Inspiration is where you find it. I found mine, some of it, in 73-year old Tom McClean, who is sailing a steel whale across the Atlantic. It's not too unusual. At age 44 he went across the Atlantic from New York in a boat the shape of a beer bottle. Sponsored, oddly enough, by Typhoo Tea. He's made a life of crossing oceans by himself. But he's 73. If he can cross the ocean in a beer bottle and a whale, I can float a 400 mile river and then some, right? The 65-ton whale has a blow-hole that spouts water. McClean designed it himself.
He's used to challenges.
"When he set off in his small fishing dory on May 17, 1969, no one at that time had ever successfully rowed alone across an ocean. He had never rowed in open seas and knew almost nothing about ocean navigation. When he first decided to do the crossing, the only rowing experience he had was a couple of afternoons on the Serpentine in Hyde Park." ~ Joe Banks writing about McClean.
Banks, by the way, does a great job of capturing McClean's personality and life. And I feel a kindred spirit in McClean. We're both crazy, but he's crazier. I'm doing this.
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