Sepetmebr 29, 2006

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I don’t want to dwell on this danger assessment topic, but I have a couple more thoughts.

First of all, I need to stress that this ocean crossing idea is still just a concept. Something that I will endeavor to work toward, but an adventure that I am definitely NOT going to commit myself to.

My immediate plan that I AM going forward with is to build a test boat which will be based on a sea kayak – sort of a scaled down version of Concept 1. I will use the test boat to gain some badly needed ocean experience by touring around the island off Vancouver Island, starting with the Glenmore reservoir here in Calgary and branching out from there (baby steps). Rick Willoughby and I even discussed the possibility of trying for the 24 hour HPB distance record with the test boat if it was efficient enough – a possibility. If the test boat works well in the ocean, I would like to build a second boat for Helen so we can do some ocean touring off Vancouver island together.

I’m going to totally play it by ear and we’ll see where things so.

That’s exactly what I did when I wanted to set a trans Canada speed record by powering a streamliner across the country. In the end, I was not happy with the risks, and it turned out to be something that I really did not want to do. So I re-worked the original concept and envisioned the 24 hour record attempt.

I’ve got something I want to add to the whole ocean crossing danger risk analysis that I did yesterday. I’ve seen some sour faces regarding my new idea. Some think it is dangerous and foolish.

Do you want to know what I think is dangerous and foolish?

60% of North Americans are over weight. Described by the World Health Organization as an “escalating epidemic”, obesity is “one of the greatest neglected public health problems of our time with an impact on health which may well prove to be as great as smoking.” Being overweight leads to many serious medical problems like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and many other health related issues.

Now check out my original risk assessment of an ocean crossing:

Cause of Death:

Heart disease 20 %
Cancer 14.2 %
Stroke 4.1 %
Ocean Rowing 2.1 %
Vehicle accident 1.1%

Heart disease, cancer and stroke are WAY bigger killers than rowing an ocean. FAR more dangerous than an ocean crossing, flying a small plane, mountain climbing, riding a motorcycle or even sky diving is sitting on your ass watching TV eating donuts! And currently over 60% of North Americans see fit to ‘live life on the edge’ taking these crazy risks each and every day!

That’s simply messed up man. I’m not saying that I won’t wake up with **cancer tomorrow, or suffer a stroke next week, but I sure am FAR less likely to be inflicted by these diseases because of the way I choose to live my life. A choice I made a LONG time ago. I want to stay healthy and ALIVE for my wife, kids, family and friends.

I want to enjoy every moment of my life and life it to the fullest. Staying healthy and fit is the best way to ensure that I can continue to do that and be an example to my kids and others that you can do the same.

We all need to live life to the fullest. Frankly, I don’t see how that would happen at 300 pounds between visits to the Dr.s office.

gk

Ocean rowing is much safer than I had originally calculated. I changed my method of analysis, found some ‘exposure hours’ fatality data and the more accurate comparison is that Ocean rowing is slightly more dangerous than motorcycling and safer than general flying or skydiving.

Since I made my human powered ocean crossing announcement, I got a few comments with regard to my analysis of the risks involved. National Geographic Magazine published this a list of death risk from various activities and I calculated the risk of dying during an ocean crossing and added it to that list:

Cause of Death:

Heart disease 20 %
Cancer 14.2 %
Stroke 4.1 %
Ocean Rowing 2.1 %
Vehicle accident 1.1%
Suicide .8 %
Falling .45 %

Some of you felt that the comparison is not valid because time-frames for the various death causes are different. For example, if an ocean crossing takes 50 days, my chances of dying during that time of heart disease is not 20%.

I understand the math and statistics issue with regard to the chance of death comparison, but the risks as presented by National Geographic in that study, also mix frames of reference. For example, they include riding a motorcycle, flying a small aircraft, and swimming in the comparison, even though, most people don’t ever fly a small airplane, or ride a motorcycle daily. And, if they did fly a plane, say, 5000 hours, their chance of dying of a heart attack is probably not 20%.

After thinking about this more, I decided to take a closer look at the risks of crossing an ocean by human power, and I think it’s actually much safer than I originally thought. Follow my analysis and logic through here, and let me know what you think:

First of all, of the 6 people lost at sea, I decided to remove 3 of them because they were prior to 1981 and are considered by the Ocean Rowing Society as “Historic Ocean Rows”.

The Ocean Rowing Society on Historic Ocean Rows: “The first 12 completed oceanrows were all undertaken without water makers, without sat phones, without GPS, EPIRB and liferafts. In fact, to quote Geoff Allum : “The first oceanrows were done under conditions that were not much different from the days of Columbus”

It is certain that at least some of the first 3 ocean rowing fatalities could have been avoided with modern day satellite communications gear, Argos and a water maker.

If we look closer at the remaining 3 fatalities (modern day):

Eugene Smurgis was caught in some rough seas just off the coast of France in 1993 very near rocks and the coast line. Eugene was attempting to row around the world and had logged 3510 miles in this, his Atlantic west to east expedition lasting 131 days.

Peter Bird was also attempting to row around the world. Peter’s body was never found and they do not know the exact cause of his death, His boat eventually washed ashore in 1996 during his Pacific crossing and provided us with no clues as to the cause of his death. Bird had logged 15,391 miles taking 545 days at sea.

