We had our first big planning session today, including the media strategy and a date to launch by. This blog is the first part of it. Look out for webpage with twitter and facebook feeds and spread the word. Welcome aboard.
We selected our Norwich planning room for good reasons. The Alexandra Tavern http://www.alexandratavern.co.uk/ is also the home of ‘Tiny’ Little ocean rower
and erstwhile mentor to the likes of Roz Savage http://www.rozsavage.com/ and a good number of other rowers since. His online blog http://www.tinysatlanticrow.com/ is widely regarded as one of the best ocean rowing stories.
Tiny has kindly offered to support us with advice whenever we need it and is happy for us to base ourselves in his watering hole. He brews 7 different Ales to boot, so why not.
His early advice: get the right boat. Get it surveyed and don’t necessarily buy a boat with lots of kit. He told a salutary tale of the life-raft that he rowed across the ocean for 114 days. Its maintenance and safety schedule well in date, he lent it to another rower with the proviso that if its survey date ran out, the guy would pay for the survey. It duly did and when checked it was found to be full of holes and completely useless. 70KG of extra weight that it turned out had been of only psychological benefit!
So buy a boat and then get your key equipment new. Every time.
Second piece of advice. Nothing will prepare you for the first week at sea, but do what you can to prepare. Get the boat out into the SW approaches or in a SW swell after a period of rough weather and test it and you…properly.
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