Testing the brain power

We have had our heads buried in books for the last two weeks.

Jim Crick (RYA Yachtmaster instructor extraordinaire) has coached us expertly through the Yachtmaster Theory course and demonstrated almost limitless patience as we grappled withessential skills needed for the row such as navigation, pilotage, tides, weather and safety.

Nick began the course with little idea about marine navigation, and wrestled with new concepts such as why there are two tides each day. Fortunately with Jim's expert tuition he had an epiphany when it all fell into place. Sadly Hamish did not manage to completely overcome his chief nemesis; the tidal diamond.

We are extremely grateful to Jim, who kindly offered his services last year at the Excel boat show in support of the row. He has 35 years of experience of sailing the British waters, and many of those have been as a yachtmaster instructor. We have also discovered him to be a man of many talents playing a variety of instruments including the melodium and he is currently learning to douse. We are also grateful to his wonderful wife Sue, who kept us fed with mountains of sandwiches and introduced us to vegetable crisps.

By way of a grand finale to our course, Jim mentioned the possibility of demonstrating the action of old flares. We enthusiastically reminded him of this suggestion and soon had him rigging up a flare arena in an old dustbin. The results were staggering as we almost blew the lid off the bin. A spectacular, if slightly irregular, end to the course.

Rolling up the Sleeves

The last week has been spent with Komale at her home in Lymington Yacht Haven.

Last Saturday night she made an appearance at the Yacht Haven berth holders' party. She displayed excellent social skills and generated a lot of interest for the project. Our efforts at the moment are on getting the project going and raising money to cover project costs, so it is great to have opportunities like this to keep the charitable fundraising going; so far we have raised over £1,000.

C&J Marine have very kindly fitted Komale out with a fantastic new mattress. It is so clean at the moment that we are nervous of sleeping on it. We are very grateful to them for it.

Ben Fox from the marina escorted us into the Solent Hamish's Mum Angela, our chief snapper, to get some good quality photos of the boat from the water. It turns out that Ben is a computing ninja and has kindly offered to cast an eye over our rowforheroes.com website.

We also met up with Mike Devine, one of Lymington's finest marine electricians, and he gave Komale's electrics a once over. After much discussion and head scratching (at least on our behalf) Mike advised us to swap our GPS for a GPS plotter and also to get our hands on an AIS transponder system, which is a way of monitoring other boats and sending information to them without radar. Finally, of course, we discussed Hamish's daily requirement of audiological stimulation from Radio 4 and Nick's essential relaxation courtesy of Classic FM, plus an aggressive D.I.S.C.O rig set up.

http://www.britishmarine.co.uk/news__press/news_article.aspx?NewsArticleId=2451
http://www.cjmarine.co.uk/acatalog/News.htm

All things considered, things are progressing well.

Conquering the Solent

We have had some holiday this week and consequently some time to get to know Komale better.

We decided that the time had come for Komale to get back on the high seas and we set ourselves the modest challenge of escaping her berth at the Lymington Yacht haven with a goal of reaching nightfall in Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight.

Having brazenly paddled out of the security of Lymington River we were at the mercy of the wind and tides. Fortunately we had planned the tides well and the weather Gods were truly shining down on us. The sea was calm and we bathed in glorious sunshine, so the crossing was remarkably easy.

Stronger winds greeted us over the next couple of days, but our first two nights on board were a resounding success. We even managed a cup of tea anchored off the needles and were pleased with the opportunity to show off our T-shirt tan-lines.

Four man team attempt to break record

Today saw us take a trip up to London to visit team GB Row.

They are a team of four who shall set out to become the second boat ever to row around Great Britain. They leave on friday, and we took the opportunity to meet up with them prior to their departure.

A very young team, Will, Rob, Nick and Dave hope also to break the speed record. We were impressed by their enthusiasm and interested to hear of their build up and decisions they have taken regarding their kit.

Following their trip shall be invaluable to us as we shall learn so much about what lies in store for us this time next year.

They are raising money for Orchid, a charity fighting male cancers. To support them and check up on their progress, please visit:

www.gbrow.com

We wish them the very best of luck with their trip and have our fingers crossed for the weather Gods.

Graceful launch of Komale

The now sticker-less Komale has been generously granted residence in the Lymington Yacht Haven, where she has been expertly looked after. Damage done during her return from Antigua has been repaired by Graham Thomson, whilst Matt Mew has done a superb job of polishing and antifouling her bottom.