In 2001, Dr. Nenad Belic was attempting to row from North America To Europe from the West to the East. Dr Belic’s EPIRB was activated on September 30 after 2618 miles and 151 days at sea from a position 230 miles west of Ireland. An RAF helicopter located the beacon but there was no sign either of the boat or Dr Belic. Kenneth Crutchlow of London’s Ocean Rowing Society advised that W-E crossings scheduled to arrive in autumn should be avoided. The boat eventually washed ashore and was upside down and flooded with a hatch broken.

Of these 3 deaths, 2 were the more dangerous Atlantic west to east route, and 1 was in the Pacific. My planned route is Atlantic East-West in warmer waters and less severe seas.

I downloaded the statistics from the Ocean Rowing Society and decided to look at the number of deaths PER day at sea. I was going to use ‘per mile rowed’, but it is the total time spent on the ocean that is related to risk, not really the miles covered during that time. For example, I could sit still in the middle of the ocean for 50 days and face the exact same risks as someone who traveled across the Atlantic in 50 days.

Here are the numbers:

Number of miles rowed across oceans since 1982 = 660,866.7083
Number of days at sea = 12,474
Number of deaths = 3
Number of days at sea for every death = 4158
My crossing expectation: = 50 days
Number of times I would have to cross the Atlantic in order to approach 100% fatality chance = 83
% chance of a fatality on my 50 day crossing = 1.2 %

It turns out that for every 4158 days spent at sea, there is one death. If my ocean crossing takes 50 days, then I would stand a 1.2 % chance of dying during that 50 day crossing.

To make a comparison to more common dangerous activities, I found some data on Fatalities per million exposure hours. To convert the units, I calculated that there is 1 death per every 99,792 exposure hours to ocean rowing which works out to 10.02 fatalities per Million ocean rowing exposure hours. Here is how they compare:

Fatalities per Million Exposure Hours:

Skydiving 128.71
General Flying 15.58
Ocean rowing 10.02
Motorcycling 8.80
Scuba Diving 1.98
Living 1.53
Swimming 1.07
Snowmobiling .88
Motoring .47
Water skiing .28
Bicycling .26
Airline Flying .15
Hunting .08

Data compiled by Failure Analysis Associates, Inc.

Ocean rowing is slightly more dangerous than motorcycling and safer than general flying or skydiving.

(click to enlarge)

Popular Science Magazine called me shortly after the record and expressed interest in featuring a photo of Critical Power in the October, 2006 issue. They needed a higher resolution version of the side-view image of me in the Critical Power frame by the end of the day. I got my sister in-law Jennifer Armand to run over and shoot a new image with her Cannon digital SLR, and I sent the file back to the photo editor with a mock-up which included some of Bens ‘action’ shots from the Eureka track. They liked the idea and ended up publishing my insert concept including Bens awesome photography.

What I wasn’t expecting, was the small insert on the COVER!! There is a small photo of me and Critical Power on the lower left hand side of the cover that says “NEW WORLD RECORD” !! How cool is that!

This must be my 15 minutes of fame, although you would never know it. Popular Science magazine is read by over 7 million people, yet the AdventuresOfGreg web site which is prominently featured in the pop sci article hasn’t received anymore than it’s typical daily share of traffic.

The Universe is one strange place… You know, I clearly remember the very first time I saw a human powered streamliner. It was on the cover of Popular Science – The Dexter Hysol Cheetah HPV set a new human powered sprint speed record by going 68.73 mph. I remember being absolutely amazed by the photo of the Cheetah on the cover. I had never seen anything like that in my life. It was so cool! I immediately thought that someday I wanted to build one of those and set a speed record myself.

Full circle hey? Not only did I build a human powered streamliner and set a world record with it, but the cosmos thought it fitting that my original inspiration be FULLY realized, by sticking me on the cover of Popular Science.

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What’s next?

Well, good question. John, Ben and I had two days of driving back to Calgary from Eureka to talk about that. We discussed ways of making Critical Power faster and what the potential could be for her on a fast, straight, flat, long track. We talked about removing the canopy bubble and taking another look at a video monitor vision system. We talked about the 12 hour HPV record and the 6 hour record – both of which I could probably achieve. In fact, at 12 hours into the 24 hour record attempt, I was only about 27 km away from the existing 12 hour record of 607 km. We talked about minimizing pit stop times, and what could be done about making the food and water replacement easier. We talked about my foot problem and how much lost down time it was responsible for. I estimated that I was coasting for an average of two minutes every 15 minutes when my feet went numb. That’s a TON of lost power resulting in a lot of lost potential distance.

We even talked about Critical Power at Battle Mountain – with some gearing modifications, we think it could probably go 60 mph at least.

But you know, now that I have had time to reflect on all the events of the last 2 years that culminated in this world record, I am really starting to understand what it is about these adventures that just turns me on. It’s not about the destination, it’s all about the JOURNEY. I take with me, some seriously fond memories of that July 19th on the California coast, but it would be nothing without the years of effort, work, stress, training, mistakes and learning that preceded it. I look back on the entire journey with pride and a deep sense of accomplishment and fulfillment.

” I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” Pablo Piccasso. With that said, I wonder how much is still left for me to learn about streamliner building and racing. Where is the stress and the fear that is my fuel?

“Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile initially scared me to death”. – Betty Bender. Isn’t that the truth! I think that now is the time for a new adventure. Something that scares the living bejesus out of me!

Stay tuned….