Team Northern Atlantic 2011

August 20th, 2010. From 0445 to 1645, Mike and I rowed from Smith Point, Virginia, to Tangier Island and back for a total of 28 miles, in one day. It was painful, it was beautiful, it was awesome. While I can’t talk to Mike about rowing for at least two weeks now, I can share a video of our adventure. Check it out:

Today we swamped the gunning dory to see how she would handle completely full of water. This was a lot of fun, once we realized she would stay mostly on top of the water…

Amazingly, Leven Brown, Ray Carroll, Don Lennox & Livar Nysted (‘Artemis Investments’) have just smashed the 113 year old Harbo and Samuelson crossing record of 55 days by completing their crossing in 43 days, 21 hours, 26 minutes and 48 seconds. What a row!!! Congratulations to these men on board ‘Artemis Investments’ for such a great and historic accomplishment! Of course Mike and I are a bit disappointed that the 113 year old record will not fall to us, but all is fair in the sport of Ocean Rowing. ‘Tis an awesome accomplishment to have rowed the ocean, record or no record. Nevertheless, we will now be striving to smash the new crossing record of 43 days, 21 hours, 26 minutes and 48 seconds and to bring the record back home to the United States of America where she belongs!

As ‘Artemis Investments’ was arriving at St. Marys in the Isles of Scilly, Mike and I were taking our training dory out on the Potomac river for our first training row together (on the water). We left Gravelly Point Park in Arlington, Virginia yesterday afternoon around 4:30pm and rowed up river to Potomac Boat Club and back to Gravelly Point Park. It was a beautiful afternoon and we had an awesome row. This is the first time I’ve had the dory on the water this year. I’ve been working on her off-and-on over the last few months putting bow and stern rowing positions in her, touching-up paint, etc. I definitely spend more time working on the dory than rowing her, but hopefully that’s about to change.

Next weekend Mike and I are making tentative plans to try the row out to Tangier Island to complete the row I did not complete last year. Getting this row done will be a huge psychological boost for me and will be excellent training for Mike and I in preparation for rowing on big water. The row to Tangier Island from Reedville, VA is only about 14 miles, but the route is across some significant open water, shipping lanes, etc., so one never knows what might happen. Right now, we’re planning on rowing to Tangier Island and back all in the same day, so we hope to cover around 28 miles in one day. That’s a pretty heavy lift, but will see how it goes.

Here are some more pictures of the progress being made on our multihull ocean rowing boat. These pictures show the planking of the vessel’s hull in progress. She looks awesome!

• Seamanship
• Piloting
• Advanced Piloting
• Junior Navigation
• Navigation
• CPR

Think we can get all that education and training in by next Spring? I hope so.

Even with all the controversy surrounding this year’s 33rd America’s Cup, it was still not difficult to become sidetracked by the sheer coolness of the multihull sailing vessels involved in the race – Alinghi and BMW ORACLE. These multihulls evoke shock and awe when considering their speed, size and beauty. Team Northern Atlantic are hoping to further the acceptance of the multihull concept in the sport of ocean rowing.

Our 30 foot multihull ocean rowing boat is being built on Shelter Island, New York by Captain Roy Finlay. Roy built and skippered ‘ORCA’, the first multihull ocean rowing boat ever rowed across any ocean. ORCA’s four-man crew left the Canary Islands and arrived in Barbados in 36 days. We believe that multihull ocean rowing boats in general, and the ORCA design in particular, hold great potential for setting new ocean rowing speed records.

The picture on the left (below) is our new boat starting to take shape: MDF frames on the strong-back almost ready for foam planking and fiberglass to form the hull. The picture on the right (below) is ORCA, rowed by a four-man crew from the Canaries to Barbados in 2007/2008 in just 36 days. Our boat will be a very similar design. She’s fast, but the boat is only part of the equation: Speed = Boat + Crew + Weather. I believe Team Northern Atlantic are well on our way to taking care of the first two operands in the equation!

I joined the Rockville Sail and Power Squadron (RSPS) in June. Mike is doing the same. We want to take advantage of their navigation and seamanship member classes as well as glean as much maritime information as possible from the experienced members of the club.

