BUENOS AIRES, December 5. /TASS/. Russian traveler Fyodor Konyukhov has set out on a solo journey from an area off southern Argentina westward to Australia in a rowboat, his son Oscar said.
"At 5:30 a.m. on December 5, 2024 Fyodor Konyukhov started off in the Drake Passage toward Australia," the son said on Telegram.
The rowboat originally left the port of Ushuaia in Argentina on November 30, but the expedition hit a snag due to a severe storm that raged for three days, Oscar Konyukhov told TASS.
"We had to wait for it to pass," he said.
The traveler, who is turning 73 on December 12, plans to cover a distance of 18,000 kilometers in 200 days, he said earlier. That means he will have to row 15 hours every day before reaching the destination, Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia.
The journey commenced at about 56 degrees southern latitude.
"For the first time in the history of mankind, a rowboat will be in these latitudes," Konyukhov said ahead of the start.
The expedition to Australia is the second stage of a circumnavigation across the Southern Ocean. Stage 1 took place in 2018 and 2019 when Konyukhov covered a distance of 11,000 kilometers in 153 days. He then used the same rowboat as he is using now, the Akros, although it underwent some upgrades since then.
According to the website of the Akros oilfield services company, which is a partner of the expedition, the boat is 9 meters long and weighs 400 kilograms when empty. The Akros has watertight compartments to store food and equipment and provide a resting area. It is built to endure storms, robust enough to weather days of hammering with waves and rollovers. The boat is equipped with manual and automatic water desalinators, satellite communications and solar panels.
Supplies onboard include 100 kilograms of freeze-dried food, enough to provide 5,000 calories per day.