Long you are Alive!
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Apr 12, 2013 - 11:01pm PT
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Yoh Aoki ranks up there, with his circumnavigation in a 21-foot boat. I've sailed with him, and he is a remarkably humble man.
http://www.aoki.us/class-locations-2/yoh-aokis-circumnavigation/
Robin Knox- Johnston, first to circumnavigate solo-without a stop-also ranks.
His book, "A world of my own", is superb reading. (Johnston donated his prize money for fastest competitor to the family of Donald Crowhurst, who committed suicide after attempting to fake a round the world voyage.)
He also holds the record for the oldest (67) solo circumnavigation.
But in mountaineering, I remain impressed by Goren Kropp, doing an unassisted climb of Everest, starting and ending with a 6 month bicycle ride from Sweden, carrying all his gear. I also met him, and while I'd not call him humble, he was as approachable and friendly as could be.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Apr 12, 2013 - 11:09pm PT
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maybe I'm too much of a climber, but Waterman on Hunter blows my mind to this day
Blows minds because that mind was not close to normal. Some things are not capable of being judged by the sane mind.
This sea voyage however is seemingly within healthy mental bounds. I cannot think of any solo quite as impressive.
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10b4me
Ice climber
Happy Boulders
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Apr 13, 2013 - 01:37am PT
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Don't forget about Goran Kropp
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Fuzzywuzzy
climber
suspendedhappynation
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Apr 13, 2013 - 01:55am PT
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The kayaker is Ed - the skier was Ned.
Thanks JL!
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Plaidman
Trad climber
South Slope of Mt. Tabor, Portland, Oregon, USA
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Apr 13, 2013 - 03:06am PT
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Wild beyond words. TRUE ADVENTURE. This guy has my total respect. Nice job dude!
Best line:
The night was so still that the bowl of bright stars over my head shimmered and danced in the calm sea. I felt as though I was paddling off the edge of the earth and into space.
Plaid
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Apr 13, 2013 - 11:41am PT
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Totally bad-ass. I can't imagine being in a kayak that length of time. Moosedrools Pole is even more bad-ass. Completely effed-up to get robbed after that amazing journey. Sad when you're safer adrift in the middle of the ocean than on land.
Open ocean sailing survival has always kind of fascinated me. It's likely there are some Polynesian sailors, now lost to history, that may old the real records.
Side note for long-distance ocean voyage reading:
Both Slocum and Knox's books are classics of course.
A Voyage for Madmen Story of the world's first solo circumnavigation sailing race (no landfall permitted). Out of nine competitors.. only one made it home.
(not solo but cool none-the-less).. Men Against the Sea is totally ignored story about Captain Bligh's survival after Christian forced him off the Bounty. 19 loyal men in an overloaded 20-something foot boat sailed 3618 miles to Timor Island and lost only one man. I attribute the survival rate to Bligh's singularly stubborn temperament and iron-fisted discipline so he get's a nod. The man was so determined to get back to England to get revenge on the mutineers, I believe he would have made it with or without help. LOL
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dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
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Apr 13, 2013 - 12:33pm PT
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Gnarley! I remember reading the story bitd.
I was proud of myself for paddleing from Newport to Laguna and back the few times I did that! Wow.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Apr 13, 2013 - 12:58pm PT
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Tandem "windsurfer" used to cross the Atlantic in 1985-45 days!
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
the crowd MUST BE MOCKED...Mocked I tell you.
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Apr 13, 2013 - 01:22pm PT
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The mental fortitude to carry on despite the conditions is so impressive.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Apr 13, 2013 - 02:44pm PT
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Yes. He has done an amazing number of things with his wife as a team.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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Apr 13, 2013 - 03:06pm PT
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Damn, that blows my joke then. I didn't read the link - just put it there for reference and assumed he soloed it based on previous posts.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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Apr 13, 2013 - 07:15pm PT
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Yeah, imagine being slandered for the friends you keep. (Coz, That is not meant for you! Geez, that's weird! I'm just trying to make a Jardine joke that will stick! I swear! OK - I see you used the slander word first so I'm safe - whew! Pretty f*#king funny - I don't want you coming after me! LOL )
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curt wohlgemuth
Social climber
Bay Area, California
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Apr 13, 2013 - 07:51pm PT
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I'm pretty sure I read OP by Ed Gillet in a Chouinard catalog a lotta years ago.
