It took nearly 2 months, and the manpower rowed 5239 kilometers... Sichuan explorer Liu Yong crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a canoe
On January 1, Liu Yong, a professor and explorer at Sichuan Tourism University, and five French companions formed a transatlantic expedition from Hierro Island in the Canary Islands, on the east coast of the Atlantic Ocean, to explore the Atlantic without power paddling.
At 3:26 local time on March 8, after 30 days and 54 hours, Liu Yong and his party successfully arrived in Guadeloupe in the Caribbean region of the Americas and successfully completed the expedition.
"I only have the courage to do this (expedition) once!" On the morning of the 26th, the reporter of West China Metropolis Daily and the cover news talked to Liu Yong for the first time to reveal the story behind the expedition.
The hardest outdoor exercise adds up to only 1800,<> participants
Liu Yong introduced that the canoe they use is called "oarsman", and the six people are divided into two groups, each group of three people paddles day and night. Non-powered paddling means that the whole expedition is a single boat without backup, no power, and no wind equipment. The expedition covered 6,3 kilometers, took 5239 days and 54 hours, and finally arrived at Guadeloupe Marina in the Caribbean Americas at 23:3 local time on March 26, with an average of more than 8,30 paddles per person.
The non-powered rowing across the Atlantic was a challenging marine expedition that was completely different from sailing sailing, with six people crammed into a canoe with little standing and less than two square metres of space. The reporter learned that transoceanic rowing is currently the world's smallest outdoor adventure activity, and the total number of participants is only 6,1800 people, of which only more than half can succeed, which is a great test of the participants' will, courage, physical fitness, technology, and psychology.
The most dangerous experience was almost capsized before arriving
"A few times I thought I couldn't go back!" Liu Yong told reporters that the expedition lasted nearly two months, and they survived by drinking raw water and eating dehydrated food, and experienced many unimaginable difficulties along the way.
After the first week of departure, the expedition encountered high winds and waves formed by the high pressure in the northern Atlantic, which pushed the low pressure into the rowing route. To avoid adverse weather, Liu Yong and his companions had to change their route and continue south, detouring for 15 days before passing through the edge of bad weather. During this time, they also encountered more than 25 knots of wind, quiet wind and even headwinds, and on the 40th day they even encountered northward headwinds, and were forced to retreat north and row.
During the 54 days of the expedition, the team only suffered severe seasickness for 28 days before alleviating, various bad weather made their oars physically exhausted, and a few nights before arriving at their destination, they almost capsized their boat, which happened almost every day, and finally the whole team worked together to overcome the difficulties to successfully complete this difficult expedition.
The Almighty Extreme Explorer completes tens of thousands of words of observations and interviews
"This is the most boring expedition. Now that the expedition is over, it's time to go home. Liu Yong told reporters that after a brief rest, he will return to Chengdu in early April.
According to the official website of Sichuan Tourism Institute, Liu Yong is a professor at the university, a doctor of history from Sichuan University, and a host of the "National Geographic Channel" adventure documentary, an all-round extreme explorer, and has rich experience in skydiving, wingsuit flight, paragliding, mountaineering and so on. As early as 2014 and 2016, Liu Yong completed rock climbing and sailing expeditions along the Scottish coast and unreached sailing expeditions on the Antarctic continent, and began to venture into marine exploration activities.
During this expedition, Liu Yong not only completed the arduous expedition, but also used a canoe of several square meters as a sociological scene laboratory, observed and recorded the exploration behavior and social behavior of the team members, conducted expedition anthropology and ethnographic research and research, and also wrote a large number of sea logs, completed tens of thousands of words of observation and interview records, and retained many precious video materials and data.
West China Metropolis Daily - cover news reporter Qin Yi Zhou Limei