By Giles Hewitt
New York - When Reid Stowe and Alejandro Molina sail out of New York harbour next month on their schooner, Anne, their next sight of landfall, if everything goes to plan, will be sometime in August - 2008.
For the intervening 1 000 days, the pair intend to sail in large loops through the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans on a course charted to keep them far away from terra firma.
They will not refuel. They will not re-supply. And they will not pull into any harbour.
"I don't see it as an endurance feat, but a pleasure," said Stowe, 53, a veteran of long-distance voyages.
Continues Below ↓
"Everyone has dreamed of just sailing away and leaving everything behind," Stowe said. "We're actually doing it."
In fact, Stowe and Molina, 32, will be taking a fair bit with them, including 1,3 tons (1 300kg) of food and the same weight in wood and coal.
They intend to survive on a diet of rice, pasta and canned sauces, freshly-caught fish and, most importantly, fresh sprouts - the nutritional benefits of which Stowe champions with evangelical zeal.
"Eating sprouts could cure you of everything," he said, unveiling six small plastic boxes from which he intends to reap a year-round harvest of healthy seedlings.
The 69ft (21m) schooner, which Stowe designed and built 28 years ago, has four water tanks capable of holding 1 000 gallons (4 500 litres), which would last two people around 500 days.
The tanks will be replenished by rainwater caught in a canvas tarpaulin.
"We've calculated almost everything we need except for toilet paper," said Stowe.
"I'm thinking of getting some industrial-sized rolls, but if we run out, there's always a bucket of water or a rag."
Aside from keeping fed, healthy and warm, Stowe and Alejandro's main challenge is coping with isolation in its many forms, including a three-year sabbatical from female company.
"We both certainly love women," said Stowe. "I had to ask Alejandro: 'Could you do it without a woman?' He said yes, and I said I could too."
The original plan was for a crew of six - three men and three women - but the prospect of 1 000 days at sea with the same company attracted few female volunteers - a fact that Stowe insists he found surprising.
"There were some women who wanted to go, but not the right ones," he said, without elaborating.
Stowe was married in 1999. The couple spent their honeymoon sailing "Anna" for 200 days in the South Atlantic, braving storms with wind speeds that reached 155 miles (250km) per hour.
On a later voyage through the Caribbean, one winter storm turned their schooner over three times.
"That was almost like the last straw for her," said Stowe, who is now separated from his wife, although they remain friends.
Molina, from Colombia, was working for an architectural firm in New York when he was introduced to Stowe, began helping him prepare for the voyage and finally agreed to be his crew-mate.
"My main concern is the isolation," Molina acknowledged.
"But I feel I have the right attitude. I don't know exactly what I'm going to face, but I'm ready to face it."
The only precedent that comes close to Stowe's ambitious plan, is that of Australian sailor Jon Sanders who, between 1996 and 1998 spent 657 days completing a series of three non-stop single handed circumnavigations of the globe in a sloop half the size of Stowe's schooner.
Stowe's plan has reportedly piqued the interest of NASA scientists researching the psychological effects on astronauts of living for long periods in isolated close proximity.
"I'm going into the unknown in terms of human and psychological experience," Stowe said. "It will offer people who go into space a paradigm for how it will be."
While their self-imposed rules prevent the pair receiving any help during their voyage, they are taking basic emergency precautions.
A radio, a satellite phone and Stowe's weblog will provide some contact with the outside world and an emergency satellite beacon will hopefully attract rescuers in a worst-case scenario.
"But we don't see ourselves needing that," Stowe said.
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