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Apr 13, 2013 - 10:54pm PT
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Checked out some of Jardines site. Some of the ray way stuff looks very interesting. Anyone used any of it. I think he makes a lot of sence saying that a lot of cost and bulk is not needed.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Apr 14, 2013 - 03:17pm PT
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For a gripping read I recc the book "Solo" about Andrew McAuley and his attempt to be the first to cross them infamous Tasman Sea in a kayak. The book is written by his wife Vicki complete with photos and diary. A heart-wrenching tale if ever there was one.
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Double D
climber
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Apr 14, 2013 - 05:39pm PT
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Ho man!...
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Sredni Vashtar
Social climber
The coastal redwoods
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Apr 14, 2013 - 05:52pm PT
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talking to a guy i used to work and he casually mentioned he had rowed solo across the Atlantic. He has since done SF to Sydney as part of a two man team. Modest guy
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Apr 14, 2013 - 07:46pm PT
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There are some adventures that you make up as adventures. Like kayaking to Hawaii. There are other adventures that are not contrived, such as escaping from a Nazi death camp in the winter and sneaking into Russia or someplace, losing all of your toes and all of your cohorts in the process.
I've done contrived adventures, and on those, I knew exactly what I was getting into.
Some people just can't live without adventure, so they will make them up to keep the jones down.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Apr 14, 2013 - 08:23pm PT
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A heart-wrenching tale if ever there was one.
He went down almost within sight of New Zealand - 30 km. I gotta say that
hatch cover thing was a bonafide Rube Goldberg lashup that violated every
principle of the KISS philosophy. It is assumed a rogue wave did for him.
A rogue wave almost got me and my partner on a kayak trip up the coast of
Vancouver Is. It totally came out of nowhere, as they always do.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Apr 14, 2013 - 11:45pm PT
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He would have been a good fit on Shackleton's adventure
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rich sims
Social climber
co
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Apr 15, 2013 - 03:37am PT
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Ed was may still be a climber as well.
The tooth paste for food having the wind blow you back from shore with the island in view for several days sticks in my head having heard it in the late 80s.
He told me of the journey walking out after some climbs in Baja.
The guy is so aware we were walking along next thing I know we are veering off track and he finds a ancient food and water storage site, the pots had broken from the ceiling caving in. We spent an hour or so piecing the shard s back together then threw them back on the floor and headed back to the car.
Some climber are so much more that just a climber, ED is one such Guy
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Stewart Johnson
climber
lake forest
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Apr 15, 2013 - 10:35am PT
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for climbers, Messners solo of Everest could be
considered a great adventure.
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steve shea
climber
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Apr 15, 2013 - 10:39am PT
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Not months in a kayak but adventure nonetheless. Messner's run across the Nepal Himal. Solo, almost a month and way off the tea house trade routes favored by tourists. Almost the entire time above 15,000'. And much higher altitudes in very dangerous terrain. He was pretty stretched at times and recounted almost halucinating from fatigue and altitude. At one time he came face to face with a yeti. He was convinced. He wrote about yeti research some years later. I saw him in Kathmandu right after he completed the trip, he looked worked.
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sempervirens
climber
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Apr 15, 2013 - 10:57am PT
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I'm curious, are Ed Gillet and Ned Gillette related? They could easily be confused. Didn't Ned Gillette do a crossing from Tierra del Fuego to Antarctica?
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orle
climber
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Apr 15, 2013 - 12:45pm PT
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Aleksander Doba is the first person to sail in a 7 meter ocean kayak across the Atlantic ocean using the power of his muscles alone, a voyage that spanned 5394 kilometers. Doba's effort is believed to be the longest open-water crossing ever undertaken by a kayaker, at roughly 99 days. He was 65 years old when he undertook this journey.
Dude looks like he could out-armwrestle Donini. Them veins :|
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Lambone
Big Wall climber
Ashland, Or
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Apr 15, 2013 - 01:22pm PT
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holy crap...
