The Western Sun March 23, 2001

№ 86 Friday, March 23,2001

Slava seeks Russian glory - on a budget

by Roger Diss

His name is Vyacheslav Kavchenko but his friends all know him as Slava. In his native Russian that means Glory.
And glory is exactly what Slava is seeking - not for | himself, although something I of that must come into it -but glory for his Mother Russia.
That is why the 58-year-old, chunky built dentist and part-time adventurer from Rostov on Don arrived in Los Gigantes this week to mount his bid to become the first Russian to row single-handed 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to Barbados.
His journey is also by way of paying tribute to another Russian adventurer, Yevgeny Smurgis, who perished in the stormy Bay of Biscay in 1993 while trying to row the Atlantic alone.
Incredibly, considering his aim to bring glory to his native country, Slava arrived in Los Gigantes almost penniless and with no home-grown financial support, to begin a voyage which will take at least two months to complete, cost a minimum of £50,000 and leave him in debt - probably for the rest of his life.

Photo by Olga Shevel

Although denied financial help in Russia, was astonished by the warmth of the send-off he recived from the ordinary folk in his home city of Rostov-on-Don.

Photo by Theodor Rezvoy

First-footing - Slava steps aboard his boat for the first time.
On Photo - V. Kavtchenko & Neil Hitt

He had spent two years pleading with the government and businesses in Russia for financial aid, such as is usually available to the many rowers from western countries who have attempted the voyage. The long quest for cash forced him to keep delaying his journey and, even now, he is well short of raising the wind.Without the help of the London-based Ocean Rowing Society, which has helped provide him with a boat and dug deep into its own funds to pay transport and travel costs, Slava would not be where he has been for the past week - on the marina at Los Gigantes, getting used to the 27ft craft which he had never even seen before and preparing to set off on the start of what has been an eight-year dream.

The dream came alive for him when Russian press reports of Yevgeny Smurgis's death in 1993 were critical of his decision to continue alone on a projected round-the-world rowing expedition after his son, who was rowing with him, decided he had had enough.
Father and son had already negotiated the freezing waters of the Baltic and the North Sea by that time.
"Instead of praise for the bravery of Smurgis there was strong criticism in the Russian press," said Slava. "It annoyed me and pushed me into determined action to achieve what Smurgis had set out to do. It was my deciding moment."
In fact, though, it wouldn't necessarily have taken that much to set Slava on course for his odyssey. For as long as he can remember he has had a questing spirit that has led him to numerous adventures.
He remembers, on a holiday on the Black Sea coast when he was only six years old, asking his father, "Dad, what is on the other side?" His father replied: "You'll find out one day." And Slava did.
In 1995, in his lifelong quest to find out what is beyond the horizon, he cycled the roughest of roads all round the Black Sea, a distance of about 700km in 22 days. It was a holiday trip and it used up his entire savings of $50.
Other holidays have seen him climbing mountains, paragliding and mounting undersea filming expeditions. He cycled 6,000km of Marco Polo's legendary Silk Route to China and was arrested by Turkish police on the way down from illegally scaling Mt Ararat in search of evidence of Noah's Ark.
That expedition took place in 1994, a lOOth-year commemoration of the last Russian expedition there. Slava brought down a bronze plaque and perfectly preserved papers left at the summit by the 1894 expedition leader Audrey Pastukhov.
But, ever since the early 1960s, Slava had been developing an interest in marine adventure. It was sparked by reports of French doctor Alain Bombard's heroic crossing of the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to Barbados aboard a flimsy inflatable raft equipped with just one small sail.
It took Bombard 59 days to complete the voyage - which he undertook without food or water supplies to prove that it was possible for shipwrecked sailors to survive entirely off the fish they could catch. He even demonstrated to his own satisfaction that it is possible to drink seawater provided it is limited to occasional sips. Slava is fond of quoting Bombard's statement on arrival in Barbados: "Victims of shipwrecks are killed not by the sea, thirst or starvation but fear and idleness. I put myself into their situation to prove that every man's life is in his own hands."
But times have changed since Bombard's epic voyage. Slava will be drawing on a tradition founded by Britain's John Fairfax with the first successful solo row of the Atlantic in 1969 and developed by almost 100 rowers who have made it since.
He has stocks of energy food, enough to last 100 days, provided by a Russian food supplements company and, thanks to the efforts of the Ocean Rowing Society, he leaves fully equipped with Ground Position Satellite equipment to record his whereabouts if the need arises to rescue him. But unlike American Richard Jones, who completed a similar voyage from Los Gigantes just two weeks ago, Slava will not have a satellite phone to keep in contact with friends and loved ones. That was one luxury that had to be omitted in the over- whelming need to cut costs. He could have used Richard's, but that went overboard when Richard's boat The Brother of Jared, capsized just 300 miles of his target destination, Miami.

Photo by Theodor Rezvoy

Peter Hogden & Neil Hitt

Also, unlike Richard, Slava must spend time getting to know his boat. He had been offered one by Jan Meek, one of the entrants in the 1997 double-handed rowing race from Los Gigantes to Barbados but his unsuccessful quest for Russian sponsorship took so long he had to miss out on that opportunity. Instead, he will be using the boat Hospiscare, which carried Peter Hogden and Neil Hitt to seventh place in the 1997 race, now suitably renamed Russia [Rostov-on-Don]. He was overjoyed on seeing the boat waiting for him in the Los Gigantes marina - where the harbour master, recognising his plight, allowed him to berth free of charge. "Now I am really on my way," he said.

But first he needed help from Peter and Neil in learning how to handle the boat. His only previous experience in rowing had been on Russian rivers and with a rowing machine donated by the captain of the Thames-based Tideway Scullers Peter King.

Two years of learning rowing techniques under a top Russian coach were topped off this week with instruction in navigational, radio and emergency procedures from Yuri Polyakov, chief instructor at the Marine College of Rostov on Don, who came to see him off.
As well as learning the job Slava spent the last week getting every bit of advice he could before setting off on the ocean which, he frankly ' admits, scares him. On Wednesday he nipped up the TF1 motorway to visit veteran adventurer famed for his Kon-Tiki expedition, Thor Heyerdahl for last-minute advice and encouragement.

Thus well enough but hastily prepared, Slava was watching the weather this week to get as early as possible a start to avoid the impending hurricane season in the Atlantic. His aim, if possible, was to leave this weekend. It is a cut-to-the-bone mission but one he is determined to make into a success.

After all, despite the lack of funding from his native country,
it is all for the glory of Mother Russia.

Photo by Theodor Rezvoy

Kon-Tiki veteran Thor Heyerdahl gave Slava last minute advice on the dangers he might face.