A few people have raised the very valid point that putting extra weight in my boat will slow me down. Fans of Rob Hamill’s book, The Naked Rower, will recall that he was obsessive about keeping excess weight to as little as possible, taking only the bare (!) minimum of personal items and even dumping food overboard when it became clear that they were going to finish sooner than expected.

By adding up to 100kg (220lb) of lead to my boat – the equivalent of a pretty big passenger – I will undoubtedly be slowing down the boat. However, the effect on my daily mileages may not be as great as you’d think. These words from Phil Morrison, the boat designer:

The extra weights (50kg or 100kg) will increase the whetted area and hence the drag by 1.8% and 3.5% (we can ignore the other forms of resistance at the speed you will be moving). This amounts to 0.9% and 1.7% decrease in speed for the same power input. That equates to 0.6 mile per day for the worst case, assuming you can manage around 35 miles a day. It may be possible that the extra stability will make the boat easier to row and you’d get that back in practice, who knows?

So I think I can live with that as a percentage. My priority for the Pacific, which is not a race, is to have a good time, rather than make good time.

On the Atlantic I made life difficult for myself by being impatient to get across. In fact my original goal had not been to compete in a race at all, but simply to have a big adventure and hopefully learn a few things about life along the way – and to share that adventure and those life lessons with anybody who might be interested.

So if it takes me a few extra days, but those extra days are good days, then I don’t mind.

Remind me I said this when I’ve been eating ocean rations for 4 months!!

Does anybody have, or know where we can find, between 100 and 200lb (50 and 100kg) of lead shot? Preferably in the Bay Area, as weight-based postage costs could be prohibitive!

Today I was obsessed with weight – not mine, for a change. This was the weight of my boat. I took the Brocade and her trailer to a public scale in Hayward as part of my investigations into how much ballast I need to add to avoid last year’s capsizing problems. This is a VERY high priority for me, as capsizing is really rather painful, and definitely not conducive to either a successful crossing or a good night’s sleep…

At the end of the weighing exercise, these were the scores on the doors:

Total weight of car + boat + trailer = 8,400lb
Car = 6,020lb (yikes! but it does have most of my worldly goods in it too…)
Trailer = 625lb

So boat = 1,755lb (or 796kg)

This was with most but not all stuff on board. Still to come: Pelican cases of technology, some food, and assorted spares.
Also not included was water ballast, and I would expect to take 75 litres, i.e. 75kg of water.

Once these are added, the total weight will be about 921kg (2,030lb).

And there are the oars to take into account. These were probably a major factor in the capsize. They are heavy, and have to be stowed high on the boat because there is nowhere else for them to go.

I have two oars with lead cuffs, and two without. Weights are:
With cuffs: 13.6lb (6.2kg) x 2
Without cuffs: 10.6lb (4.8kg) x 2

Making a total of 22kg (48lb). This compares with the carbon fibre oars that I had last year, which were about 3.6lb each (1.6kg). So the new oars are THREE TIMES as heavy as the old ones – but all the old ones broke, and I’d rather have 4 heavy oars that don’t break, than 4 light oars that do.

I have now sent all this information to the boat designer in the UK so he can finalize his calculations of the amount of ballast I need.

Problem is: we are struggling to find lead shot, which would be the ideal way to add ballast to the odd little spaces under the hatches. Apparently everybody uses cartridges these days rather than shot. We could use concrete, but this will be harder to weigh before putting it into the hull.

Hence my plea. Do please get in touch via the Contact form on this website if you have a solid suggestion as to where we can source some lead shot.

Thank you!

[photo: proposed changes to the skeg of the boat]

Last summer my boat was nearly rescued by Steve Fossett’s yacht, the Cheyenne. Now the Cheyenne’s crew may be coming to my rescue in a rather different way…

Last year’s Pacific bid ended prematurely due to large waves and the loss of my sea anchor causing my boat to capsize. It seemed to me at the time that the waves were no larger than anything that I had encountered on the Atlantic, so it seemed likely that the cause of my problems was all the extra bits and pieces that had accumulated on the roof of my cabins – aerials, antennae, weather stations, and a considerably heavier pair of spare oars. (After all 4 of my oars broke on the Atlantic, I had opted for solid ash oars rather than hollow tubes of carbon fibre.) None of these items were a major weight in themselves, but the cumulative total was apparently enough to shift the centre of gravity upwards – leading to capsize.

So I’ve been talking with Nancy from the Cheyenne, a dab hand in glass fibre work, who is on standby to do the work as soon as we have finalized the specification.

And I’ve been on the phone to Devon in England talking to Phil Morrison, the original designer of the hull, to ask his advice on how much weight might be needed, and where it should be distributed. It has been invaluable finding out more about the why and the wherefore of the hull design. For example, I learned that the intention is that when a big wave broadsides the boat, rather than the hull ‘digging in’ to the water and the boat tipping over, the hull is designed to skid sideways across the water, while the boat remains upright – provided, of course, that the centre of gravity is in the right place.