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Apr 15, 2013 - 01:25pm PT
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Doba's achievement does merit an asterisk though because it is now known
that Poles have an extra T chromosome. T for Tough Muthas!
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Stevee B
Mountain climber
Oakland, CA
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Apr 15, 2013 - 03:02pm PT
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Fantastic read, thanks for posting John.
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Paul Martzen
Trad climber
Fresno
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Apr 15, 2013 - 10:44pm PT
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That is a great story about Ed's journey. I remember the continued silence as Ed's expected arrival date in Hawaii came and passed. Day after day, no word. He made no contact during the entire journey, so if something had happened to him, no one would have known at what point along the journey. I think he arrived about 2 weeks after he had hoped for.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Apr 15, 2013 - 11:20pm PT
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Some great resources presented here of solo achievements almost impossible to imagine.
Erden Eruc and Doba are just two of these remarkable men and there are many more to be discovered.
Even with an active life it is pretty hard not to feel like a couch potato in comparison. Bons bons anyone?
On another note David Cowper who I wrote about early in the thread received the prestigious Blue Water Metal for 2012.
Here are some of his accomplishments:
New York, N.Y. (February 11, 2013) – The Cruising Club of America (CCA) has selected David S. Cowper (Newcastle, England) to receive its Blue Water Medal for his completion of six solo circumnavigations of the World and five solo transits of the Northwest Passage. The Blue Water Medal was first awarded in 1923 and is given “for a most meritorious example if seamanship, the recipient to be selected from among the amateurs of all nations.” The award will be presented by Commodore Daniel P. Dyer, III at the annual Awards Dinner on March 1, 2013 at New York Yacht Club in Manhattan.
Born in war-torn Britain in 1942, Cowper is an Englishman who was educated at Stowe School in Buckingham and is a member of the Royal Cruising Club. Sailing has been a passion of his since an early age, and his profession as a Chartered Surveyor and a fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has allowed him to take time off to sail alone around the World.
In 1980, Cowper completed the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe by way of Cape Horn (Chile), Cape of Good Hope (South Africa), and Cape Leeuwin (Australia) in his Sparkman & Stephens 41-foot sloop Ocean Bound in 225 days, beating the record holder at the time, Sir Francis Chichester, by one day. Two years later, he repeated the feat, sailing against the prevailing westerly winds and rounding all five capes in 237 days, beating record holder Chay Blyth’s time by 71 days and becoming the first person to ever circumnavigate the world in both directions.
In 1984, Cowper moved from sailboats to motorboats and converted the 42-foot ex-Royal National Lifeboat, Mabel E. Holland, into his new vessel, and took it westward around the globe, becoming the first person to circumnavigate solo on a motor vessel.
In 1986, Cowper made his first attempt to complete the Northwest Passage, an ice covered sea route through the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of North America. He departed the U.K. and made his way across the North Atlantic Ocean and up the West Coast of Greenland. After entering Lancaster Sound in the Canadian Arctic, Cowper went on to Fort Ross on Somerset Island. Here, heavy pack ice forced him to leave his boat and he returned to England. In the short summer of 1987, Cowper returned to the Mabel E. Holland and managed to get the waterlogged boat ashore and repair it. He returned again in 1988 and was able to reach Alaska, where he left the boat in Inuvik.
Cowper sailed through the Bering Strait in 1989, becoming the first person to have completed the Northwest Passage single handed as part of a circumnavigation of the world. He continued on the voyage via the Midway Islands in Hawaii and Papua New Guinea before reaching Darwin in Australia, where he stored his boat for the hurricane season. In April 1990, Cowper resumed the voyage via the Cape of Good Hope and arrived back home in Newcastle that year on September 24. He then wrote the book, Northwest Passage Solo about his four-and-a-half-year solo circumnavigation.
In 2001, Cowper had the 48-foot aluminum lifeboat Polar Bound built, and in 2002, he motored it west around Cape Horn and up the West Coast of the U.S., with the goal of completing the Northeast Passage over the top of Russia. Unfortunately, Russian authorities refused him permission, so Cowper was forced to turn east and completed the Northwest Passage again in two summers. He became the first person to have completed an east-to-west then west-to-east singlehanded transit.
