Saturday, June 30, 2007
Rowing Archive - Ocean Rowing - Woodvale-Challenge Rowing the Atlantic and Indian Oceans
Bhavik Gandhi (India)
Route: La Restinga de El Hierro, Canary Islands - Antigua
Departure Date: 13:15 GMT - 28th February 2007
Distance: 3000 Miles
Estimated Crossing Time: 50 - 90 Days
Boat: Woodvale Pairs Class - Previously rowed by Oliver Hicks in the North Atlantic
Website
Latest Positions
Arrived at Jabberwock Beach, Antigua on the 14th June 2007at 22:45 GMT after 106 days, 9 hours and 30 minutes at sea.
Congratulations Bhavik!
Photos courtesy of Ted Martin at Photo fantasy Antigua
Rowing Archive - Ocean Rowing - Woodvale-Challenge Rowing the Atlantic and Indian Oceans
The Hindu : Metro Plus Delhi / Environment : Rowing success
Rowing success
Bhavik Gandhi has become the first Asian to row across the Atlantic Ocean solo. He speaks to RANA SIDDIQUI from Antigua
My boat had started leaking.
I had to find the exact location of the leak, I had barely done it when the steering broke…
Triumphant Bhavik Gandhi just before starting on the historic voyage across Atlantic OceanAn engineer by qualification and a rower by passion, Bhavik Gandhi has just made India and Sweden (where he is based now) proud by breaking a record. The record of crossing the Atlantic Ocean unassisted.
Bhavik rowed 3000 nautical miles across the Atlantic from Spain to Antigua in 106 days. He had planned to achieve it in 90 days though. Still, Bhavik has broken the existing record of Emmanuel Coindre of France.
Now in Antigua, Bhavik plans to return to India in two to three weeks. He is trying to regain lost health during the tough rowing which left him about 25 kilograms lighter, for he finished his dry rations midway. Bhavik chose to row rather than sail for two reasons: Sailing is easier, and he wanted to keep it “solo, simple and pure”.
Recalls the 29-year-old, “It was very challenging, both physically and emotionally. I rowed for 6000-plus kilometres. Sailing across the Atlantic takes just 20 days from Spain to Antigua. It had little adventure involved. But I preferred to row to experience that different challenge. I kept it solo because I didn’t want to get into the bureaucratic muddle of equipment hassles, medical assistance, sports crew and so on. It gets very complicated when a ship is following you. Rowing alone would have amounted to my triumph or my loss solely.” Not that it was as simple as he thought it to be. Though he was ready for challenges, he started facing dangers from the third week.
Dangers on the way
“My boat started leaking. I had to find the exact location of the leak, bail the water out and repair it. I had barely done it when the steering broke. The sea was too rough to hold on to. Heavy winds rocked my boat and it went sideways. It rained for the most part at night while I was rowing. I also finished my ration of dry fruits. My requirements were more than 8000 calories as I had assumed. So I survived on powder protein during the last two weeks. It shrank my stomach,” narrates Bhavik with the ease of a saintly man. All this while, he wore Tag Heuer’s specially designed watch for water sports called special Aquaracer, that ensures water resistance to a depth of 300 meters. There were also good things to fall back on. “While it was raining, I saw a bright red light in the clouds. It was very beautiful. It gave me hope.
I had whales and dolphins for company. Most big fishes are attracted by lights. So they would jump onto my boat at night. Next morning I would find lots of them on the boat floor. It used to be quite a funny sight. These amusing moments and fixing and framing the things regularly kept me busy. And the journey taught me how to fight loneliness,” recalls Bhavik nostalgically.
Not that everything happened as he planned it but he was confident enough. He strategised his next move by sensing weather conditions. He had no connections with the land.
But Bhavik is very happy that he made the journey “just in the nick of time”. The reason is, from June, storms start lashing the Atlantic Ocean, making it virtually impossible to row. With previous experience in sailing as well as trekking, Bhavik was prepared to face tough situations. “It’s all in the mindset,” he adds stoically.
The only child of lawyer parents, Bhavik says he is “single and very happy being one.”
Friday, June 29, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
HINDU INFO: June 2007
Friday, 22 June 2007
Gandhi braving the mighty AtlanticBhavik Gandhi became the first person to row across theAtlantic Ocean unassisted after a 106-day journey.
Bhavik Gandhi began his attempt at becoming the first Indian and first Asian to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean on 28th February, 2007 at 1155 hrs GMT.
He set out from La Restinga in the Canary Islands to Antigua onhis boat 'Miss Olive', covering close to 3000 nautical miles in theprocess. The rower reached Jabberwock Beach,
Antigua after a 106-day voyage.
During his journey, his boat capsized 200 kms from the destinationbut he managed to steer the boat by rowing with a spare oar.