Last weekend, we went for a sail on the Chesapeake Bay with members of the RSPS. I took my SPOT device and recorded some lat/longs from our excursion. I created a SPOT Adventure out of our trip. Check it out.

http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view/?trip_id=208134

For all you wooden boat master craftsmen out there, this post is not for you. Move along. For all the rest of ya, who’ve not got an eye for symmetry nor detail, check out these pictures of the ‘Row the Pond’ Training Dory.

We’re putting cedar floor boards in the gunning dory, which we plan to row across the Chesapeake Bay in July as part of our preparation to row across the Northern Atlantic next year (but in a different boat, which is being built by a professional boat builder as I write).

We’ve got all the cedar floor boards cut now, and have but the sanding and screwing left to do on them. After that, all that’s left to do is to touch-up the paint once more and then we can take her out and try to sink her! We need to see how she performs totally swamped with water before we try to row her across the Chesapeake Bay. That’s one thing I did not do last year that I wish I had, so it’s definitely one milestone on the ‘project schedule’ now.

I am very fond of cedar. I think cedar floor boards in a wooden boat are a classy touch – they look and smell great. My nostrils and lungs are full of cedar dust now, hopefully to soon be replaced by the light July sea breezes of the Chesapeake Bay!

Mike and I are going sailing this weekend. If interested, watch the tracking section on our website for a near-real-time map of our location. Not much wind is forecasted for this weekend, so we might not be sailing far, but we’ll see.

Launch FineMeSPOT Map

Launch sat2twitter Map

The ocean rowing race around Great Britain has begun! This should be a really fun race to watch: men against women, mono-hull (‘Go Commando’) against multi-hull (‘Orca’). May the best team win!

http://bit.ly/9mQkU6

My Dad told me about an article in this weekend’s Parade Magazine about Tangier Island. It looks like a nice place. The thought of fresh crab makes my mouth water. Mike and I are planning a summer row cross the Bay in the gunning dory once we get her ready for two rowers. Stopping over at Tangier for a crab dinner sounds like a sweet plan.

http://www.parade.com/news/our-towns/2010/0516-an-island-refuge-remakes-itself.html

The November/December 2009 edition of WoodenBoat Magazine has a really good article on ‘Oars, Oarlocks, and Rowing’ in traditional wooden rowing boats (page 4). I love this magazine, by the way! I referred to this article when putting the rowing positions in my gunning dory. I worked on them some more this afternoon and got them mostly roughed in. The epoxy and wood need a bit more sanding, some painting, and a touch of varnish and then we should be about ready to put her on the water again. I can’t wait.

While Mike and I try to sort out our ocean rowing vessel for our transatlantic crossing next year, we will be using my Marblehead gunning dory for some open water training expeditions this summer and fall. What’s a Marblehead gunning dory, you ask? Gunning dory’s are beautiful, double-ender boats designed for duck hunting and surf launching in the Marblehead, MA region. I mostly restored a roughly ten year old gunning dory last year with the intent of her only being rowed by me. With Mike onboard as my ocean rowing partner, however, I’ve decided to modify my dory for two rowers so that we can use her for some open water training while we sort out what our ocean rowing boat will be.

This Summer, we hope to row across the Chesapeake Bay, from Reedville, VA to possibly Crisfield, Maryland. We are also hoping to participate in the Blackburn Challenge on July 17 as well as the Wye Island Regatta on September 11.

Today, we worked on fortifying the gunwales with some of my left-over white oak so we can put two additional rowing positions in the boat.

This past weekend I (James Caple) flew out to Antigua for a weekend visit (Mike Altarace stayed back this trip). It was short and sweet, I did not miss work, nor did I have to take any vacation days to go down. The Atlantic Rowing Race ’09 is drawing to a close and I wanted to get down there (Antigua) to talk to Simon Chalk and any ocean rowers who might happen to still be lingering around; I also wanted to see some ocean rowing boats in person, as well as just simply experience the magic of English Harbor. Come to find out it was Sailing Week when I was down there, so there were tons of huge sailing yachts and lots of sailing folk from all over the world. My only regret is not being able to stay a couple of months longer…

I had a brutal layover at JFK Airport on my way home from Antigua to DC, so I checked in my carry-on and took the train in to Manhattan to walk around. I ended up in Time Square where there were plenty of lights at 1230 at night.

