Jim Shekhdar

Last updated

Jim Shekhdar (born 13 November 1946) [1] is a British ocean rower and was the first person to complete a solo unassisted non-stop crossing of the Pacific Ocean.

Contents

Career

Shekhdar was born in Leamington Spa, England in 1946 and lived in India from the age of seven to twelve, where he learned Hindi.[ citation needed ] Back in England, he went to university where he studied civil engineering. Shekhdar was a keen water polo player but stopped playing after a falling out with the British Water Polo Administration for claiming airfare to an International match.

He stayed in Australia for a year and a half playing Rugby and working as an engineer. He then moved on to Papua New Guinea, Africa, the Middle East, New Zealand and Las Vegas. He finally returned to England, where he was permitted to play water polo again, but was banned for life one more time after throwing a referee into the water. [2] He is now married to Nina Shekhdar ( née Hlochova) and has two young daughters: Natalie (born 2008) and Alice (born 2011). They all live on the beach in Cornwall.

Ocean rowing

Shekhdar became interested in ocean rowing after reading John Ridgway's book about his transatlantic row with Chay Blyth.[ citation needed ] He initially wanted to start a corporate team building style venture with either Ridgway or Blyth but neither were interested.[ citation needed ]

In 1997, he heard about the Port St Charles Atlantic Rowing Race organised by Sir Chay's company, Challenge Business, and entered with David Jackson. They rowed from Tenerife to Barbados in sixty five days. [3]

Rowing the Pacific

The Atlantic race had given Shekhdar a taste for ocean rowing and his sights soon turned to the Pacific. Peter Bird had rowed across the Pacific already but he had stopped in Hawaii and eventually ended up being rescued by the Australian Navy 33 miles from the Australian mainland. The way was still open therefore for a solo unassisted non-stop crossing. Shekhdar had an arthritic hip and was on the waiting list for a replacement but decided to delay the operation in order to complete the row even though he was in pain.[ citation needed ]

Bird had set off from San Francisco and had run aground on Hawaii. To avoid the same fate, Shekhdar decided to set out from South America which he felt offered a clearer route across the Pacific. He originally chose Chile but was denied permission and set off from Peru instead.[ citation needed ]

Jim Shekhdar describes his boat ("Le Shark") as a "big boat", weighing 800 kg with a steel keel (and not custom designed for this event). [2] Its length is estimated at 7 meters.

Shekhdar set off from Peru on 29 June 2000 and arrived in Australia on 30 March 2001 having rowed approximately 8,000 miles in 274 days.[ citation needed ] During the voyage, he had ten encounters with sharks and a near miss with a tanker.[ citation needed ] Shekhdar originally thought the voyage would take only eight months and towards the end he almost ran out of food.[ citation needed ]

On arriving at North Stradbrooke Island off Brisbane, his boat overturned and he had to swim the remaining thirty meters where his wife and children were waiting.[ citation needed ]

Other adventures

In 2003, Jim Shekhdar unsuccessfully attempted to row solo from Bluff, NZ, to Cape Town, and had to be rescued by New Zealand organisations, He tried again later, and had to be rescued again, in an operation costing a six-figure sum. [4]

Author

In 2001 Shekhdar released a book about his adventures entitled, Jim Shekhdar. Bold Man of the Sea. My Epic Journey.

Related Research Articles

In competitive rowing, the following specialized terms are important in the corresponding aspects of the sport:

Tom McClean

Tom McClean is a veteran of both the Parachute Regiment and the SAS and is a survival expert who lived on the island of Rockall from 26 May to 4 July 1985 to affirm Britain's claim to it; this is the third longest human occupancy of the island, surpassed in 1997 by a team from Greenpeace which spent 42 days on the island, and in 2014 by Nick Hancock who spent 45 days there.

Ocean rowing Sport of rowing across oceans

Ocean rowing is the sport of rowing across oceans. Some ocean rowing boats can hold as many as fourteen rowers; however, the most common ocean rowboats are designed for singles, doubles, and fours.

The sport and practice of single-handed sailing or solo sailing is sailing with only one crewmember. The term usually refers to ocean and long-distance sailing and is used in competitive sailing and among Cruisers.

The Atlantic Rowing Race is an ocean rowing race from the Canary Islands to the West Indies, a distance of approximately 2,550 nm. The race was founded in 1997 by Sir Chay Blyth with subsequent races roughly every two years since. The early races were run by Challenge Business Ltd. until the race was bought by Woodvale Events Ltd., managed by Simon Chalk, in October 2003. In May 2012, Atlantic Campaigns SL, managed by Carsten Heron Olsen bought the rights to the Atlantic Rowing Race, now called The "Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge" – The World's Toughest Row. Since 2015, the race has been held annually starting each December.

