UKC

Program about the 2006 attempt to solo kayak the 1000 miles from Tasmania to the South island of New Zealand.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hy0wb

Fascinating and completely mad.

In reply to hairyRob: Agreed - watched the last half hour. Quite unusual for a documentary to approach it the way it did.

In reply to hairyRob:

Struck by the similarity between his kayaking across the southern ocean and high altitude mountaineering - beyond helicopter rescue, only carrying your own supplies for an extended period, at the mercy of the elements and yet able to communicate with the base camp via a satellite phone.

Half of me wants to hail the massive amount of human spirit contained in one frail man and the other wants to slap him about for being a selfish bastard.

In reply to hairyRob:

I remember coming across this on an Air New Zealand flight a while back, the bit where he leaves Fortescue Bay with his family waving him goodbye had me unexpectedly sobbing in front of strangers. Poor bloke was so close. I also remember where he talks about massive White Pointers breaching nearby, mad mad b*stard!

In reply to hairyRob:

fab thanks, that was unavailable for a long time after that show first aired, its very moving i thought and strange to see someone so driven and hell bent on such a dangerous outing

In reply to hairyRob: This film was part of The Banff Mountain Film Festival when it was shown in Glasgow.
It's a quite unbelievable feat and in my opinion be classed as one of the most adventurous undertakings of all time.

In reply to Bobling:

That bit got me too this morning rewatching that vid .

Have to say if i heard my little lad calling "goodbye daddy" from the shore like that id simply have turned around and gone back to my IT job. you can see that ripped his innards out but he kept paddling on.

Has it ever been completed solo?

In reply to Bobling:

Same here, Was a great watch. I think I recall it has been soloed one way from tasmania to NZ, but it is harder the other way round. I could well wrong, its been a while since I saw it.

In reply to hairyRob:

Saw it at the Banff tour a few years ago. Pretty harrowing, you could have heard a pin drop in the theatre at the end of it.

In reply to r0b: But did he die? Relatively close to shore, no body, emergency beacon not turned on. Perhaps he did a Reggie.

In reply to hairyRob:

and if you can't get iPlayer:

youtube.com/watch?v=8hmnlSC0hGY&

In reply to hairyRob: Yes, really fascinating watch. On a similar note, "Crossing the Ditch" the film made about the 2 guys crossing from Australia is very good also and won the Grand prize last year at Kendal.