Monday, March 05, 2012

Lewis Colam - rowing for Alzheimer's

Just wanted to toss up a quick link this morning - how's this for an ambitious first expedition?

Lots of cranky comments over there (jealous gits who wish they were a 24-year-old British cutie setting out on a Real Live Adventure, I suspect), but my bet is that if he makes it through the first week or so (which I suspect will feature aches & pains like he never dreamed existed) and also figures out that the Atlantic is probably a lot more dangerous than any wildlife he might encounter on the intracoastal waterway, we'll be sorting out a nice human-powered welcome flotilla here in NYC. Best wishes to the young man!

Thanks to Bowsprite for the heads-up!

ps - before anyone starts coming down on why I'm posting about somebody who sounds to be as ill-prepared as he sounds -
1. Although the HuffingtonPost is too busy giggling over alligators & sleeping in a rowboat to talk about his preparations, it does sound like he has had some level of instruction & mentoring from the experienced rower who provided him with the custom-built boat, see article here, more on "Little River Marine Rowboats here - it may still be sketchy (like the Old Salt found a story that mentions he hasn't got a compass, which does make me go hmmm...)but it's not quite like he did his expedition outfitting at WalMart...
2. It also sounds like he will have other boaters joining him for much of the trip, so that should help cover the lack of local knowledge (like hopefully the Southeastern boaters will explain that he should be much more scared of the Atlantic than of alligators & that it might be wiser to stay in the Intracoastal Waterway),

and,
3. My judgement is currently impaired by too much work, not enough boat. Show me a story about a kid who runs away to join the circus for a little while and I'm gonna stand up and cheer for a minute before I reapply my nose to the grindstone.

Will be interesting to see how this goes. Will he make it up the learning curve in one piece, or will it be a disaster? Hard to say...hoping it's the former.

4 comments:

bowsprite said...

my favorite comments, paraphrased:
"If he avoids the fast food joints along the way, he should be safe."

and "so why is he rowing here and not around England?"

Many commentors whined about the cost of the 'USCG picking this fool up at taxpayers' expense,' et cetera. Many thought he should just go home. But I agree with Bonnie: DO it, man! get in a boat and row away!

But read Invisible Workshop first!
Ben set out in a small handmade craft, to sail from Spain to Ibiza: "… 65 miles northwest. This was a long, long open sea passage and I rowed about half the distance." he was becalmed; "Ghastly calm."

And, he was absolutely knackered.
I absolutely LOVE this video. I've never heard the word "knackered" before, but shall forever associate it with Ben rowing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECXhSCcLj8o&list=UUo9Fvtlvb-KvtjYLDiDb5gA&index=10&feature=plcp

To really drive it home, you have to experience how he expresses it with uh, art:
http://theinvisibleworkshop.blogspot.com/2009/08/ramming-speed.html

so, row away, young man! it will be worth the experience no matter how far you get.

bowsprite said...

the whole trip is something to be experienced, but in a nutshell, read this:

http://theinvisibleworkshop.blogspot.com/2009/07/onawind-blue-returns.html

bowsprite said...

Mainstream media sucks. Where is it when you really need it, for important things — like cargo sailing from the Dominican Republic to NYC!?!?!?! argh!

bonnie said...

Well, looking at the forecast for the area he's rowing now, he's got a couple of rough days coming up - winds gusting over 30 kts. I'll be very interested to see what he does in the face of that & how he comes through it.

If he & his boat are still in one piece and he's still pushing along on Friday, that'll say a lot.