<i>Sunday Times</i> Golden Globe Race Yacht race from 1968–1969

The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race was a non-stop, single-handed, round-the-world yacht race, held in 1968–1969, and was the first round-the-world yacht race. The race was controversial due to the failure of most competitors to finish the race and because of the apparent suicide of one entrant; however, it ultimately led to the founding of the BOC Challenge and Vendée Globe round-the-world races, both of which continue to be successful and popular.

John Manfield Ridgway is a British yachtsman and rower.

Roz Savage

Rosalind Savage MBE FRGS is an English ocean rower, environmental advocate, writer and speaker.

Peter Bird was a British ocean rower who, in 1983, became the first person ever to row non-stop and solo across the Pacific from east to west when he completed his journey from America to Australia.

John Fairfax was a British ocean rower and adventurer who, in 1969, rowed across the Atlantic and became the first person to row solo across an ocean. He subsequently went on to become the first to row the Pacific Ocean in 1971 and 1972.

Erden Eruç is a Turkish-American adventurer who became the first person in history to complete an entirely solo and entirely human-powered circumnavigation of the Earth on 21 July 2012 in Bodega Bay, California, United States. The journey had started from Bodega Bay a little more than five years earlier on 10 July 2007. The modes of transport included a rowboat to cross the oceans, a sea kayak for shorelines, a bicycle on the roads and hiking on trails, along with canoes for a few river crossings. The route he followed was 66,299 km (41,196 mi) long, crossed the equator twice and all lines of longitude, and passed over twelve pairs of antipodal points, meeting all the requirements for a true circumnavigation of the globe. Guinness World Records has officially recognized Eruç for the "First solo circumnavigation of the globe using human power" on a journey that lasted 5 years 11 days 12 hours and 22 minutes.

Charles Hedrich is a French sportsman, alpinist, rower and skipper. He is known for his achievements on all terrains of the world: Ocean, climbing, pole, desert, and forest.

Sarah Outen British athlete and adventurer (born 1985)

Sarah Dilys Outen is a British athlete and adventurer. She is also a motivational speaker in the UK and internationally. Outen was the first woman and the youngest person to row solo across the Indian Ocean and also the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Alaska. She completed a round-the-world journey, mostly under her own power, by rowing boat, bicycle and kayak, on 3 November 2015.

Katie Spotz American adventurer (born 1987)

Katie Spotz is an American adventurer who became the youngest person to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean, departing from Dakar, Senegal on January 3, 2010, and landing in Guyana on March 14, 2010. She was the first person to have swum the entire length of the Allegheny River in New York state and Pennsylvania.

Chris Martin is a British rower.

Leven Brown British Ocean Rower

Leven Brown is a British Ocean Rower who has held five Guinness World Records. He along with his crew Don Lennox, Livar Nysted and Ray Carroll also held the world record for "longest distance rowed in 24h in an ocean rowing boat" at 118 miles, is the first and thus far only in the sport ever to have held North and 'Trade Winds' speed records simultaneously and to hold two speed records over two separate oceans Brown was brought up on a landlocked farm in his native Scottish Borders but was introduced to the ocean at an early age where he discovered ocean rowing. After a career with Brewin Dolphin Securities that spanned 17 years he did his first Ocean Row in 2005.

Don Allum

Donald Edward Allum was a British oarsman, the first person to row across the Atlantic Ocean in both directions.

Lia Ditton

Aurelia Ditton, known as Lia Ditton, is a professional sailor, ocean rower, motivational speaker and conceptual artist, now based in San Francisco, California.

Anders Svedlund

Anders Johan Svedlund,, was a Swedish born, naturalized New Zealand ocean rowing pioneer. Anders performed 2 of 14 Historic ocean rows listed by Ocean Rowing Society, the official Guinness Adjudicator for ocean rowing. He was the first to row the Indian Ocean, the first to row on the Pacific solo, and the fastest ocean rower of his times.

Ocean Rowing Society International

Ocean Rowing Society International (ORSI), is the governing body for international ocean rowing and official adjudicator of ocean rowing records for Guinness World Records. ORSI was founded in 1983 in California by ocean rower Peter Bird and Kenneth F.Crutchlow FRGS. Current coordinators of ORSI are Tatiana Rezvaya-Crutchlow and Chris Martin, and Fiann Paul.

References

  1. ↑ "Jim Shekhdar". OceanRowing.com. Ocean Rowing Society. Retrieved 21 September 2021.
  2. 1 2 "Interview with Jim Shekhdar". Ocean Rowing Society. June 2000. Archived from the original on 17 December 2005.
  3. ↑ "Ocean Rows in Chronological Order". Ocean Rowing Society. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
  4. ↑ DPA (19 November 2003). "Rescued rower rolled 15 times in storm". SMH.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.