Fedor Konyukhov turns 73
Today, December 12, Fedor Konyukhov turns 73. He celebrates his birthday on board of nine-meter rowboat “AKROS” in the South Atlantic on his way to Australia.
Endless ocean for many hundreds of miles around… Penetrating dampness, rolling every morning from the Antarctic… Constant cold in an extremely limited space… And the need for constant, intense work at the oars in the conditions of the “roaring forties and furious fifties” latitudes for more than 200 days. I am sure that on the entire planet there are hardly a couple of people, who would have taken such challenges at such a respectable age…
In his youth, Fedor read a book “An Angel on Each Shoulder” the main lesson of which is – age is not an obstacle. It was written by the American sailor William Willis, who had crossed the Pacific Ocean from Peru to Australia in 204 days on a raft at the age of 70. This book made an indelible impression on Fedor and, in some way, became his guide (in recent years, I often heard my father say the phrase “age is not an obstacle” when he began planning new expeditions).
Until recently, Fedor had marched hand in hand with Willis: at 63, he crossed the Pacific Ocean from Chile to Australia in 160 days on the rowboat Turgoyak – K9 (2014), and at 68, he crossed the South Pacific Ocean from New Zealand to Drake Passage in 154 days (2019). Now, in his eighth decade of life, he is making an unprecedented crossing from the shores of South America to Australia (WA).
All November in the Argentinian port of Ushuaia (Fin del Mundo), we prepared the boat and waited for the weather window. My father and I had enough time to talk about the expeditions we had carried out together over the past 25 years, and to clarify in detail – what is called “on land” and “on water” – all the details of the upcoming crossing. After all, it’s one thing when you are planning a project in Moscow and another when you are 100 km from the Drake Passage and feel the breath of the Antarctic and the Southern Ocean.
The key task of the “theoretical calculations” of each expedition is to correctly calculate the resource capabilities of the equipment and objectively assess the internal reserves of a man. Fedor says that there are specific challenges that mature age helps to overcome. According to him, the crossing from South America to Australia on the rowboat “AKROS” is one of them. Yes, a long ocean voyage is difficult, first of all, physically. But it is even more difficult psychologically: a rower spends more than six months on board of a tiny boat in the most deserted part of the World Ocean, where for a whole month you may not meet a single vessel. Just you and the ocean – who can handle that?!
As my father says, he would have never taken on such a long voyage at the age of 40 or even 50 years. “You need to be mentally and spiritually mature for such project,” Fedor admitted to me in one of our conversations.
All members of our multinational team who saw Fedor off on the yacht “Australis” in the Drake Passage saw with their own eyes the dramatic change that happened to my father when he steps aboard the rowboat “AKROS”. Just a minute ago, he was an ordinary person, one of us. And now, he is in another dimension, on another “planet” …
Today our Expeditionary Headquarters is leaving Argentina and relocating to Moscow. And Fedor remains in the Southern Hemisphere for many months. He celebrates his 73rd birthday in the company of albatrosses and rowing towards a new goal.
Father lives a Dream. Father is in his beloved Element, which he missed so much on the shore…
Oscar Konyukhov,
Head of the Expeditionary Headquarters
Project manager