Icebergs ahead!

For several days now, the project team has been monitoring two icebergs drifting north from Antarctica into the Weddell Sea. One of the icebergs is the size of Moscow, the other is smaller. And although these fields of the Antarctic glacier are located south of Fedor’s route, hundreds, if not thousands of pieces of ice the size of a car or a 40-foot container are constantly breaking off and drifting north. For the next 3 days the wind will be southern (cold), blowing from Antarctica, so the pieces of ice will quickly drift north, towards the AKROS boat and at some point, will cross the boat’s route. Fedor has been warned and is watching the horizon, but he’s in a dense fog and it is not so easy to see a piece of ice in a stormy ocean.

The icebergs are in the Weddell Sea, they broke away from the Ronne Ice Shelf – the main supplier of icebergs in the South Atlantic. We know that this region has a potential danger in terms of drifting ice. Fedor’s task is to go north as quickly as possible, which he is trying to do, adjusting to the direction of the wind, current and waves.

A rowboat of this size (9 meters) and fully loaded moves at an average speed of 2-2.5 knots on smooth water (we specifically measured it during sea trials in Ushuaia Bay). And then everything depends on the weather conditions, the direction of the current and the experience of the rower. Under the most favorable circumstances (fair wind, wave and current) the boat can move at a speed of 5 knots.

For example, the current record for a single crossing of the Atlantic Ocean on a rowing boat is 30 days. (In 2002, Fedor Konyukhov set a record for crossing the Atlantic – 46 days, in 20 years this achievement was improved by 16 days). If we take the average 2,800-mile route from the Canary Islands to Antigua and divide it by 30 days, we get 93 nautical miles per day (170 km). A single rower can row 90+ miles, which can be possible in ideal weather conditions of the Atlantic Trade Winds (wind, wave, current – all in one direction). In the Southern Ocean, Fedor does not have such conditions, where one cyclone replaces another, and only for a couple of days a week he can get relatively positive conditions for rapid progress along the course. And then again fighting against the headwind and waiting for a new cyclone. We went through all of this in 2019 on the New Zealand – South America 154 days route.

Confidently moving east, Fedor shifts from one time zone to another. Now he is already in the time zone of the South Georgia Islands.

The route map here.