Rowers Traversing Northwest Passage
Hope to finish in three months
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A Canadian-Irish team is trying to become the first to row the Northwest Passage in one season. The Mainstream Last First team departed Inuvik on July 4, according to Wired UK, and will spend the next 75 to 90 days rowing their 25-foot craft, the Arctic Joule, across the Canadian Arctic, sleeping in shifts along the way.
“It’s not necessarily the physical challenge that makes this so difficult but more the cloud of uncertainty that Mother Nature will cast over us on this expedition,” team member Paul Gleeson wrote on the expedition’s blog. “We can prepare and train all we like but ultimately she will decide if we make it across the North West Passage or not.”
On previous expeditions of their own, Gleeson and teammates Kevin Vallely, Frank Wolf, and Denis Barnett have broken records for skiing to the South Pole, rowing across the Atlantic, and crossing Australia by bicycle.