A treatise on preparedness

One of the great things about carving out a niche for myself in this life is you get the opportunity to meet with some incredible people. In recent months I have shared a pint with Ben Saunders (North Pole veteran), chatted to Dan Martin (round the world cyclist and now endurance swimmer) and Hadyn Welch (who is planning to swim around the coast of Britain on his own – incredible).

Recently, however I had lunch with Olly Hicks – Olly was the youngest person to ever row across the North Atlantic – he did it in 2006 and did it alone. It took him 124 days, read all about his incredible adventures at Virgin Global Row. He is back temporarily from his latest adventure rowing around Antarctica, where he has had a few problems with the design of his boat. I contacted him, as he has firsthand experience of the ocean at real ‘sea-level’ along the same route as want to swim. I wanted to learn from his experiences on the conditions of the ocean and its currents and weather. He also knows how to land big sponsors and what’s involved in keeping them happy. I am not sure which advice is more valuable at this point, how to fend off sharks or how to convince potential sponsors that you are different and unique – Olly seems to be master of both.

What I really like about Olly is his honest and upfront approach to his adventures, he is incredibly enthusiastic, positive and optimistic about his future (why shouldn’t he be, he has the backing from a major sponsor, an ocean of determination and a healthy perspective on his motivation behind expeditions and adventures.) Olly was also very humble about his accomplishments and enthusiastic about his failures. I am coming to understand that unless you fail or loose once in a while in life, where does the motivation and hunger to win come from.

We chatted about risks and how too much planning can often stifle an adventure, I found myself resonating with his opinion, you can’t have it all worked out to the nth degree, you can’t mitigate every single risk, you have to trust and rely on your judgment when tricky situations occur. Too much planning often leads to too much weight and equipment, too many people involved and ultimately too much cost. So I have had a long hard look at my expedition in the making and have worked with an interested sponsor to strip out all the unnecessary, all the chaff and fluff and comfort and get back to the bare bone essentials of the swim. Much of why I loved my early adventures was facing head on the fear of the unknown – if I knew where all the crevasses were, or when a piece of vital kit would fail then I don’t think I would have got as much from my challenges as I have.

This brings me nicely on to the subject of sharks. I have not been overly worried about them so far, they rarely attack humans, the Atlantic Ocean is huge and I am sure they have better things to do than eat me. Every expert I have spoken to says that my shark repellent strategy will be overkill so I have moved on to other parts of the expedition, like how do I safely get back onto the boat in heavy swells, without battering myself to death.

Over lunch Olly showed me photos of his Atlantic crossing to give me an idea of the water conditions, towards the end of his slide show we came across a photo of a large grey fin breaking the surface of the water behind his boat, it was a huge Great White shark headbutting the transom of his boat, and he said quite plainly, (as if he hadn’t really clocked what I was attempting to do) that on one day he saw 3 of them [Great Whites] in a group, circling his boat – no doubt discussing whether Olly would taste better with Heinz, Hellman's or HP!

There is a fine line between planning too much and too little…I am sure!