Sunday 23 August 2009

Equipment and Sponsorship Update

It’s been a great few weeks working towards this goal, which seems sometimes to be almost impossible to achieve. I have been reminded though, by both the recent failure of a Belgian team to land on Rockall and by unseasonable storms in July, that the weather may well be my biggest hurdle and no amount of preparation will give me control of this.

In terms of organising equipment, I have agreed with Norco that they will polish the ‘RockPod’ design and manufacture the end product. They have very kindly agreed to provide the tooling for free; and on Friday I was approached by a potential financial sponsor with the specific aim of paying for the manufacture!

From a recommendation from Norco, Lewmar have come on board and have promised to provide me with their hatches for free which will give me secure access and observation to and from the Pod. Furthermore, I approached Ampair for some advice and costings for a wind generator to provide me with power on Rockall. They have been amazingly helpful, calculating my power requirements and donating generation equipment to the expedition. Ampair have also said that they will use their industry contacts to try and obtain sponsorship from manufacturers of the other power system components I will require.

Also, this week, I have agreed a window for the expedition in 2011 with the Captain and owner of the Elinca which is a boat which has assisted several previous Rockall landing attempts, both successful and otherwise. They are without a doubt the most experienced in this particular area of the Atlantic and therefore I am very glad that they are involved.

Finally, this coming Wednesday, I am going on a recce trip to some rocks in the Firth of Forth which I hope will make a suitable marine testing ground for the pod and all the equipment in the final months before the expedition; I am very grateful to Bill Simpson who is kindly taking me there (and hopefully back!) for no cost. I will post more details of this recce after the fact.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Am very sorry I forgot to mention,There are fittings on Halls ledge to anchor your pod down They have been there since Greenpeace landed and even in 2005 they were in very good condition being S steel.There is also a good fitting on the north side for climbing rope lifting etc David Wood

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