EXPEDITION SUMMARY:

On November 13th 2008, after 3 and a half years of planning, Jonesy along with expedition partner Cas set off in their custom built kayak, Lot 41 from Forster, NSW. Forster was selected as a departure point due to it’s proximity to the East Australia Current

Initially phenomenal progress was made. In 5 days they had paddled over 500km. Day two in fact saw the boys paddled 178km in 24 hours. The EAC and the Tasman Front current had helped propel Lot 41 towards New Zealand.

In the middle of the Tasman Sea, they were hit by a storm that raised 10metre seas and 100km/h plus hour winds. This storm kept the boys captive for 4 days and pushed them into a centre of a current whirlpool that forced them into a two week loop in the centre of the Tasman Sea. After breaking free they had issues with sharks, barnacles, severe food and sleep deprivation, wasting muscles and adverse weather conditions.

A number of critical pieces of equipment had broken down along the expedition. The electrical desalinator, broke on day 13. The VHF radio, one of the three electrical bilges, amongst other things. Luckily the two had though up at least one level of redundancy. For the most important pieces of equipment there was either 2 or 3 levels of redundancy.

Prior to the expedition they had been expecting that 60-70% of the wind would aid them towards New Zealand. On the ditch however they only experienced 6 days out of 62 where the weather conditions actually helped them

Finally after 62 days out at sea the boys pulled onto dry land at Ngamotu Beach, New Plymouth on the North Island of New Zealand. They were greeted by 25,000 people down at the foreshore. Over the course of the journey their website logged 1.6million individual unique viewers and on the day of arrival.

EQUIPMENT:

The fundamental consideration in designing Lot 41 was to design her around all the safety equipment that the boys would need to survive 2 months at sea AND what safety equipment they needed to make the journey possible and within an acceptable safety margin. 

Some of the major pieces of equipment included:

    - A Tracplus tracking beacon pulsed out their position live to RCC in NZ, Australia and live to their website. 

    - Comar Class B transponder informed shipping traffic of their position when in radar line of sight. 

    - Katadyn electrical and manual desalinators were used to provide fresh water

    - Iridium Satellite phone paired with a Panasonic toughbook was used to communicate to the outside world and provide images and audio clips for their website updates.

    - 2 man liferaft 

    - Electric and manual bilge systems for every compartment of the kayak. 

    - Buoyancy foam 

    - 3 deep cycle car batteries and solar panels to charge all electrical equipment

The boys wore Icebreaker Merino Wool base layers whilst paddling and Kokatat shell wear and survival suits when required.