Meeting Fedor Konyukhov. Back to Cape Horn. The situation in the southernmost city in the world. Fedor Konyukhov’s expedition headquarters and its influence on our way of life. Plans for meeting him and towing him from Cape Horn
As we prepare once again to set out for this perilous place on the eve of winter, let us say
A few words about Cape Horn
After all, we are heading there as part of a flotilla to meet the unique adventurer Fedor Konyukhov.
Cape Horn
in the Drake Passage is considered the most dangerous place on the planet and the sailors’ pole. In the maritime world, rounding the Great Cape directly from the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean is considered equivalent to climbing
Everest
.
The winds and waves here encounter no resistance from land all the way around the globe and accelerate to 40–50 m/s. Meanwhile, the oceans pour into one another through the bottleneck of the
Drake Passage
. Depths plunge abruptly from four kilometres to 200 metres. As a result, the waves become shorter without losing height—and therefore many times steeper.
Well, you get the picture: it’s fun here...
Photo from 19 January 2019
Cape Horn
The team
This entire week has revolved around meeting Fedor Konyukhov. It has been hectic: preparing the yacht to enter the Drake Passage, piecing together the jib shredded by a squall, sewing a 3 x 1.5-metre Russian flag, turning the cold-storage forecabin into living quarters and, most importantly, meeting so many different, extraordinary people with fire in their eyes!
Some act in films and on stage, manufacture 35% of all Russia’s combine harvesters, work in television or build ski resorts in the Southern Urals, launch rockets into space. Others have spent their whole lives among cosmonauts, open geography schools and build churches, or live and work with the man who is now, for the first time in history, rowing solo across the South Pacific Ocean. And it looks as though Fedor Konyukhov will be the first to succeed. The previous five attempts by various ocean rowers ended in failure.
According to renowned British rower
Simon Chalk
, who has six Atlantic crossings and three Indian Ocean crossings by rowing boat under his belt, what Fedor has undertaken is Russian roulette, the only difference being that in Russian roulette there is one bullet in a six-chamber cylinder, whereas in this case there are five.
Incredible but true
Fedor Konyukhov has fewer than 200 miles left to Cape Horn.
From this morning:
The sponsors of Fedor Konyukhov’s expeditions arrived at the pier where Lady Mary is berthed. I told them that at the beginning of our South Pacific passage we wondered whether we might manage to cross paths with Fedor while still at sea. Back then, we had an invasion of papayas aboard. We fought them by making endless batches of jam.
Along the way, we joked: when we meet Fedor Konyukhov, we’ll call him on the radio:
Fedor Filippovich, come on over! We’ve made you some papaya jam to have with your tea!
And the sponsors said:
No wonder he has three sets of oars on the boat—to fend you off. To have the record for an unassisted solo ocean crossing officially recognised, he cannot have direct contact with anyone or take anything or anyone aboard.
Oscar Konyukhov and Roxana—the owner of the pier
So there you have it, friends. Yet some people write about an escorting armada, outside assistance and a fabricated record by an overhyped pseudo-hero...
Before speaking with Fedor Konyukhov’s headquarters, we had never considered that records are certified by major international organisations on the basis of indisputable data, including the boat’s automatic transmission of its position to a satellite, and a whole lot more besides. To cheat this system, you would have to conspire with every space agency and even the governments of the world.
Latest news
Today I finished sewing the large Russian flag under which we will head for Cape Horn. Weather permitting, we will tackle the yachtsman’s Everest once again. The weather situation brings no joy, but leaves some room for hope. Around 9 May, a window lasting several hours should open amid the storm-force winds. And if Fedor Konyukhov reaches the longitude of Cape Horn during that very window, the expedition yacht Australis will be able to take him in tow. If the weather window does not coincide with our arrival and Fedor’s, it will be brutal.
Stage and screen actor Sergey Koleshnya and our young sailor prepare for Cape Horn
Departure
At 10 a.m. Ushuaia time on 7 May, three yachts, including Lady Mary, will leave the southernmost city in the world and enter the Beagle Channel. Their course is set for the southernmost village in the world—the Chilean settlement of Puerto Williams. There the crews will clear into Chilean waters, possibly spend the night, and on the morning of 8 May head through the channels between the islands of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago towards False Cape Horn. Somewhere there, sheltered by the cliffs, we will wait for Fedor Filippovich’s boat to approach, so that we can enter the Drake Passage with him and, after rounding the Great Cape, take the boat in tow and, if possible, bring the pioneer himself aboard.
Everyone is on edge. Too many things have to fall into place.
The captain pieces a sail back together from scraps under the gaze of television cameras
Thank you!
Friends, thank you for the support you send to the opposite side of the world, and for believing in us!
Our heartfelt thanks to the wonderful people who have become a real part of our shore team—those supporting the expedition through
PayPal.me/TravelyFamily
: Alexey K. from Singapore and Olga K. Special thanks to Ulyana S. from Moscow, thanks to whom our PayPal will continue working :). Friends, you are wonderful! May everyone’s dream come true!
And please wish us luck.
Too many things have to fall into place...
Monitoring the weather forecasts and debating