Komale spent a cosy night in the crane slings before splash down early Tuesday morning. We are pleased to report that she floats admirably, sitting very high in the water without her ballast

Determined not to be defeated by the ferocious wind tearing it's way through the marina we took Komale out for her first voyage (with us). It soon became apparent that although a speedy and nimble vessel downwind, any wind across her bows plays havoc with navigation, particularly in the narrow lanes of a marina.

n search of larger expanses of water, which we thought she would feel more comfortable in, we nosed out into the Lymington River. Sure enough she steamed her way to the windward bank, but to our dismay politefully declined to do an about-turn in the face of the wind once getting there. Action stations were required to avoid some beautifully varnished X-boats and not without the help of a lonely buoy did we manage to settle the situation and swing her bows around into the wind ready for a race back across the river and avoid the need for rescue on her maiden voyage.

Maybe this rowing malarky isn't so straightforward after all...

The Devizes Westminster Canoe Race “The Kayaker’s Everest”

125 miles, 77 portages, 4-man support team, 3 weeks training, 2 blokes, 0 capsizes and 1 aggressive swan…

The DW is a timed course, so thankfully 300 kayaks don’t all set off together. Our start time was 0930, which by our calculations would bring us to Teddington lock in London at 0630 Sunday morning when the tide was flowing out at its fastest. This tide would then help us on our way to the finish.

The first section was 12km of still water on the Kennet and Avon Canal with no locks. Eventually we arrived at the first lock, followed by another 76 over the course of the race. Each was greeted with woops and cheers as they provided a welcome moment of respite to a squashed bum and a few seconds to stretch out the legs.

The Kennet and Avon Canal took us from Devizes, through Newbury to Reading. From Reading the Thames flows through Marlow and Henley before arriving in central London. In Reading we were spurred on by meeting James Cracknell, who was “already f$%king knackered". Words, which for some reason, we found endlessly encouraging.

Spirits were generally good throughout the race and we kept on an emotionally even keel. The notable exception to this occurred near Pewsey when we can confirm that Nick flapped. We’d paddled past a decidedly territorial swan with a mean glint in his eye who presumably was protecting a nest. As our backs were turned, the swan decided to teach us a lesson by getting airborne and performing a fly-by and wrapping a wing round the back of Nick's head. Fortunately he survived the lethal attack, despite feeble protestations that he could have broken his arm.

We paddled through the darkness and arrived at Teddington Lock just after 0630 to finish off some pasta and a cup of perfectly lukewarm tea. We then began the final stretch down the tideway before finishing under Westminster Bridge.

We finished the race in 24hrs 1 min putting us 61/134 (a further 42 crews retired). It felt good. We had sustained a continuous work rate, been fed and watered superbly by our crew and exceeded our expectations as kayak novices.

Our support crew (Nigel, Angela and Jamie- Hamish’s family and Jonno- fellow Army Doc) performed a sterling job providing us with food, drink, morale and race stats every hour or so. We would have been completely lost without them. They fueled us on flapjack, Mama Reid’s chocolate brownies, chicken sandwiches, sports drinks, hot tea and soup.

24 hours of continuous canoeing had left us both feeling a little achey. Hamish had an eery creaking noise coming from his left wrist and Nick must have ingested some not-so-fresh river water leaving him with a slight stomach upset. Work at 8am the next morning in A&E provided a rude awakening and we spent the day plotting how to go faster next year…

Training for the DW

As part of our training programme, we are competing in the Devizes to Westminster kayak race.

This is a notoriously gruelling event, taking competitors between 19 and 35 hours to cover the 124 miles of waterway. Last year over 50% of competitors failed to finish the race.

Training began when a friend kindly lent us a kayak, but it proved to be so unstable we could not stay upright for more than about 10 seconds! Recurrent capsize lead to decidedly painful extremities. We proved to be a great source of amusement to the local boating community as cries of "How are the submariners today" greeted our training sessions.

Fortunately our blue fingers and toes were rescued last weekend byRichmond Kayak Club and a team of paddlers called 'The Brotherhood', who had a spare kayak waiting in the wings. We gratefully accepted the use of the "Sword of Damacles", who is infinitely more stable than our previous vessel.

Since then the longitudinal aspect of our training has presided over the rotational and we completed a 35 mile practice race yesterday from Devizes to Newbury.