On my flight back I finished Tori Murden’s book, ‘A Pearl in the Storm’, about her solo ocean rowing attempt across the Northern Atlantic and then across the Tradewinds Route. I thought her book was excellent: I marked it up and dog-eared a number of the pages like it was a text book or something.

One of the rowers from Finland, who are rowing the Intracoastal Waterway from Miami to New York, checked-in today to let us know how they are doing. Here’s what he said:

“March 22th boat was at Georgetown (SC). Expedition (1 permanent member and 17 rotating crew members) was able to cross the Cape Fear River and advance up to Wrightsville in Wilmington (NC), which was the location at 27th of March. In generel, the expedition has been challenged with low temperatures during the over night rows and frequent (if not constant) head winds. At times it has been also challenging to manage with the tidal currents, which is fairly uncommon extra “spice” of rowing for the Finns. Approximated current location would be close to Cape Lookout (NC).”

He also forwarded me some pictures to share of their journey…

We’ve completed week 2 of the Concept2 World Rowing Challenge.  As of 11pm this evening, March 29, 2010, we have 2,227,875 meters behind us, or approximately 1,385 miles.  So we’re not quite to the half-way point yet and we’re still behind schedule.  The great news we received last week, however, was that the guys from the newly formed team, Ocean Adventure Racing Northwest, composed of Jordan Hanssen, Greg Spooner, Adam Creek and Richard Tarbill, graciously signed-up to our team and are now helping us slog our virtual way from New York City to the Isles of Scilly.  Jordan Hanssen and Greg Spooner were two members of the 2006 four-man crew who actually won an ocean rowing race over this same course becoming the first Americans ever to successfully row this stretch of ocean, land-to-land, West to East.  So it’s great to have them on our team!

If you notice on the Google Map image below, we’ve just cleared the coast of New Foundland and The Grand Banks area, and we are just about at the same longitude of the location in which the HMS Titanic sank.  You’ll also notice, many miles off of to our port, the Hibernia Oil Field.

In consideration of the markers of interest just pointed out, and the fact that we’ve just cleared the New Foundland coast and are now at a spot where the warm waters of the Gulf Stream race eastward while the cold waters of the Labrador Sea flow southward, I imagine this to be a particularly scary stretch of ocean.

We are, virtually, at 48 degrees West, 46 degrees North.  This, oddly enough, is almost the exact location where Harbo and Samuelson reported coming into near contact with their first iceberg.  When I read about this is David Shaw’s book, ‘Daring the Sea’, this literally made the hair on my arms stand up.  About 330 more miles East is where Harbo and Samuelson experienced their big capsize where they lost most of their provisions and water, so we have that to look forward to this week!!

Here’s a video of Team OAR Northwest’s West to East fours race in 2006:

Mike and I attended an ISAF Safety at Sea Seminar at the US Naval Academy this weekend (March 27-28, 2010). It was a great event and we both learned a great deal about seamanship and boating safety. The speakers were exceptional, and the information provided was, for the most part, lucid and pertinent. One of my favorite presentations was made by Captain Matt Klunder, USNA Commandant, who admonished the importance of the sea throughout American history, and exhorted us to help expand appreciation for the sport of sailing and nautical sport in general.  As Americans, the sea is in our blood.

I also particularly enjoyed the talk presented by Gary Jobson as he provided a number of colorful, and somewhat scary, anecdotes from his heavy weather sailing experiences, particularly the 1979 FastNet race and his experiences on board Ted Turner’s vessel, Tenacious.

The in-the-pool demonstrations were enlightening in that we learned how difficult it is to get into a life raft with foul weather gear on. Moreover, life rafts are not comfortable – even in a calm swimming pool.

The Navy Midshipman did live man-over-board demonstrations in their 44 foot yachts and we got to see a live demo of a rescue at sea operation with a real Coast Guard helicopter!  The real-life demonstrations truly helped to interject a sense of reality to rescue at sea and the difficulty thereof.  Stuff happens!

