The Crossing E-Book

Ben Fogle

• Herausgeber: Atlantic Books
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

'Read this... Two very different men fight, play games and nearly lose their lives.' The Times When James Cracknell and Ben Fogle decided to compete in the Atlantic Rowing Race, they thought they knew what awaited them: nearly three thousand miles of empty ocean, stormy weather and colossal physical stress. But their epic journey would become a living hell that tested the strength of every fibre of their being. Forty nine days later James and Ben were the first pair to cross the finishing line.They had pushed themselves physically, psychologically and emotionally to the limit. They had survived without water rations, lost the few clothes they had in a freak wave, capsized, hallucinated, played games, wept, fought, grown beards, nursed blisters and rowed 2,930 miles. They will never be the same again.

Leseprobe

THE CROSSING

JAMES CRACKNELL won gold rowing medals at the Sydney 2000 Olympics and the Athens 2004 Olympics and holds three world records. He writes regularly for the Daily Telegraph. His first book, James Cracknell’s No Gym Health Plan, was published in April 2006.

BEN FOGLE was made famous by the BBC’s Castaway programme and is now a TV presenter,his shows include Country file and Animal Park. His first book, The Teatime Islands was published in 2003. His latest book, Offshore,was also published in April 2006.

‘Read this… It’s reassuring to know that there is still adventure to be had in this sanitized world as two very different men fight,play games and nearly lose their lives when their boat capsizes.’

The Times

‘Our congratulations go to James Cracknell and Ben Fogle,the world’s foremost naked transatlantic rowers, on their victorious arrival after 50 days at sea.The pair have crossed the Atlantic using nothing but the power of their own arms in a boat built from a flat-pack,enduring terrible weather, erratic water supplies and a life-threatening capsize just days from the finishing line.’

Telegraph.co.uk

‘They survived appalling weather and a life-threatening capsize but lived to tell the tale with humour and honesty in this sure-fire autumn bestseller.’

John Lewis / Waitrose Magazine

‘I’m not sure if these guys are insanely brave or just insane… An epic adventure and a gripping read.’

Andy McNab

First published in Great Britain in hardback in 2006 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd.

This paperback edition published in Great Britain in 2007 by Atlantic Books.

Copyright © James Cracknell and Ben Fogle 2006

The moral rights of James Cracknell and Ben Fogle to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

The authors and publisher would like to thank the following for permission to quote material from ‘Californication’. Words and music by Anthony Kiedis, Michale Blazary, John Anthony Frusciante & Chad Smith © 1999 Moebetoblame Music. All rights administered by Warner/Chappell Music Ltd, London W6 8BS.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84354 512 5 eISBN 978 1 78239 250 7

Designed by www.carrstudio.co.uk Printed in Great Britain

Atlantic Books An imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd Ormond House 26–27 Boswell Street London WC1N 3JZ

BEN

My gratitude and love to darling Marina, my beautiful girlfriend, best friend and now my wife.

JAMES

Croyde, thanks for inspiring me to be someone you’ll hopefully be proud of and for not forgetting who your daddy is. Bev there are too many things for me to thank you for.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

One La Gomera

Two Race Day

Three The Start

Four ‘Ten Minutes To Go’: Settling into the Routine

Five The Real Race Begins

Six Depression: Stormy Weather

Seven ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’

Eight Hitting Zeta

Nine Capsize

Ten Falling Apart

Eleven The Finish

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the following:

Our sponsors – EDF Energy, MITIE, The Glenlivet, Vodafone and FRL.

Our suppliers – Aquapacs, Adidas, Be-Well, Breitling, Carlisle Bay Hotel, Concept 2, Heatermeals, Leica, Lifeventure, Liquorice, Lucozade Sport, Merrel, Musto, Oakley and SIS.

Our supporters – grateful thanks to Ex+Med and all the staff for the medical training and to the RNLI for their invaluable sea survival course. Ian Roots, Steph Westlake and Rob Hamill, thank you for sharing your Atlantic experiences and giving advice – if only we’d acted on it earlier. We’ll also always be indebted to Alexis Girardet and the team at Twofour, Kate Humble, Jonathan Marks, Anna Bruce and all at MTC, Alison Griffin and Hilary Murray.

We would also like to thank everybody who sent messages of support and made donations to Children in Need and Q and Fezza for making that possible.

