“It was one that I had commissioned to be built specially by Rob Feloy at Inuk Kayaks,” Hicks explains. “It was really just a development of the one we’d used when I did the successful North Sea crossing in 2013, so it was a natural development from that. That one had been too heavy and a bit too big, so this one was made from carbon fibre instead of fibreglass, it was long enough internally, and the bulkheads were far enough apart so you could lie down flat in it. We also had some really big electric pumps fitted so that if it had got swamped we could empty the boat in about 80 seconds, which were all things we didn’t have on the previous model.”
The need for innovative methods to solve “problems that don’t normally arise” on the average ocean rowing mission, Hicks says, is vital in order to keep his ideas original and pioneering. But even after countless projects, including rowing the North Sea at the tender age of 23, and endorsements from the likes of legendary explorer Ranulph Fiennes, the thrill of adventure still brings butterflies to the intrepid Hicks’ stomach.
“That ‘green light moment’ before you step off the boat into the kayak, or when pushing off the kayak into the unknown of five days of ocean crossing – it’s a horrible feeling,” he remarks. “It never gets any easier, and it never gets any better.” When it came to his latest expedition, even the threat of dangerous wildlife came second to the distinct possibility of an ocean storm. “A polar bear landed the week after us in the same place, having swam all the way from Greenland to Iceland, so our fears were not unfounded!” Hicks reveals.
“We could batten down and weather a pretty bad storm, but it becomes a case of how long you can hold down and fight the storm before you get too exhausted and too cold to continue that fight,” he explains. “Being able to choose the weather accurately was key.”
“That’s a stretch of water between Iceland and Pharaohs, which is known as The Devil’s Dancefloor because the North Atlantic is being funnelled between a 300-mile gap so you have a lot of strong currents and eddies, waves, and all the weather systems being forced up between those two land masses. We knew it was going to be a bit hairy; and of course it’s the North Atlantic as well. People talk about the Southern Ocean being the biggest and the roughest, but I think the North Atlantic on its day can be just as bad.”
© Emma Hall
Fleeces under-layers, so we had one layer of fleece thermal and the dry suit on top. That system worked pretty well, as obviously it’s quite warm when you are paddling and working, and then when we stopped we put a neoprene coat over the top of us and dropped a couple of chemical heaters into the dry suit to keep us warm as we slept.”
© Emma Hall
And just as the fear of that ‘green light moment’ has never disappeared, so the feeling at the end of a successful expedition remains undiluted, even for an adventurer as intrepid as Hicks.
We could batten down and
weather a pretty bad storm, but it becomes a case of
how long you can hold down and fight the storm
In order to combat these freezing temperatures, it was essential that Hicks and Bullard were well protected against the elements in a way that also allowed for furious paddling up to 20 hours a day. For this, Hicks turned to Kokatat, the company he rates as making the best kayaking equipment on the market.
“They made us some custom dry suits as it’s pretty difficult living in the kayak,” he says. “Those suits could keep us dry enough, and they’re GoreTex so they were breathable, and we had extra ways of venting them so we wouldn’t sweat too much inside. We used Chillcheater
“For me, it’s always one of relief,” he smiles. “Partly because I don’t have to get back in the boat the next day, but also that the project has been a success and that’s a relief rather than a sense of achievement, as you can move on to the next thing.”
For someone who has spent a fair chunk of his life on the water, that next idea is never far away. Despite Hicks’ protestations that he is “done with canoeing for a while”, the wheels are already in motion for a new ocean adventure that will be bigger than anything he, or anyone, has ever attempted.
“We are working on a round-the-world rowing race, so the next trip is going to be a long one and a cold one!” he laughs.
“We’re starting to raise money for that, pulling it all together. It’s going to be a race between six identically built boats, all crewed by individuals, which’ll be the first race of its kind in history.”
ONBOARD | SPRING 2017 | 65
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