In the process, he also became the first Asian to complete an oceanrowing expedition solo and unassisted.
Born in Mumbai but now a Sweden resident, Gandhi's record will becertified by the Ocean Rowing Society.
Article taken from
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/bhavik-gandhi-rows-acorss-atlantic/42975-3.htmlBhavik Gandhi's Profile
http://www.ibnlive.com/features/bhavik/bhavik_profile.php
Posted by kiranparmar2 at 13:39 0 comments
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Traversing the Atlantic is a sport for this man
Publication:TOI_Delhi;
Date:Jun 27, 2007;
Section:Times Sport;
Page Number:30Traversing the Atlantic is a sport for this man
Mandakini Raina | TNN
There’s only so much a trans-Atlantic call can tell you about ocean rower Bhavik Gandhi. While one might only briefly react to a record he has just achieved — he became the first Asian to row across the Atlantic Ocean unassisted, making it from Spain to Antigua in 106 days and 9 hours — it’s only when your mailbox receives pictures of him, undertaking the very same journey that explorer Christopher Columbus once had, does the jaw drop.
Traversing the ocean, over 5000 kilometres of it, that can be macabre, serene and picturesque at the same time or within minutes of each other, is possibly the toughest challenge for a human muscle to endure. Bhavik survived it, and is only among 32 people in the world to have achieved such a feat solo.
“Ocean rowing is the toughest sport to indulge in, it becomes that much more difficult because the water is not our natural habitat. Your life depends on you, and there is no other sport which takes so many days of consistent effort,” Bhavik said of his oneof-a-kind experience. “You are out there alone and making decisions by the minute about tackling waves and staying on course. You are battling skin diseases and physical discomfort. Your legs go to waste,” he elucidated. He is recovering currently from exhaustion and a 25kg weight loss in Antigua.
Not much, however, can be done in preparation.”You can physically train in the gym but you don’t know what lies ahead. So it’s all survival instinct,” he said. He modified his boat, Miss Olive, to ease some of the anxiety at high sea. He chose to take the risk of travelling without a light craft, though. The boat was made self-righting, more air-tight compartments were added and radar reflectors were fitted. But when things have to go wrong, they do. Miss Olive had rudder problems, a broken steering, missed colliding into a tanker and capsized once before making it to its destination — which it almost missed due to the gushing winds.
“I lost water and food during the capsize, but you have to be self-sufficient. There is no business to be in such a position if you cannot deal with it yourself,” said the Mumbaiborn 30-year-old, a resident of Stockholm, Sweden.
Explaining the psychological aspect of it, he said: “It is a matter of positivity. You have to learn to turn your problems around, see them as just tasks you have to do. You have to tell yourself that you could be learning something new that day.”
“It was demoralising to know at the end of most of my meals that the winds were steering the boat the wrong direction. It used to be that much more work for the day. When the wind is behind you, you could be doing up to 40-50 kms in a day and when it’s towards you, you could be doing only about 10 kms for the same amount of effort put in. Plus, it’s a different challenge to row and keep on course in the dark,” he said of his daily laborious 12-14 hours toil.
The back-breaking work apart, it was the marine life that lifted Bhavik’s spirit. Curious onlookers would swim by, much to the rower’s delight. “The eye level contact with the fish was exalting,” he recounted his meeting with dolphins, humpback whales, sea turtles and flying fish. “The boat didn’t have a motor and moves slow so they would come by the boat unthreatened.”
Bhavik intended to complete the route in 70 days minimum and 90 days maximum on his fourth attempt, but, with the start of the hurricane season it took a month extra.
Funnily, had Bhavik he made it in the stipulated time, he could have caught cricket action at the World Cup! “But the home team had packed up and left by then!” he chuckled.
WHAT A ROW! Bhavik Gandhi during his trans-Atlantic haul
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Everest - Mount Everest by climbers, news
Bhavik Gandhi: “It takes 1 month at sea to miss life on land - and just 1 day on land to miss life at sea” On June 15, after rowing the Atlantic Ocean for 106 days, and 3,456 nautical miles, Bhavik Ghandi arrived at a “beautiful white sandy beach of Antigua, at Jabberwaki Point,” as he described the place. The Ocean Rowing Society confirms the Indian rower has become the first Asian to complete an ocean rowing expedition – solo and unsupported, beach to beach. “I'm having very mixed emotions being back on land,” Bhavik reported. “My body is very wobbly but I'm making a fast recovery from life at sea but I miss the peace and freedom.”