At first I thought we were going to have to add a kind of false bottom to the boat – laying a lead pipe (or similar) along the central ridge that runs the length of the hull, and then glassing it in. But then it occurred to me that several of the hatches along the centre line have flat bottoms, so there is presumably an empty air space between the hatch floors and the hull – so now we are exploring the possibility of creating access to these areas via the hatches and inserting ballast from above. This would be much simpler – and hence cheaper.

I have just 3 months now before I go on standby to depart. Rick Shema, my weather guy, tells me that this is an El Nina year. Although the effects of La Nina will be diminishing by summer, it could still cause higher-than-average winds, and hence waves. So if I am to avoid a repeat of last year’s washing machine simulation, a rebalancing of the boat is top priority.

Yesterday I flew from London to New York. Does the Big Apple count as one of my daily 5 portions of fruit and veg?

As I was driving my rental car back to the airport, I heard a radio item about a study that suggests that individuals are not to blame for their obesity (estimated to afflict 50% of the UK population by 2050). Instead, the scientists concluded we have an ‘obesogenic’ society, where high-calorie food is cheap and readily available, and labour-saving devices, motorized transport and sedentary jobs reduce our ability to burn off those excess calories.

I was staggered. I imagined countless fatties breathing a sigh of relief and thinking to themselves, “Thank heavens, it’s not my fault. Society is to blame, so I can stop feeling guilty about it and give up trying to lose weight.”

We seem to increasingly live in a world that allows the individual to abdicate responsibility for their lives. If a person spills hot coffee in their lap, it is not because they were clumsy – it is the fault of the company that supplied the coffee. Smokers sue the tobacco companies. Children sue their parents.

While accountability to the public can be a good thing, there is a point beyond which the individual has to accept responsibility for their own choices. This may (gasp) involve some willpower or self-discipline. There is nobody forcing that cream cake or pint of beer or burger down our throats. Yes, they may be available, cheap, enjoyable and even addictive, but we still have FREE CHOICE.

It is easy to externalize blame for our failings – I should know, I’ve blamed my weight gain on everything from sugar addiction to ‘special circumstances’ – but ultimately I had to realize that the only person I was harming, and the only person who could make the change, was myself.

Training update: This morning I was out running around the reservoir in Central Park. My schedule dictated 20 minutes hard run, which with warmup, stretch and cooldown made for a workout of over an hour.

10 minutes into the 20, I was wondering how on earth I would get to the end. I was knackered.

But it helps that Jason asks me to rate my ‘Level of Perceived Exertion’ as a mark out of 10. Although I thought I was struggling, when I assessed my actual LPE it was still only 9. Not even a 9+. I clearly wasn’t going to die in the attempt, and no other excuse would be acceptable… so I made it to the end, beetroot-faced and sweating, but proud of myself.

I was rather self-conscious about sharing my weight issues with the world at large in my last blog, but it’s elicited some interesting responses which have encouraged me to continue in this vein on an occasional basis. Here are two of the messages I have received:

“I’m trying to motivate my wife and myself to get into a routine of 30 min/5X/week. I would enjoy hearing from you often about your exercise-training program in your blog… more than a few of your fans will find your attitude toward workouts both inspiring and helpful. My lovely wife is a breast cancer survivor and has had no sign of the disease for three years now. She is now ready to begin to rebuild her body back to where she was before treatment.”

“I was interested in your blog message about your exercise and motivation… Last March, I picked up an old-fashioned chill, was in bed for 4 days with a temperature and a crashing headache – I then had a real problem motivating myself to exercise again until August… it was getting back into the rhythm of regular exercise which helped me all round. I think much of it is to do with getting back into the habit, at which point your body starts to feel the need and you get that immensely rewarding feeling of having worked hard.”

The point about developing good habits really resonated with me. Unlike some people who seem to naturally prefer moving to sitting, my attitude is, as Carrie Fisher once wrote, that I love the feeling of HAVING exercised – I just wish I didn’t have to do the exercise first in order to get that feeling.

But I find that the mental obstacles to motivation are much less if I get into a habit of regular exercise. For a long time I used my nomadic and irregular lifestyle as an excuse to skip training, and to eat whatever came to hand. And I paid the price in weight gain and declining self-esteem.

It’s more difficult, granted, to train when I wake up in a different place every day, maybe far from the nearest sports facilities – but it is not impossible. Now I take running shoes, skipping rope and resistance cord with me when I travel, so I have a perfect portable gym. If I have early appointments, I just get up earlier.

The great thing about habits is that, once formed, they take away that daily wrestle with my conscience – will I or won’t I train today? If training is the default, I get out of bed and get on with it – and spend the rest of the day revelling in that warm, smug glow that comes from a good solid workout. To skip training starts to feel unpleasant, like having forgotten to brush my teeth in the morning.

It’s only been a couple of weeks since I became inspired to start eating more healthily and to exercise more. But already I’m starting to see some results, and that feeds the virtuous cycle. I’m starting to perceive myself as a fit person again, and that makes me want to become fitter still. I’m almost – shock, horror – looking forward to my training sessions, because I can see they are working.

Training is now the default, rather than the exception. It’s remarkable how quickly the human mind adapts to a new status quo.