Veteran Russian adventurer unable to dock on shore after storm damages his rowboat

MOSCOW, April 3. /TASS/. Russian voyager Fyodor Konyukhov has been unable to dock on shore and assess the damage to his rowboat after a storm on Tuesday overturned the vessel, his son and organizer of the expedition Oskar Konyukhov told TASS. "There is no opportunity to dock - there is not a single piece of land closer than Cape Horn. We hope that the boat will be able to weather other potential storms," Oskar Konyukhov said. According to the veteran Russian voyager, during the storm in the Southern Ocean, his rowboat flipped over and the waves tore off the solar panels from the left side. This loss was very significant, he pointed out. There remain just two solar panels, but the sun shines on them indirectly. The panels were torn off from the sunny side like "old wallpaper from the wall, and nothing has been left," the traveler said, adding that the wind indicator had been also ripped off. "I will have to row blindly." Major damage is seen on deck, but everything was intact in the cabin and with the navigation system. It’s also important that the batteries remained unharmed. "If they had been ripped away, they would have done much damage, there are four of them, and each weighs 20 kg," he noted. Throughout the 117 days of the journey, the AKROS boat had never overturned. On March 23, Konyukhov managed to weather a force-12 storm, which battered his vessel in the Pacific Ocean. Fyodor Konyukhov, a prominent Russian adventurer, is continuing his round-the-world voyage in a rowboat, which he started on December 6, 2018. The expedition to circle the globe will have three stages: Dunedin, New Zealand - Cape Horn, Chile; Cape Horn - Cape Leeuwin, Australia; and Cape Leeuwin - Port Dunedin. Konyukhov will have to row 27,000 km in total. British boat designer Phil Morrison created Konyukhov’s AKROS vessel exclusively for the expedition. The nine-meter rowboat has watertight compartments capable of storing up food and three independent power generation systems, including solar, wind turbine and an innovative EFOY fuel cell power plant. The boat is also equipped with two satellite phones, a satellite tracker and several communication and navigation systems. Konyukhov, 67, has completed five globetrotting missions, crossing the Atlantic 17 times and becoming the first Russian who climbed seven highest summits in six parts of the world, and also traveled to the North and South Poles. In 2007, Konyukhov circled the Southern Hemisphere in a sailboat dubbed the ‘Scarlet Sails’ through the waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. The 102-day voyage did not involve port calls. Read more