TRAVEL

By Vasili Galenko  Special to Moscow News

There surfaced exactly 5 years ago the first heir apparent to Yevgeny Smurgis, about whom I wrote in the last issue. His name is Vyacheslav Kavchenko, and he hails from Rostov-on-Don. He informed me then over the phone that he wanted to realize Smurgis’ dream and conquer the Atlantic with his oars.

It is heartening to see that there are people in Russia wishing to continue Smurgis’ tradition of rowing marathons. But their good intentions regularly run aground on the rocks of financial problems - this type of sport, after all, requires a well-designed rowboat of hi-tech materials, and that means a hefty sum of money. However, Vyacheslav, unlike others of his calling, set about constructing his own boat with his characteristic diligence. Having managed that, he got stuck on the problem of his sea water distiller and turned for help to Kenneth Crutchlow, the director of Ocean Rowing Society (ORS), based in London. The reply was a wonderful surprise — Crutchlow offered to provide Kavchenko with one of the vessels that completed the famous transatlantic rowing race of 1997-8, that of Jane Meek, who together with her son completed the voyage in 100 days. The boat’s name was Carpe Diem, Latin for “Seize the Day” — and that is exactly what Slava and I did this spring, when we went to London at the Society’s invitation to have a look at this impeccably constructed vessel.

The people we met there immediately took a shine to this muscular and unusually youthful 56-year-old from Rostov-on-Don, a desperate adventurer who has undertaken some remarkable voyages in the recent past. These include cycling round the Black Sea on a measly $50, and (illegally) scaling the legendary Mt. Ararat to commemorate the centenary of the last Russian expedition there — a team of topographers led by the famous mountaineer Andrei Pastukhov. And something miraculous awaited him at the summit — a lost bundle of Pastukhov’s with team lists, visiting cards and a bronze plaque to be attached to the summit proving that Nicholas I had instigated this expedition

to locate Noah’s Ark. Though arrested on the way down by the Turkish authorities, he was soon released and allowed to keep this hugely valuable bundle, perfectly preserved in the snow for over a century.

The aim of our visit to London was to set the ball rolling for our proposed first Russian solo transatlantic rowing expedition, an idea we hoped would grab people’s attention both in Russia and abroad - it would need to, given the large costs involved in realizing such a project.

The voyage’s proposed route from the Canaries to Florida was chosen to mirror that of the Briton John Fairfax, the first man to row single-handed across the Atlantic 30 years ago, which he did ina record 180 days, landing in Florida simultaneously with Armstrong landing on the moon. Fairfax also had funding problems, his only sponsor was Sylvia Cook, whom he asked to be his secretary after she sent him a pound note in the post — the two would later row across the Pacific together. Fairfax now lives in America, but has promised to give Kavchenko a fitting welcome on Miami Beach if he makes it. If all goes according to plan, the favorable weather and trade winds should help Slava cover the 6850 km in 100 days, leaving Tenerife at the end of January and making landfall in Miami in May.

A few words about ORS (the Ocean Rowing Society) that has not only provided Slava with his boat, but is also now organizing the project—preparing the boat, transporting it to Tenerife, ensuring Vyacheslav’s safety at sea, and providing him with a trainer (Peter Hogden, who finished 7th in the ‘97-98 race, raising half a million pounds for the charity “Hospiscare” along the way). The Society unites rowers in a sort of family, organizing various projects, overseeing the technicalities, maintaining contact with the boats throughout, posting details of their progress on its website, and organizing emergency rescue operations should the need arise, all the time using its experienced publicity team to ensure all voyages under its auspices are widely promoted. Recent projects have included: supporting the epileptic English rower Andrew Haulsey on his 116 day transatlantic

Voyage, and advising him on his current transpacific voyage from San Diego to Australia; involvement in the simultaneous record-breaking trips of the Frenchwoman Peggy Boucher and the American Tori Murden. The Society was established in 1987 and officially registered as Charity in 1997 - on the centenary of the first transatlantic rowing trip, undertaken by two Norwegians at the request of a New York paper in search of a story. There are now almost 100“ocean rowers” including 20 solo practitioners. Six of them, however, have perished five Britons and our own Yevgeny Smurgis.

Though our time in London was short, we managed to visit the Thames Tradesman Rowing Club, from where Smurgis set off on his fatal voyage in 1993, (and where club captain and joint owner of the WaterRower firm presented Slava with a hi-tech rowing machine), and see the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. We traveled on a double-decker bus past Dartford (where the Russian Czar Peter the 1st ran riot in 1698) on to the Greenwich meridian line, where we stood with one foot in each hemisphere. Then we set off to see the famous Cutty Sark tea-clipper, and Sir Francis Chichester’s yacht moored at St. Catherine’s Dock. But where these monuments to man’s eternal strivings for perilous adventures on the high seas should have been we found only restorative building work — pneumatic drills and chain-saws gouging out granite. But we comforted ourselves by paying homage to Sir Francis over two pints of ale in a pub named after his yacht round the corner.

As we stood on Tower Bridge, surveying the Thames transporting motorboats, rubbish barges and floating restaurants onto the great blue yonder, the task ahead of us seemed small — to find the funding for a rowing marathon. A shallow abyss separated word and deed. Slava was in confident mood. “I want to go to the very shore where Smurgis ended his days in the towering waves of Biscay Bay, and put a pebble from Miami Beach in his boat. A further Russian voyage is not out of the question: It’s not so far to cross the Panama Canal, along the coast of former Russian America, and then on to our Chukotka, maybe soon I’ll do it, God willing. You’ll see, when we return to Russia we’ll find sponsors, although I admit that finding the $75,000 - 100,000 we need for this trip won’t be easy...

As I write this, Slava is in England training in the English Channel with Peter Hogden, thanks to Kenneth Crutchlow, who sent him a plane ticket by special delivery. The Society has promised to find Slava English sponsors for his voyage if we fail to find any in Russia, but thiswould turn our Russian expedition into virtual English one. We now appeal to anyone reading our newspaper to take part in this marvelous project, and become a part of a historical journey to be made at the start of the new millennium that can only add new glory to Russia’s proud sporting tradition.

If you or your company would like to help out please contact us on:

phone (095) 285-8883 fax (095) 285-0930 or e-mail vokrugvest@hotmail.com.