Sierra Blogging Post Archives

We told you back in February that Olly Hicks was attempting to solo row around Antarctica. Unfortunately, the expedition proved too much for him and his boat to handle.

Hicks' last blog post on the Virgin Global Row website is titled "Sad News" and details the reasons he's abandoning the journey. They're good ones - besides making little progress, (even though he's rowed 1600 nautical miles so far) his boat, "The Flying Carrot" has turned out to be more like "The Extremely Slow and Heavy Carrot."


Hicks says the boat, which weights 2 tons and is loaded with computer equipment, doesn't move forward in wind above 20 knots even if he's rowing his heart out. Because the cold wind in the Southern Ocean blows considerably harder than that on average, he's just not getting anywhere.

The clunky boat isn't Hicks' only problem, however. 2009 has apparently been a record year for iceberg breaks in the Ross Sea, with potentially damaging icebergs of up to 5 km being reported in the area. Hicks is on the tough-to-maneuver boat alone and has to sleep sometime - it would be a veritable death sentence for him to try and row through an iceberg mine field.

What's more, winter is approaching quickly in the Southern Ocean and Hicks' expected to be much farther along by now so he could over-winter in South Georgia. At this rate, Hicks' wouldn't finish the expedition for 5 years. He planned on finishing in less than 2. Quite a difference.

Hicks says he'll regroup when he reaches New Zealand and try to figure out a way to complete the expedition - no doubt in a more streamlined boat. Check back with Virgin Global Row for updates and news. If the quote on his homepage is any indication, Hicks will eventually finish the journey...

"The difficult is what takes a little time. The impossible is what takes a little longer." Fridjtof Nansen