London to New Zealand by personal watercraft
Rising tensions in Yemen ended an ambitious plan to ride three personal watercraft 32,000kms from London to New Zealand to raise awareness of early cancer detection. The Ultimate Ride was called off on Sunday 29 August as the team reached Fenike, on the south coast of Turkey en route to the Suez Canal, because the risk of terrorist and pirate attacks had been lifted to an unacceptable level by authorities.
Further drama unfolded in the Aegean Sea as the team, New Zealanders Jeremy Burfoot (51) and Travis Donohoe (23), and Croatian Ivan Otulic (29), were riding back towards Croatia to return their Sea-doos. A massive storm in the Aegean on the morning of Tuesday 31 August resulted in the three men being rescued by the Greek Air Force after three hours in the sea.
Team leader, Jeremy Burfoot, said: “The NZ department of Foreign Affairs strenuously warned us not to proceed south of Egypt unattended. The risk of terrorist and piracy attacks in Yemen had risen to an unacceptable level and we would have been a prime target.
“We all have families and it would be unfair to put their futures at risk, even for such a good cause. So we decided to make the hard decision to call off the Ride, little knowing that by trying to stay out of trouble, we would head straight into it on the way home.”
Following their decision to end the Ride, which started in London on 1 August and had taken three years to plan, the team had set out at 5am on Tuesday from the island of Karpathos with the intention of making Santorini before a predicted worsening of the weather in the region.
By 8am they had made the half way point but the weather worsened earlier than predicted and they found themselves riding into 60-70km per hour winds and battling 3-4m waves almost head on.
Burfoot said that progress was slowed to about 15km per hour and their Seadoos were taking immense punishment, often being completely submerged by waves. The machines were slowly taking on water as their forward speed was inadequate for the Venturi bilge system to work well. Auxiliary bilge pumps that the team had installed all failed because of the extreme conditions.
Eventually the first machine started having multiple problems because of the hull being full of water. While this was being dealt with, the second Seadoo succumbed to the same problems and the third was showing signs of distress.
At around 10.30am, 60km south-east of Santorini, the team made the decision to set of their GME PLB (personal locater beacons) and waited for rescue. after being forced to set off their GME PLB (personal locator beacons).
Burfoot said, "No PWC (personal water craft) is designed for hours and hours of that sort of punishment. Under the circumstances, I can't speak highly enough about the handling and ride of the S3 Hull, especially given the weights of gear and equipment we were carrying."
Burfoot also said that "the GME beacons saved their lives.
“The new 406 GPS equipped beacons - not much bigger than a mobile phone - sent a GPS position accurate to within 10 metres direct to the Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) in Wellington, New Zealand. The RCC contacted the Greek authorities and a helicopter was directed straight to us”.
The men were lifted to nearby Santorini, taken to hospital for a check up and then later discharged.
Burfoot said that the team would like to thank the Greek Air Force and the Coastguard on Santorini for their professionalism and helpful and friendly attitude. The men will remain in Santorini for the next few days to deal with formalities.
The Ultimate Ride had partnered with cancer organisations around the route such as the Melanoma Foundation of New Zealand, Australia’s Lifehouse at RPA, NURDOR in Serbia, Dutch child cancer charity Kika Kenderen Kankervrij, the German Childhood Cancer Foundation, the U.K.’s Macmillan Cancer Support and Livestrong, the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
Burfoot said, “My mission to promote awareness of healthy living and early detection of cancer will continue but through other means. Even if we have saved only one life by raising awareness of these important messages, all of this will have been worthwhile.”