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The Canary Islands’ biggest fortnightly English newspaper read by thousands of tourists & residents 31st December - 13th January 2011
Edition # 633 /
A
Captain Olsen, breaking tradition
small group of rowers from the UK are aiming to smash the record for the ultimate prize in ocean rowing, the East to West Trans-Atlantic crossing.
Cunard
Lady Captain’s maiden visit
he Queen Victoria sailed into Santa Cruz de Tenerife on December 28th with Cunard’s first T ever lady captain at the helm. Captain Inger Klein Olsen, broke a 170 year tradition by becoming the shipping line’s first female Captain. Her first job was to take the ship to drydock in Hamburg for a refit and the next to sail here on their Canaries Celebration cruise before heading out across the Atlantic on January 5th. Captain Olsen was born and brought up in the Faroe Islands and she joined Cunard in 1997 as First Officer on board Caronia. Following several years sailing with other companies within the American Carnival group, she returned to Cunard last August as Deputy Captain of the Queen Victoria.
2010
Review of the year
A look back at some of the news and events
Centre Pages
Spin
Page 39
27 th Canarian Music Festival January 7 to February 14
/ 1.80€ at Newsagents / www.islandconnections.eu / www.newscanarias.net
The current record for the 3,000 mile trip stands at 33 days, 7 hours and 30 minutes, but the five men and one woman are aiming to cross the Atlantic to their planned ‘landfall’ just North of Barbados in under 30 days. David Hosking, M.B.E. a retired naval captain, is the skipper, Chris Covey has taken a year out of his engineering career, Naomi Hoogesteger from her teaching duties at Durham University and the remaining members of the team, Jack Stonehouse, Justin Johanneson, and Paddy Thomas are taking some time off after completing university degrees or post graduate studies. With the exception of Justin, who is an ultra-marathon runner and Iron Man competitor, they all have piled up many rowing hours and honours in the past, but even so have had to put in six months of hard training in preparation for the attempt. Their craft, Hallin Marine, named for their main sponsors, is an ocean rowing trimaran, from ROC expedition in New York, only the second multihull rowing boat ever built world-
Record breaking Atlantic attempt
One ocean, one aim, one month
wide. In addition to the six members of crew it will carry half a ton of dried food, two desalination plants, and navigation, communications and emergency equipment. The rowers will work in two teams of three on two hour shifts, with the other two hours to eat, wash, carry out
Page 55
football
CD Tenerife
Propping up the division sport
Judo
Top Dan trains in Arona
Page 54
Pages 21-36
Guide
Pages 8-9
maintenance and if there is time to sleep. There are two cramped sleeping spaces which will take up to three people and they also hope to be able to spread out on the nets to take a little sun and help cure their salt sores, but according to David, “the oars must never stop moving for the whole month if we are to beat the world record”. They will leave from the San Miguel de Abona harbour, once the rest of the crew arrive and the trade winds and currents have stabilised, some time over the next few weeks. In the meantime the trimaran is tied up near the yellow submarine and the team are happy to answer any enquiries, particularly from anyone who wants to sponsor them or donate money to their chosen charity, Combat Stress,
Three of the crew, Chris, Paddy and Jack
a military mental health charity for which they hope to raise £60,000. You can find more information on how to sponsor, how to donate or just follow the day to day trials and triumphs of this exhausting expedition of incredible physical and emotional endeavour at www.teamhallin. co.uk.
The Sports Megastore 8.000m2
Motorway Santa Cruz La Laguna, Exit “Las Chumberas”. La Laguna, Tenerife. Tel: 922 62 79 00, Fax: 922 82 11 07
www.decathlon.com