Ann Bancroft is an American author, teacher, adventurer, and public speaker. She was the first woman to finish a number of expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1995.
In geography, a pole of inaccessibility is the farthest location in a given landmass, sea, or other topographical feature, starting from a given boundary, relative to a given criterion. A geographical criterion of inaccessibility marks a location that is the most challenging to reach according to that criterion. Often it refers to the most distant point from the coastline, implying the farthest point into a landmass from the shore, or the farthest point into a body of water from the shore. In these cases, a pole of inaccessibility is the center of a maximally large circle that can be drawn within an area of interest only touching but not crossing a coastline. Where a coast is imprecisely defined, the pole will be similarly imprecise.
Ralph Summers Plaisted was an American explorer who, with his three companions, Walt Pederson, Gerry Pitzl and Jean-Luc Bombardier, are regarded by most polar authorities to be the first to succeed in a surface traverse across the ice to the North Pole on April 19, 1968, making the first confirmed surface conquest of the Pole.
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 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.
Fyodor Filippovich Konyukhov is a Russian survivalist, voyager, aerial and marine explorer. In December 2010 he became an Eastern Orthodox priest in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
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.
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is the point in the Southern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True South Pole to distinguish from the Magnetic South Pole.
Tom Avery, FRGS is a British explorer, author and motivational speaker. He made record-breaking journeys to the South Pole in 2002 and to the North Pole in 2005. He is one of fewer than ten people throughout history to have completed the Polar Trilogy; full length expeditions to the South Pole and North Pole and a coast to coast crossing of Greenland. Avery and his teammates hold two Guinness World Records; the fastest surface journey to the North Pole and the fastest coast-to-coast crossing of Greenland. He is also the youngest Briton to have reached both the North and South Poles on foot.
Jock Wishart is a maritime and polar adventurer, sportsman and explorer. Until his successful 2011 Old Pulteney Row to the Pole, he was best known for his circumnavigation of the globe in a powered vessel, setting a new world record in the Cable & Wireless Adventurer and for organising and leading the Polar Race.
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.
Henry John Richard Cookson, FRGS is a British polar explorer and adventurer. On 19 January 2007 he, alongside fellow Britons Rory Sweet and Rupert Longsdon, and their Canadian polar guide Paul Landry, became the first team to reach the southern pole of Inaccessibility (POI) by foot, the last visitors being a research team using tracked vehicles & planes in 1965.
Debra Louise Searle MVO MBE, née Newbury, later Veal, is a British adventurer, businesswoman, author and keynote speaker. Searle is famous for having rowed across the Atlantic alone after her then husband and rowing partner, Andrew Veal, was rescued from their plywood rowing boat.
The Row To The Pole was a major expedition, which navigated a rowing boat to the North Magnetic Pole at 78°35.7N 104°11.9W, the position certified in 1996. Its mission was to highlight the scale and pace of the retreat of the Arctic Ocean's floating sea ice. It is believed to be the only polar expedition to feature rowing boats since the crew of Sir Ernest Shackleton's row to Elephant Island off South Georgia in 1916, after his aborted attempt to cross Antarctica. The 450-mile journey took almost four weeks.
Nabil Al Busaidi is an Omani adventurer. Al Busaidi is considered to be the first Arab to walk to the magnetic North Pole, climb Mount Vinson in Antarctica, and row across the Atlantic Ocean.
James Ketchell is a British adventurer. On 1 February 2014, Ketchell became the first person to complete the triathlon of rowing across the Atlantic Ocean, summiting Mount Everest and cycling around the world. On 22 September 2019, Ketchell landed his gyrocopter in Basingstoke, England, becoming the first person to circumnavigate the globe in an autogyro, flying for 175 successive days.
Colin Timothy O'Brady is an American professional endurance athlete, motivational speaker and adventurer. He is a former professional triathlete, representing the United States on the ITU Triathlon World Cup circuit, racing in 25 countries on six continents from 2009 to 2015.
