Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know by Ranulph Fiennes

Author:Ranulph Fiennes
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Adventurers & Explorers, General
ISBN: 9781848944404
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2009-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

13

Sorry Straits

Trying to plan and organise two expeditions at the same time is something I have usually avoided, but whilst I was training for the solo Antarctic crossing in 1995 I was approached by a Canadian professor in his sixties with an unusual plan which he had named Transglobal. This would involve the first overland crossing of the world on a set of wheels. I met and immediately liked Gordon Thomas, who went by the nickname of Sockeye, and agreed to co-lead Transglobal. I would organise the West European sector of the journey, Dmitry Shparo, who had helped organise our 1990 North Pole bid, would handle the Soviet Union, and Sockeye would deal with North America.

Earth’s widest west-east landmass stretches 21,000 miles from Clogher Head in south-west Ireland to St John’s in Newfoundland. Various bits of water get in the way en route, including the Irish Sea, the English Channel, the Bering Strait and the Gulf of St Lawrence between the Canadian mainland and Newfoundland. So our vehicles would need to be amphibious. Ford had recently failed in a well-publicised quest to motor across the semi-frozen Bering Strait, but I had a longstanding love for Land Rovers and approached their then owners, BMW, who agreed to sponsor us with three vehicles and a budget of £300,000 to include the cost of rendering them amphibious.

Whilst preparing for the Antarctic expedition, I had also spent time on the Transglobal plans and had visited many vehicle components suppliers, winch manufacturers and design engineers. Eventually a method of making Land Rovers swim emerged, so I asked the Prince of Wales to be patron once again. He agreed and nominated the charity we would work with as the Macmillan Cancer Relief Fund. I called Terry Lloyd and the senior Foreign News Editor at ITN, who agreed to send a team on the expedition. Because I needed to concentrate on Antarctic preparations, I asked Anton Bowring to take over organising the European and the ocean-crossing sections of Transglobal. Flo and Morag Howell agreed to handle all the communications, whilst Charlie Burton and Oliver Shepard dealt with many of the sponsors. They also agreed to run a selection course in Wales to choose suitable individuals for the Land Rover team.

Steve Holland, an old friend from British Aerospace who had helped design my manhaul sledges for many years, joined our team, and we approached a famous yachtsman from Cornwall, Pete Goss, to help design a catamaran-shaped float which could be pulled over sea-ice by a Land Rover. On reaching open sea the vehicle could then push the float into the water, drive up ramps on to the float and provide the motor to power the float.

I went to Antarctica and left the rest of the team to progress with the Transglobal plans. Dmitry in Russia and Sockeye in Canada did various reconnaissance journeys up north to check likely routes through the most difficult regions. Dmitry was by far the most active of Russian explorers and his fame right

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