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.

Leven Brown and crew aboard ‘Artemis Investments’ are well on their way to breaking the Harbo and Samuelson 55 day crossing record for the Northern Atlantic, W-E. They are in to day 40 of their expedition with under 340 miles to go until they reach St. Mary’s Island in the Isles of Scilly. What a fantastic accomplishment it will be when they complete their journey. I especially appreciate them raising the bar for us the year before we leave on our expedition, as we have similar goals. Luckily, we are still able to claim the Harbo and Samuelson 55 day crossing record in the pairs boat category. I’m pretty sure at this point, however, the new overall record we will be chasing will be to make the crossing in under 45 days.

Here’s a video we took of ‘Artemis Investments’ during her first attempt to row across the pond:

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

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.

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!

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!

This upcoming movie about Chris Martin and Mick Dawson’s Trans-Pacific Row, from Choshi, Japan to San Francisco, looks awesome, especially for ocean rowing fans!

If you read our blog with any regularity, and who doesn’t?, you will recall this post regarding the plans of these guys from Finland who are trying to row their traditional Finnish Rowing Boat up the intracoastal waterway from Florida to New York. Based on the schedule they previously supplied, it looks like they are a bit behind schedule so far. But who cares? I recently got an email from a guy named ‘Rick’ who claims the team have left Bahia Mar Marina in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, last Thursday, February 18th, 2010. Here are the pictures Rick sent me of the crew preparing their boat for departure and them rowing off into a new rowing adventure.

Their boat looks big and stable. Let’s hope she’s seaworthy if not comfortable. Here’s to the journey men!

Sepi Soutaja and Crew Prepare to Depart Bahia Mar Marina, Ft. Lauderdale (2/18/2010)

Finnish Rowing Team Prepares Boat for Departure from Bahia Mar Marina. Taking in a little fire water to get their mojo up, no doubt.

Guy Steering the boat has the best seat.

Finnish Rowers full steam ahead.

Today we secured our first down payment on a new boat build with Global Boat Works in Devon, UK. If all goes well, they will start building our ocean rowing boat for us around May of this year. We are cautiously optimistic about having a new boat built as it is a time and energy consuming process, not to mention money consuming as well (hint, hint to potential title sponsors!). But it sure beats building a new, or renovating a used, boat ourselves! We realize it will probably be a difficult process, especially dealing with a boat builder overseas, but we believe the pain incurred now will pay dividends next year when we set off on our unassisted row across the Northern Atlantic from Battery Park, New York City to the Isles of Scilly. Jamie Fabrizio, the boat builder at Global Boatworks, comes highly recommended by all I’ve talked to in the Ocean Rowing Community. I’ve also seen some of his boats in person, like James Burge and Niall McCann’s ‘Komale’, at the Bristol Zoo, and Dave Clarke’s ‘Positive Outcomes’, in Macclesfield, and definitely understand the reason for the high praise he receives for his work. Moreover, Global Boat Works have also designed and built Charlie Pitcher’s solo boat, which is now less than 300 miles from Antigua in the Atlantic Rowing Race 2009, and who, incidentally, is leading the whole fleet by a healthy margin (especially given that he is rowing solo).

So today we begin a journey, in earnest, to make it into the history books by beating the 114 year old speed crossing record of 55 days set by Harbo and Samuelson in 1896. It’s crazy. We are undoubtedly in over our heads and probably more than just a little bit naieve about most aspects of this challenge. Nevertheless, it’s serendipity, if not synchronicity, that we find ourselves at this point in time with this crazy notion of rowing across an ocean to chase Harbo and Samuelson’s 55 day crossing record. And personally, just like in rowing an ocean, I’ve had head winds and some gales to contend with prior to getting some good forward momentum on this project. But now, at least for now, it feels like a wind is starting to build and blow us forward a bit. Steady as she goes!

The Global Boat Works Team

I stumbled upon this blog today (oddly female-centric I thought, but that’s ok, I dig females), which pointed to a Popular Mechanics article on ocean rowing boats and the gadgets involved in both sustaining life while at sea for months on end, as well as making life a bit more comfortable. From solar cells, to batteries, to laptops and satellite phones, I can’t help but wonder if all the equipment is really necessary. I wonder if I could have the true grit to make such a crossing with merely a sextant, compass, some oars, food and a hand-pumped water maker. What would Harbo and Samuelson take with them if they were on the eve of their crossing today?

Charlie Pitcher is one of the solo rowers in the Atlantic Rowing Race 2009, which is currently taking place.  He is rowing in the Open Category in a one-off boat design, which seems to be extremely performant for this type of race.  If you notice in the video below, this new design puts a rather bulbous cabin in the bow of the boat, whereas in traditional ocean rowing boat designs, the cabin is in the stern.  This bulbous bow cabin, in addition to the low stern, allows the cabin to serve as a sail of sorts facilitating forward movement when the wind is blowing in the right direction.  She’s a beautiful boat, and I find the design, as well as how she’s performing in this year’s race, fascinating!

On Saturday, January 30th, 2010, Mike and I had our first fund raising activity at Mid Atlantic Erg Sprints.  The Erg Sprints were held at TC Williams High School in Old Town Alexandria.  We put up a table with our banner and did our best to get people interested in our $5 ticket raffle for a Nielsen Kellermen Stroke Coach and a Kestrel Wind Meter.  We had a bucket representative of our ‘loo’ (our toilet) on our table, in which we put purchased raffle tickets, and from which we had our drawing.  Was that too gross???

Congratulations go to Bill Yeingst and Phil Hayward for winning both of these items.  We were able to award the NK Stroke Coach yesterday to Bill Yeingst, but are still trying to track Phil Hayward down in order to get him the Wind Meter.

James participated in the Men’s 40+ 2k and managed a third place finish, even though he was not happy with his time of 6:47.8.  Two years ago he pulled a 6:32 so the slow down in time is a bit discouraging especially since he just turned 40.  Time, after all, is only in the head.