London to Auckland

You’re probably all wondering what’s going on because you haven’t heard from me for while.

Well quite a lot actually, so you had better get a cup of tea before you read any further.

Like any big venture things are dynamic to say the least. We are frequently changing course in order to deal with the changing environment and new ideas that pop up. For example….. In case you haven’t noticed the sky is falling. (Taller people like Barrie Mabbott will be already starting to bump their heads on it.)The global credit crunch threatens to engulf us all and send us scuttling into caves with all our worldly possessions in a shoebox. What this has meant is that there is less desire for executives to fork out money for projects like ours. Another problem we have had was that we were having difficulty locating a good support boat for the long ocean crossings on the ride.

So what have we done about this? I’m glad you asked because we have actually made major progress. We have now developed a structure to fund the ride in advance so we can now say that we are doing it no matter what. Any sponsors who come on board will be a bonus. We have also located the perfect support boat that just happens to be owned by the perfect couple to be team members on the ride. This boat will be ready for a 2010 departure though so with that and the current environment in mind we have decided to make the departure date at the beginning of August 2010. This seems like a long time away but it will go quickly and it just gives us more time to get ready. More on the support boat later.

In other news:

We are excited to welcome Mark Cole to the team as General Manager and Kevin Geard as mechanic/ground crew. Mark has the experience and ‘can do’ attitude that is required to make the ride a success. Kevin has a huge amount of experience racing and maintaining PWCs. Both are welcome additions to the team.

We are also pleased to announce that we have chosen to use Seadoo GTX 155 PWCs for the ride. We will use three in total. See http://www.london-sydney.com/machines.htm

It is highly likely that after reaching Sydney we will carry on to New Zealand and add a couple of thousand kms to the World Record. There seems to be growing interest in the event here in NZ and if that continues to increase it will make it viable to cross the Tasman for a ’curtain call’.

And now as promised….more on the support boat.

We needed a boat which is capable of a good speed over a long distance for the long ocean crossings. The boat also needed to be capable of carrying the Seadoos onboard over night. It was a frustrating search that eventually led me to call Malcolm Tennant of NZs Tennant Design. Malcolm talked at length about a particular design that he had called a Domino Cat. I asked him where I could see one and he told me that one was being built in Paraguay and he gave me the contact of JP and Marie Dufour, a French/American couple that were in Paraguay building their dream boat. The Dufours were excited about what we were trying to do but their boat would not be ready for a departure in 2009 so we kept in touch but ruled them out as a support boat.

When things started to go bad with the global economy we started to think about delaying the ride for a year and all of a sudden Domino became a real candidate for the support boat. JP and Marie were very keen to be involved but I knew that I would have to go to Paraguay to meet them and seal the deal.

Getting to Paraguay is easier said than done. It’s not served well by airlines and it is very difficult to obtain a visa. You can’t get a visa without having an air ticket to the country so you have to take a risk and buy one even when you aren’t sure you will get the visa. You have to front in person to get a visa which I ended up doing in New York at the consulate there. Even then I had to bribe the official at the embassy to get the visa done in a day.

The trip itself to Paraguay was long and difficult. I had to fly from Auckland to Santiago in Chile to Buenos Aires in Argentina and then on to Paraguay. I flew overnight into Santiago and arrived not having had much sleep. I had a couple of hours to kill before my connection  so I wandered around Santiago terminal in that sleepless twilight zone that air travelers get into with that vacant slightly startled look on their face. I had been doing this for a while when I suddenly realized that I was doing it and remembered that this is what I hate most about other international travelers.

Some travellers are prize winners at it. They spend 8 hours screaming towards their destination at 1000 km per hour and then reach the terminal and shuffle slowly in a zigzag fashion taking the ‘scenic route’ to customs. It is possible for two people to completely block a 10 meter wide corridor in this fashion, wider if they hold their arms out a bit. Other tricks they pull are to come to an abrupt halt directly in front of you and pretend to look for something in their bags, come rushing out of toilets into your path without signaling or giving way and stopping suddenly in groups to get a photo outside the men’s lavatory to prove that they had been there. I personally don’t reckon it’s possible to be this stupid unintentionally so I reckon they must be doing it on purpose. What do you think?

I apologise for going on with this a bit but a similar thing happens in security queues at airports. People at the back of the queue stand there watching the people at the front stripping down to their hats and socks and walking through the x-ray stark naked but when the people at the back reach the front of the queue they are surprised to find that they have to do it too so they stand there and get undressed over a ten minute period and thus slow the progress of the queue down to glacial speeds. 

And it’s not just airport security queues either. People in supermarket queues will have noticed that other people can stand there and watch their groceries being rung up on the till and when the last item is thrown into a bag the checkout chick says “That will be $356.25 please” and the shopper will act surprised that they have to pay and only then will they start searching for a wallet or cheque book. If the shopper is a woman and she has a hand bag you notice all of the other people in the queue simultaneously lean forward to get a look at what the woman will pull out of her hand bag while she searches for the cash or cheque book. Items often include but are not limited to: at least 3 bottles of perfume, 127 lipsticks, the complete unabridged Encyclopedia Britannica, a wad of discount vouchers up to ten years out of date, some world war two food stamps, a rectal thermometer, a birds nest (with eggs in it), a full set of golf clubs, the family car which was reported stolen last summer and $356.24 of small change.

Are you still with me? Sorry about that diversion and back to my adventure. So I flew from Santiago to Buenos Aires and caught a taxi to my overnight hotel, got ripped off by the taxi driver, slept, ate, caught another taxi to the airport, got ripped off by the taxi driver and then jumped on a flight to Paraguay.

I arrived in Asuncion Paraguay and was met by Marie Dufour who took me straight to meet JP and inspect Domino. Domino was very impressive and seemed to me to be perfect for the operation. Marie, JP and I spent the next couple of days getting to know each other and discussing plans for the ride.

By the time I was ready to leave we had ironed out most of the issues, solved global warming and agreed on a plan. I left Paraguay most impressed with the Dufours and Domino and confident that we had solved our support boat problem. I hope to have details and pictures of Domino up on the website shortly but feel free to visit: www.dominocatamaran.blogspot.com

That’s it for now. Be sure to check the website for updates over the next month.

Cheers

Jeremy