The Sinelnik twins, 31, addressed a news conference today to offer details of their venture. They intend to start from Carnarvon, Australia, before April 10, and expect to reach their destination point in a hundred days or so. That will be Dar el Salaam, Tanzania's commercial and economic heart. The daring brothers will make 4,500 nautical miles.
The Sinelniks' boat was built on special design in Britain, 2001. Precisely arranged ballast makes it unsinkable, and easily re-adjustable in case it capsizes. 7.3 meters long and 1.9 meters wide, the tiny vessel is made of ten millimeters thick plywood, with an epoxy resin layers inside and outside.
Named "Rus", the boat, holding two, has everything the rowers will need in their long unaided voyage. Two solar batteries plus a regular battery block and a switchboard will provide enough electricity to feed a water distiller, a pump, lamps, video cameras, satellite communications and navigation gadgetry, and much else.
The world has never yet seen a successful rowing marathon across the Indian Ocean. Many brave athletes attempted it before the Sinelniks but no one has reached the destination point, say voyage organizers. A Swedish rower was doing, in 1972, better than his predecessors-yet he did it only up to Madagascar. A Briton had to stop in Mauritius, 2003.
As the rules have it, the odyssey shall be a nonstop affair, with no assistance accepted from anyone, said Sergei Sinelnik.