Friday, June 22, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The Ocean - Ocean news and guide
Solo unsupported rower Bhavik Gandhi: “It takes 1 month at sea to miss life on land - and just 1 day on land to miss life at sea”
"As far as I saw he was rowing on his own," said ABSAR's Joanathan Cornelius, in the image with Bhavik. "He (Gandhi) did arrive on the beach at approximately 21:45 GMT last Thursday. I was busy holding his boat and did not note the time right away, but it would have been right about that time. I did ask them (the coast guard) when they brought him in. They told me that he rowed all the way in.” (Click to enlarge).
"It takes 1 month at sea to miss life on land. And just 1 day on land to miss life at sea,” Bhavik wrote yesterday. “I'm having very mixed emotions being back on land. My body is very wobbly but I'm making a fast recovery from life at sea but I miss the peace and freedom." (Click to enlarge).
“There was a number of overwhelming moments during my last few hours at sea,” Bhavik recaps. “Rowing in the darkness and watching a dull red glowing cloud, reflecting the lights of Antigua ... Stressing about hitting the reefs in the dark ... The first radio contact with land in the dark, on VHF. Rain. Then sunrise in the morning revealing Antigua covered in low clouds. Rain again..." (Click to enlarge).
On June 15, after rowing the Atlantic Ocean for 106 days, and 3,456 nautical miles, Bhavik Ghandi arrived at a “beautiful white sandy beach of Antigua, at Jabberwaki Point,” as he described the place. The Ocean Rowing Society confirms the Indian rower has become the first Asian to complete an ocean rowing expedition – solo and unsupported (click to enlarge).
The first Asian to complete an Ocean Rowing Expedition solo and unassisted, land to land, Bhavik has made an incredible row, in spite of serious adversities even managing to beach. All live images over Contact 4.0 courtesy of Bhavik Gandhi (click to enlarge).
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Previous story
Bhavik's dispatches08:00 am EDT Jun 20, 2007
(TheOceans.net) On June 15, after rowing the Atlantic Ocean for 106 days, and 3,456 nautical miles, Bhavik Ghandi arrived at a “beautiful white sandy beach of Antigua, at Jabberwaki Point,” as he described the place. The Ocean Rowing Society confirms the Indian rower has become the first Asian to complete an ocean rowing expedition – solo and unsupported.
Kenneth F. Crutchlow, Executive Director of the Ocean Rowing Society explained that he had spoken to a member of Antigua Barbuda Search And Rescue (ABSAR), Jonathan Cornelius:
ABSAR: “He rowed all the way in”
“I did not go out to meet him since the coast guard had a boat in the area. They met him and escorted him through the reefs on the north side of Antigua. As far as I saw he was rowing on his own. He did arrive on the beach at approximately 21:45 GMT last Thursday. I was busy holding his boat and did not note the time right away, but it would have been right about that time. I did ask them when they brought him in. They told me that he rowed all the way in.”
Bhavik had no break until the very end of the expedition. “I had terrible wind conditions from the SE and after 10 hours of futile rowing trying to get to English Harbor and speaking to ABSAR, I changed my landfall point,” he reported after touching frm ground land – and sleeping for 18 hours.
“There was a number of overwhelming moments during my last few hours at sea,” Bhavik recaps. “Rowing in the darkness and watching a dull red glowing cloud, reflecting the lights of Antigua, appear on the horizon. The appearence of the strobe light high on the hills of Antigua. Stressing about hitting the reefs in the dark. Slowing the boat down with the sea anchor. Waiting for day light watching the boat drift closer and closer to shore as it dragged anchor."
"The first radio contact with land in the dark, on VHF. Rain. Then sunrise in the morning revealing Antigua covered in low clouds. Rain again. Watching clouds drift over the island. Then drift off the hills again. Watching the tops of buildings appear. Then trees. Seeing the first humans - coast guard officers - that came to escort me in."
"Finally the white sand the overwhelming smell of smoke, trees, flowers and land. Trying to make it into camp Blizzard. Pushed onto the reef by the winds. Trying to steer away. Hitting the reef. Coast guard officer getting into trouble in the water. Rowing the boat off the reef. Rowing it onto the white sand beach. Touching ground…”
Already missing the ocean’s peace and freedom
Bhavik is currently resting in the Caribbean Island – and already missing the Ocean. “It takes 1 month at sea to miss life on land. And just 1 day on land to miss life at sea,” he wrote yesterday. “I'm having very mixed emotions being back on land. My body is very wobbly but I'm making a fast recovery from life at sea but I miss the peace and freedom. I'm getting used to walking and the sores are subsiding.”
Bhavik Gandhi (India) has rowed from El Hierro (Canary Islands) to Antigua in the boat 'Miss Olive' - becoming the first Asian to row solo across the Atlantic. In spite of all the difficulties, Bhavik has kept the unsupported status though the 106 days-long trip. Bhavik rowed on his own power until touching land at a beach in Jabberwaki Point, Antigua, on June 15, 2007.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Everest - Mount Everest by climbers, news
ExplorersWeb Week in Review
Bhavik has made an incredible row, in spite of serious adversities even managing to beach. Image of Bhavik sent live over Contact 4.0 courtesy of Bhavik Gandhi (click to enlarge).
