I guess the question isn\u2019t directed at myself alone, but also to the sponsors whose logos are visible on across the sides of the boat. \u00a0When it comes to me, it\u2019s easy. \u00a0I am doing this because it\u2019s my way of life. \u00a0May my sponsors forgive me (although they already know this) \u2013 I go into the ocean to pray. \u00a0This is my seclusion, and the boat is my cell. \u00a0I don\u2019t get paid for my expeditions. \u00a0How can you get paid for crossing the ocean in a rowboat, circumnavigating the globe in a hot-air balloon, or climbing Everest? \u00a0You pray, so that God will allow you to fulfil your endeavours and for the Ocean to let you pass through. \u00a0And when you find yourself in a roaring ocean in a 9-metre boat and there is nobody around you for thousands of miles, you pray very diligently. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t come that way in the city. \u00a0On my return from expeditions, I paint and write books. \u00a0That is how I make my living.<\/p>\n
If I am moving along my course right now, it means some people see the need of it. \u00a0Try to complete a project nobody needs and you will not achieve anything. \u00a0I have tried it myself. \u00a0This voyage was needed for those people who designed, built, and fitted out the boat – this is the professional challenge for them, too; as well as for my sponsors financing the construction of the boat; for the organisations who provided the equipment; and for all those who wanted to become a part of this story.<\/p>\n
On such expeditions there is room for spiritual work as well as technology. \u00a0Here, 83 days into this unforgiving journey I\u2019m continuing to test these expeditionary equipment samples: pliable solar batteries; satellite communication phone and text; a new type of autopilot; a desalination apparatus; equipment for extreme weather conditions, etc. \u00a0A rowboat in the Southern Ocean is a laboratory, and I am the test-pilot.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/konyukhov.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/IMG_7389_6.jpg\")
\n <\/figure>\n <\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\nI have many projects in development: a flight into the stratosphere in a hot-air balloon; double circumnavigation of the Earth in a hot-air balloon; a journey into the Mariana Trench; a solar-powered airplane circumnavigation of the Earth; the erection of a statue to Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker Mysgornovsky, etc. \u00a0But there are projects which do not garner support, which I am forced to delay. \u00a0I never become upset at my sponsors for not supporting an idea. \u00a0It means it didn\u2019t interest anybody except me, and I have to accept that.<\/p>\n
Often young people approach me in Moscow and say that if they had sponsors like mine, they would also be going on expeditions. \u00a0My dears, I don\u2019t have any administrative resources and nobody owes me anything. \u00a0Same as for anyone else, it takes me years, even decades to prepare for an expedition. \u00a0For example, I started preparing for my circumnavigation of the globe in a hot-air balloon in 2000, only able to complete it in 2016. \u00a0I dreamt up the idea of taking a rowboat around Cape Horn in 2008, when I was circumnavigating Antarctica on the yacht \u201cAlye Parusa\u201d, only beginning the attempt in 2018, ten years later. \u00a0And so it has been for my whole life. \u00a0It is unfortunate that a person only lives about 70, or in good health 80 years.<\/p>\n
Therefore, if at the present moment I find myself at the following coordinates: 46\u201930 South and 123\u201923 West, – it means that this was needed and required by a large number of people.<\/p>\n
Greetings to all.<\/p>\n
Fedor Konyukhov<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The wind is favourable, it changed to North-Westerly for a day and I am trying to move South. This morning I was at 46\u201930 degrees latitude, and Cape Horn is at 56\u201900. \u00a0It is almost 10 degrees to the South, or 600 nautical miles. \u00a0The difficulty lies in that with the approach of Autumn, there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n