By Emily Wolfe
Imagine rowing from California to Hawaii. That’s 2,900 miles. Now imagine how you’d feel on Day 55. Tired? Seasick? That was the day French cousins Clement Heliot , 25, and Christophe Papillon, 27, collected samples for the ASC Microplastics Project during the 75 total days they spent on the Pacific this summer in the inaugural Great Pacific Race.
In this video clip, Christophe rows as if he’s one with the boat, his body shifting with waves that make you seasick just watching. Clemente, who completes the sampling, speaks slowly to the camera as he explains the process. Their life at sea moves at the metered pace of their oar strokes. Watch the video here:
The cousins spent two years renovating their vessel, La Cigogne, (“The Stork”) before the race and named it for the street where their grandmother lived. The only all-plywood boat in the field, it was the oldest and the heaviest.
Rowing through hurricanes Iselle and Julio, they encountered winds up to 60 knots and 30-foot swells. At one point, they spent five days on a parachute anchor waiting for the weather to pass, according to the GPR blog.
Calm water, big ocean. (Photo courtesy CC4 Pacific)
Always proper Frenchmen, Christophe and Clemente’s rations included cheese, cured saussion sausage, and 20 liters of wine—enough for a daily glass until day 74, the day before they landed on Waikiki. À la vôtre!