Current Wrecks Rower's Antarctic Dream

The Age

Friday January 6, 2006

ANDREW DARBY

IT HAD the makings of one of the great Antarctic adventures: the first solo circumnavigation by rowing boat.

But Colin Yeates was left to ponder the 10-month journey that could have been yesterday after managing only an hour going in the right direction.

The Briton joined the ranks of heroic polar failures when his boat crashed ashore and was wrecked, back on the Falkland Islands he had left two days earlier.

His four-year dream was about 11,600 nautical miles, hundreds of thousands of icebergs and uncountable hazardous waves short of his target.

He had cast off into the South Atlantic aboard a seven-metre purpose-built rowing boat on Tuesday from a tow-boat out of Port Stanley, headed for the latitudes known as the Screaming Sixties.

Wrapped in cold weather gear, he carried 1.6 tonnes of stores and equipment, including food and water, communications gear, solar panels and a wind-powered generator.

"It will be the most difficult and hazardous lone circumnavigation of the globe," said the former British navy man, now a Dorset landscape gardener.

Yeates said he was anticipating waves as high as five-storey buildings, ice and freezing fog.

"I will neither touch land nor take on board additional provisions during the 101/2 months at sea non-stop around Antarctica," he proclaimed before the trip.

Apart from his personal quest, he planned to collect data "on behalf of" a clutch of prestigious institutions, including the UK Hydrographic Office and British Antarctic Survey.

His departure this month meant he was attempting to weather the Southern Ocean in winter darkness.

Still, when released outside Stanley Harbour the tow-boat's crew reported: "He was pleased to be on his way and looked confident."

An Argos satellite track shows Yeates made a few miles in the right direction - east - before wind and current began to push him back, north of the islands.

After a day of struggle with the oars he was seasick and unable to sleep or eat. As his supporters tried to organise another tow clear of the island, the current caught him again.

The Argos track shows a furious attempt to clear one rocky point before the boat was cast ashore at Cow Bay, East Falkland.

"Strong local currents dragged him onto the rocks and he spoke to me from the beach, watching his boat being wrecked by the waves," said the project co-ordinator, Simon Dyde.

Last seen, the Argos track showed Yeates had made it five kilometres onshore.

RECENT FAILURES

1997 Attempting the first group skydive at the South Pole, Americans Ray Miller, Steve Mulholland and Austrian Hanz Ruzel misjudged their altitude, hitting the ice without opening their parachutes. They died.

1998 Already rescued in 1995 from the Southern Ocean by the Australian navy, Frenchwoman Isabelle Autissier capsized in another yacht race 1900 nautical miles west of Cape Horn. She was rescued by fellow competitor Giovanni Soldini.

2001 After being warned of their hazardous plans, Peter Bland and Jay Watson of Melbourne narrowly escaped disaster attempting to walk across the Antarctic Peninsula. Bland fell into a crevasse and was injured. Watson had to obtain emergency aid from Chilean armed forces.

2003 Adelaide adventurer Jon Johanson claimed he was the first person to fly solo to the pole in his home-built plane. He landed at the US McMurdo base, rather than crossing Antarctica.

© 2006 The Age

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