A journey most heroic begins here

Published 11:00 am Wednesday, November 30, 2005

“Progress,” Thor Heyerdahl once observed, “is man’s ability to complicate simplicity.”

The Norwegian explorer certainly understood the spartan sensibility, achieving international fame in 1947 by sailing a fragile balsa raft some 4,300 miles from South America to Polynesia. Immortalized by a book and film of the same name, the 101-day “Kon-Tiki” voyage – during which the crew carried nothing more modern than a radio, and lived off the bounty of the sea – demonstrated that the navigators of

pre-history could well have bridged continents by braving oceans wide and wild in the most rudimentary of craft.

Infused no doubt with that same sense of adventure, young islander Greg Spooner and three colleagues will attempt a crossing of equally impressive magnitude this coming June. The crew will attempt to traverse 3,000 miles of open ocean, from New York to Falmouth, England, in a specially designed 29-foot boat – wholly under power of oar. (Jim Whiting’s fine story on the specifics of the quest appeared in these pages back in May, and can be found in the Review’s online archives at cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/bainbridgereview.)

On Saturday, Spooner and company will row over to Bainbridge from Ballard and reach Waterfront Park sometime around 5 p.m. The trailered vessel will be on display from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday in downtown Winslow, although the precise location has yet to be firmed up; check Saturday’s Review. The event will promote the young men’s upcoming trans-Atlantic adventure, let islanders see firsthand the tiny craft in which the rowers will live at sea for perhaps two months, and (of course) make note of individual and corporate sponsorship opportunities to help defray costs of the hugely expensive voyage. That they’ve come this far is testament to their collective will, and perhaps the support they’ve received from this and neighboring communities.

“This is an opportunity for us to show off the boat and say ‘thank you’ to peninsula residents,” Spooner told us this week. “Many of our most successful contacts have come from this side of the water. We wouldn’t be this far without them.”

While things have gotten a bit more sophisticated since the Kon-Tiki days – the technology intrinsic to Spooner’s vessel is no doubt staggering – the essential simplicity of the man-versus-nature quest remains undiluted.

It’s tempting at this point to note that when we mentioned Heyerdahl’s famous crossing to young Spooner, an otherwise scholarly young man, the reference went a bit over his head. Probably a generational thing. And it is nonetheless fair that he and his fellows should reckon by compass and sextant of their own device, and chart their achievement under their own stars. “As long as we can get this thing across the water, and we can get people excited, not necessarily about ocean rowing, but about this pioneering adventure,” Spooner said, “that will be glory for us.”

We trust Bainbridge will turn out to see them off, and bid them swift and safe passage come June.