In August 2009, Cowper began his sixth circumnavigation, which included an east-to-west transit of the Northwest Passage and a voyage that would take him down the west coast of South America and to Antarctica, the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, then on to South America, South Australia, Hawaii and Alaska before going west-to-east through the Northwest Passage. Cowper completed the voyage, arriving back to England on October 5, 2011.
In July 2012, Cowper took Polar Bound through the McClure Strait in Canada at the western end of the Northwest Passage. This fifth transit was another first for Cowper, as he did his first solo passage through the notorious ice-bound route. Polar Bound is wintering in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Cowper will return to his boat in the Spring to resume his seventh solo circumnavigation.
7th completed! He did not winter over.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Apr 16, 2013 - 12:45am PT
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I take it he's not married?
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Apr 16, 2013 - 12:49am PT
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I take it he's not married?
BWA HA HA hahahaaaa!!!
What about Forest Gump? Didn't he run back and forth across the USA like 4 times?
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nutjob
Sport climber
Almost to Hollywood, Baby!
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Apr 16, 2013 - 02:38pm PT
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No mention of a bad@ss lady who did a lot of serious solos and firsts:
http://www.ameliaearhart.com/about/achievements.html
One of those solos almost followed the same path as original post:
January 11, 1935 - First person to solo the 2,408-mile distance across the Pacific between Honolulu and Oakland, California; also first flight where a civilian aircraft carried a two-way radio
Imagine relying on a 1935 airplane for crossing that much open water?
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Apr 16, 2013 - 03:16pm PT
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Hey Nutjob, interesting you brought that up as this is our most recent design we did for the Smithsonian. I have read the Coast Guard Radio Logs of the Cutter Ithaca stationed off Howland Island as a relay for that final flight from Ley and it is gut wrenching to think of all that open water, no island in sight and little fuel. Still, there is some evidence she might have set down on Gardner Island now known as Nikumaroro.
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Jacolelcap
Trad climber
Chicago, Denver/ Poland
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Apr 29, 2013 - 02:18am PT
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More comparison of long-distance paddle records
http://www.takepart.com/article/2011/02/14/longest-paddle-crossing-atlantic-98-days-23-hours-42-minutes-64
In 1928 Franz Romer crossed the Atlantic from Portugal to Puerto Rico in a folding kayak dependent on just a compass, sextant and a barometer. After landing in St. Thomas and a brief sail over to San Juan Harbor in Puerto Rico, Romer again took to sea, bound for New York. Unfortunately, he missed a hurricane warning by one hour and steered straight into the storm. No trace of him was ever found.
In 1956 Hannes Lindemann spent 72 days paddling from the Canary Islands to the British Virgin Islands in a store-bought folding kayak, subsisting primarily on beer, evaporated milk, rainwater and speared fish. His mantra? “West … Never give up … Never give up.”
August 1985 to February 1986 Polish Piotr Chmielinski, the first and only person in history to paddle 4200 miles of Amazon - the longest river in the world. Also discovered and canoed down Colca River (Peru, more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon) in 1981. Dwo Guiness records.
In 1987 Ed Gillet left from California heading for Hawaii; the crossing took him 63 days. Out of radio contact for eight weeks, he ran out of food, endured a 40-hour stretch of sleep deprivation and winds that nearly drove him north of Hawaii. He was described as being in a “hallucinatory state” when he arrived at Kahului Harbor on Maui.Used a parafoil kite to take advantage of the wind.
Englishman Peter Bray was the first to paddle west to east across the Atlantic in 2001, without the tropical trade winds to ease his passage. His first attempt nearly cost him his life: Asleep after his first day at sea, he awoke to find his cockpit three-quarters filled with water and his pumping systems inoperable. Bray survived 32 hours submerged in 36-degree seas and spent the next four months learning to walk again. A year later, he launched again from St. John's, Newfoundland, reaching Beldereg, Ireland, 75 days later.
In 2007 Australian “Adventurer of the Year” Andrew McAuley attempted the relatively short (1,000 mile) crossing of the very wild Tasman Sea, from Tasmania to New Zealand. In 29 days he got to within one day—30 miles—of Milford Sound, New Zealand, where his wife and young son waited on the beach for him. He disappeared on that last day; his boat would be found, but never any sign of Andrew.