For helping us to get this book out and into the world thank you to Julian Alexander and Peta Nightingale at LAW. Thank you also to Toby Mundy, Daniel Scott, Clare Pierotti and everyone at Atlantic books for your trust in us, your invaluable support along the way and for helping us publish our dream. To Louisa Joyner and Jonny Butler thank you for not only editing the book but lifting our spirits during the race – except, Jonny, for that one Friday night!

Our competitors – I hope you learnt as much about yourselves as we did. Special thanks to All Relative for the help before the start of the race, Gurkha Spirit for the Christmas Jaffa Cakes and Atlantic 4 for being there when it really mattered. Thank you also to all the Woodvale staff for organising and administrating the 2005 Atlantic Rowing Race.

Our families – to Grandma Foster, you will be sorely missed. To Dr Chiara Hunt for applying her medical skills to our sorry bodies in Antigua and to Joyce and Roger Turner for proving all the stereotypes about parents-in-law wrong we’re forever thankful. To our Mums for never saying how worried you were or doubting us, to our sisters Louise, Tamara and Emily for coming out, helping us prepare and cheering us on and to our Dads, for maintaining mission control and for teaching us the value of a good spreadsheet, and Grandma Fogle, thanks for all those Canadian summers.

To all the other friends and family members who kept us going over the last six months we’re immensely grateful for all your love and friendship. We can’t list you all here, but you know who you are.

Prologue

BEN

Can I have a picture with you? giggled Martine McCutcheon as she handed her camera to a friend, and flung her arm around James Cracknells broad shoulders.

Youre amazing, she added, admiring the gold medals around his neck before disappearing into the crowded room.

I lined up behind Chris Tarrant and Melinda Messenger to congratulate Britains recent Olympic hero. It was late summer 2004 and I was at a celebrity bash at London Weekend Television. The room was brimming over with reality TV contestants and soap stars falling out of tiny dresses. It was an incongruous place to find an Olympic rower, I thought.

More photos and autographs and then it was my turn.

JAMES

The event was the highly inclusive and not at all prestigious National Celebrity Awards, held a month after the Olympics had ended a time in an athletes year when any free champagne is gratefully received. Matthew Pinsent and I were presenting an award to Kelly Holmes for being the Sporting Celebrity of the Year and now I was at the after-show party, where everyone was staring round the room trying to find the most famous person in the room to talk to or in my case, trying to work out who anybody was. Big Brother had passed me by while I was out of the country preparing for the Olympics and besides, the soaps are on at the same time as my wife Bev and I are trying to slam-dunk our beautiful boy Croyde into bed. I hardly recognized anyone the A-list stars must have missed the RSVP date.

One programme I had seen was The Million Dollar Property Experiment, presented by two guys called Colin and Justin. I was telling them how Bev and I enjoyed the show, but the conversation petered out when they asked me what I did and sport didnt really hit their spot. Luckily, somebody else wandered up and saved us all from an embarrassing silence. It was Ben Fogle the king of BBC daytime. We had met each other once before at a charity dinner, and he was his usual polite and enthusiastic self. We engaged in a bit of nondescript chit-chat, but that was blown out of the water when he said, Im rowing across the Atlantic next year. Do you want to do it with me?

BEN

As James stared at me, a small furrow appeared on his brow.

No, he replied bluntly.

Wow, he doesnt mince his words, I thought as I scurried off in search of another drink.

JAMES

Having just come off the back of four years preparation for the Olympics, I had spent a month undoing all the good work Id done to my body, and the idea of rowing 3,000 miles was the last thing on my mind. I also sensed my wife Bev flinch as Ben asked the question.

If I wanted to be considered for the British team at the 2005 World Championships, I would have to report for training on 1 October. This was two weeks away; mentally I was not in a position to make up my mind about whether I wanted to race at Beijing in 2008, but I was sure that I did not want to begin training so soon. I met with Jrgen Grobler, the British Chief Coach, and told him that Id like to take a year away from the sport to do other things and come back totally refreshed, mentally and physically.

For me, rowing is the ultimate team sport. In a game of football, rugby or cricket, you can still win even if a member of your team has a shocking day. If that happens in rowing, you will lose. In a four-man boat, everybody has to do their 25 per cent or youre going down, meaning that for every moment of a race, your dreams are in other peoples hands, and their dreams are in your hands. As I wasnt sure what my dreams were now that the Olympics were over, I knew that I couldnt be trusted with other peoples. If Im honest I hadnt enjoyed much of the rowing over the previous four years; despite being successful I always felt (probably unfairly) I had to motivate Matthew Pinsent and it had drained me of enthusiasm. I did not want anybody to feel that I was a burden and the one that had to be motivated.