Especially pertinent to our own objectives were the discussions on weather, heavy weather sailing and the Gulf Stream – the warm water current running South-to-North up the Eastern Seaboard. The information on warm and cold water eddies off of the Gulf Stream were tasty morsels of information. We want more!

More importantly, however, I think this weekend helped us to better understand just how much more we need to learn!

Education + Preparation = Success

Happily, Mike and I passed our ISAF Certification Tests so we are both eligible for international offshore sailing events now!

I’ve just setup the ‘Row The Pond’ online store in order to help raise some funds for this rowing project of ours. Wednesday, March 17th, 2010, is St. Patrick’s Day this year. Before next Wednesday arrives, however, you must get yourself a ‘Row The Pond’ St. Patrick’s Day T-Shirt from our online store. Look cool, impress your Irish friends while drinking a pint of Guinness, and support a worthy cause all in one purchase. Talk about a return on investment!

It’s about time we put the Winter behind us and got on with the Spring already. But before we do, Mike and I had to put in one last ergometer piece to remember the snowpocalypse of 2010 by. On March 7th, 2010, we set up a small shade tent and our Concept2 Ergometer at Gravelly Point Park in Arlington, VA. At 0800, Mike started into his first 10,000 meter piece with a goal of alternating rowers every 10,000 meters until we hit 100,000 meters rowed, all with the aim of supporting our charity, the Prostate Cancer Foundation, and to get some long-distance training time in together as a team, outside. We could not have asked for a more perfect day and nicer people to talk to. And even though the Park Police threatened to throw us out because we did not have a permit, they ultimately let us stay, so many thanks all around!

Oh, our final time for the 100,000 meter piece was 7 hours, 10mins, 40sec, and 6 tenths.

It was a really fun experience, and I look forward to some long distance rows on the water moving forward.

By the way, our next training objective is to attend the March 27-28 ISAF Safety at Sea Seminar at the US Naval Academy. We’re already signed-up and confirmed for the event, so we’ll see you there!

This Sunday, March 7th, 2010, Mike and I are setting up an erg out at Gravelly Point Park in Arlington, just North of the Reagan National Airport, to do a 100,000 meter erg piece for charity. That’s right! We each owe the other 50,000 meters of continuous ergging, but we’ll take turns doing 10,000 meter pieces until we hit 100,000 meters. It’ll be great training for an ocean row, and we’re hoping to raise awareness, as well as some money, for our Charity, the Prostate Cancer Foundation in the process.

So take your bike out on the Mt. Vernon Trail to encourage an early arrival of Spring and stop by and say ‘hey’! I’m sure we’ll be the only two people at the end of the airport runway sitting on an erg Bring your family and friends too!

Please also consider giving some spare change to our charity, the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Make a donation on behalf of Team Northern Atlantic 2011 here: http://tinyurl.com/ydk979z.

The World Record Time for Tandem Heavyweight 40-49 year old men is 5:58:48.9. Two college women captured a World Record for their category last December with a time of 7 hours, 17 minutes and 56 seconds. Here’s a video clip of some news coverage of their success.

Today Charlie Pitcher wins the Woodvale Atlantic Rowing Race of 2009! This is a very significant achievement as he’s finished ahead of all other boat classes in the racing fleet as a solo rower, which includes two- and four-person boat teams. It took him just over 52 days to complete his crossing. This is just an amazing achievement, and a really strong testament to the new boat design he was able to commission specifically for this race.

Team Northern Atlantic are equally excited about Charlie Pitcher’s performance as we are hoping to have a similarly designed boat built for our row across the Northern Atlantic next June. Our hope is that since Charlie Pitcher was able to row the Mid Atlantic Route in just over 52 days as a solo rower, with troublesome storms at the beginning of his race to boot, we stand a chance, if only a chance, at beating the 55 day, 114 year-old record over the Northern Route in a similarly designed pairs boat. That is, of course, unless Simon Chalk and Team Britannia III (a twelve-person boat) don’t claim the new speed record for themselves this June. In which case, I guess Mike and I will have to row all that much harder!!!

Here’s to the journey, men!