In late 2007 a pair of young Australians—James Castrission and Justin James—successfully crossed the Tasman Sea in a custom-built, double-kayak, in 62 days.
2010-2011 Polish Aleksander Doba complete the first continent-to-continent crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by sea kayak using the power of his muscles alone. He paddled a total of 3,345 miles (average speed: 1.4 miles per hour; average daily distance, 33.5 miles; longest day, 78.6 miles) in 98 days, 23 hours, 42 minutes. He was 65 years old. When he arrived to Brazil he weighed 64 kg. He lost 14 kg in 14 weeks of the journey.[
http://maps.google.pl/maps/ms?hl=pl&ie=UTF8&t=h&source=embed&msa=0&msid=101247226215637783232.000492e43d80ef4361455&ll=13.987376,-17.42981&spn=1.865523,2.334595
http://www.canoekayak.com/touring-kayak/landfall-aleksander-doba-reaches-south-america/
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orle
climber
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Apr 29, 2013 - 06:29am PT
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2010-2011 Polish Aleksander Doba complete the first continent-to-continent crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by sea kayak using the power of his muscles alone. He paddled a total of 3,345 miles (average speed: 1.4 miles per hour; average daily distance, 33.5 miles; longest day, 78.6 miles) in 98 days, 23 hours, 42 minutes. He was 65 years old. When he arrived to Brazil he weighed 64 kg. He lost 14 kg in 14 weeks of the journey.
Hardest of the hard
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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Apr 29, 2013 - 06:53am PT
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all pretty badass, however, if you read about the history of Hawaii, you will find that early Samoans sailed from Easter Island on rafts with no radio, no beacons, no map, not even sure if anything was out there, knowing that half the people who sailed away never came back,
they would carry live pigs on board, till they got really hungry, eventually some of them lucked out and mad it thru the doldrums to the islands,
where does a Samoan sleep?
where ever he wants,
no wait, the thread says Modern times, ok then howabout
boat people from viet nam, most who could not swim, braving pirates, stormy seas, and an unknown destiny, crammed in the hulls of overloaded boats,
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Apr 30, 2013 - 07:15pm PT
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Matt Rutherford just finished a solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the Americas. From Chesapeake Bay north to the NW Passage, around and down the west side of the American Continents, around the horn and back up the east coasts to home. Non stop, around 300 days.
What makes it badass is that he did it in a refurbished 27 foot fiberglass sloop. An Albin Vega, like mine (don't worry, they are WAY affordable).
He had some hairy times between Greenland and Baffin Island with fog and icebergs. He didn't have radar. Owning one of those boats, a bergy bit would stove the hull fairly easily.
Nothing stands up to the solo adventures of the old guys. With GPS and PLB's and all that stuff, the true old adventures are hard to come by.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Apr 30, 2013 - 07:25pm PT
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When I cast off, whenever that might be, I might put Deuce down as a guy to visit. As we have read, however, that is a sporty stretch of water.
Brothers and Sisters. You can get a decent and totally seaworthy sailboat for under twenty grand. Some of the smaller ones, who still have sterling reputations, many ocean crossings and at least a few circumnavigations, can be picked up in pretty decent shape for much less than a new car. 10 to 15 grand will get you a Contessa 26 or an Albin Vega.
Smaller boats are slower and capsize easier, but there are quite a few designs that have such good positive stability that they recover immediately from a capsize. If you do your crossings at the right time of year, you are usually going to have good weather. There are pilot charts and books that discuss timing for each leg of most sailing routes in the world.
Go buy "twenty small sailboats that Will Take You Anywhere."
Then just go sailing, crewing, and scrounging for experience. Kind of like that army of submen who used to follow Kurt Smith around all of the time when he first showed up in the valley.
I need to get Walling a boat so that we can race in the Single Handed Transpac in a couple of years. You can live on them, and they are bigger than a VW van, but not by much. The bigger boats are pretty comfy, but far more expensive to maintain.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 22, 2015 - 09:56pm PT
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Porter | Asgard
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