Related Links
Previous ExplorersWeb Week in Review
01:35 am EST Jun 18, 2007
Indian Bhavik Ghandi has become the first Asian to row across the Atlantic - solo, and beach to beach. On Everest, Conrad Anker and his team bagged the latest spring summits registered ever. But questions have arised about the press release of the climb: "First to free climb the route? The first confirmed true, i.e. unaided, ascent?" What's up with all that - and what about Cadiach and Fritsche? ExWeb has sent out emails to sort things out - so stay tuned.
Meanwhile, international mountaineers forge ahead on new routes in Pakistan, and many more climbers are approaching the country’s higher peaks. On a sadder note, exploration pioneers Wally Herbert and Ernest Hofstetter passed away last week.
Bhavik Gandhi ARRIVES in Antigua - Solo Atlantic row completed! "Bhavik arrived at Jabberwock Beach, Antigua at 5:45 p.m. local time," his home team reported on Friday. "He is the first Asian to complete an Ocean Rowing Expedition solo and unassisted, land to land." Bhavik has made an incredible row, in spite of serious adversities, the Indian rower even managed to beach.
Metroblogging Mumbai: Bhavik Gandhi Rows Across the Atlantic
Bhavik Gandhi Rows Across the Atlantic
posted by Arzan Sam Wadia at 4:47 AM on June 18, 2007
"2000 People Have Climbed Mt. Everest. 23 have rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, solo."
Image Copyrights
In what is a stupendous feat of physical prowess and mental strength, Bhavik Gandhi took 106 days to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
"I have no words to describe how it felt to touch land after 106 days at sea." These were Bhavik Gandhi's first words, to DNA in a telephone interview, after he arrived at Jabberwock beach in Antigua, in the Caribbean Islands, on Saturday.Gandhi, a 30-year-old software engineer, has created a new world record for rowing a boat across the Atlantic Ocean, from the Canary Islands to Antigua, in just 106 days. He was given a reception by officials from the Prime Minister's office, the sports and tourism ministries of Antigua. Bhavik is, in fact, the first Asian to complete a solo rowing expedition across the Atlantic.
If you havent already checked his website, now is a good time to do so. Here it is 3000 miles.
Metroblogging Mumbai: Bhavik Gandhi Rows Across the Atlantic
K2climb.net - K2 and Karakorum by climbers, news
ExplorersWeb Week in Review
Related Links
Previous ExplorersWeb Week in Review
01:35 am EDT Jun 18, 2007
Indian Bhavik Ghandi has become the first Asian to row across the Atlantic - solo, and beach to beach. On Everest, Conrad Anker and his team bagged the latest spring summits registered ever. But questions have arised about the press release of the climb: "First to free climb the route? The first confirmed true, i.e. unaided, ascent?" What's up with all that - and what about Cadiach and Fritsche? ExWeb has sent out emails to sort things out - so stay tuned.
Meanwhile, international mountaineers forge ahead on new routes in Pakistan, and many more climbers are approaching the country’s higher peaks. On a sadder note, exploration pioneers Wally Herbert and Ernest Hofstetter passed away last week.
Bhavik Gandhi ARRIVES in Antigua - Solo Atlantic row completed! "Bhavik arrived at Jabberwock Beach, Antigua at 5:45 p.m. local time," his home team reported on Friday. "He is the first Asian to complete an Ocean Rowing Expedition solo and unassisted, land to land." Bhavik has made an incredible row, in spite of serious adversities, the Indian rower even managed to beach.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
My Works: Bhavik Gandhi : A Feat worth remembering
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Bhavik Gandhi : A Feat worth rememberingBhavik Gandhi became the first asian to row across the atlantic ocean - unassisted. Check this link for more on his feat.
Bhavik Gandhi rows across Atlantic : Bhavik Gandhi, expedition, rowing, atlantic ocean : IBNLive.com : CNN-IBN
[Metroblogging] Posts by Arzan Sam Wadia - metblogs.com - 2007 Archive
Bhavik Gandhi Rows Across the Atlantic [Mumbai]
Jun 17, 2007
Arzan Sam Wadia: "2000 People Have Climbed Mt. Everest. 23 have rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, solo." Image Copyrights In what is a stupendous feat of physical prowess and mental strength, Bhavik Gandhi took 106 …
[Metroblogging] Posts by Arzan Sam Wadia - metblogs.com - 2007 Archive
Saturday, June 16, 2007
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