1975 Nordkapp Exped Report – KASK.pdf (page 6 and 7). Link from ukseakayakguidebook.co.uk
THE SEA CANOEIST NEWSLETTER – No. 83 October – November 1999. The Journal of the Kiwi Association of Sea Kayakers (N.Z.) Inc. – KASK. Paul Caffyn
The following article on the 1975 British Nordkapp Expedition is reprinted from Bulletin 7 (circa 1977) of ‘New Zealand Canoeing’, which was edited by Graham Egarr. No author is noted so I would assume that Graham penned this article.
NORDKAPP
“Adventure is a state of mine that begins with feelings of uncertainty about the outcome if a journey and always ends with feelings of enjoyment, satisfaction, or elation about
the successful completion of that journey, ” says Colin Mortlock. “The initial feeling of uncertainty of outcome is fear of physical or psychological harm. There can be no adventure in outdoor pursuits without this fear.”
Colin Mortlock was head of the department of Adventure Education at Charlotte Mason College, Ambleside and a practitioner of adventure as well as a theorist. In July 1975 he led a team of paddlers across 500 miles of Norwegian coastal waters from the edge of the Arctic Circle to Nordkapp, the North Cape of Norway and the most northerly point in Europe.
The expedition was arguably the longest such ever attempted in kayaks – only arguably because kayaking exploits are ill catalogued and ill defined. Mortlock himself knew that Britain may have been circumnavigated by kayak* and also that some German paddlers had crossed the Atlantic, but they used sails which is perilously close to cheating. It is also a type of paddling that is still in its infancy. Most people think of a kayak as something for shooting rapids or negotiating placid inland waterways, or simply for messing about in. Mortlock contends, and has now proved, that it is suitable, ideal even, for what he calls ‘multi-day trips’. After the success of his Nordkapp expedition he is now thinking of something even more ambitious and also hoping that less experienced paddlers can be persuaded to take to the open sea, if only for the weekend.
A keen mountaineer, with Himalayan experience, Mortlock chose Nordkapp as his target, “because of the analogy with mountaineering. If you like, Nordkapp is the summit of Europe.” Once he had made up his mind, he to find experienced paddlers, and through a combination of personal knowledge and recommendation he chose five others, all full-time instructors in outdoor pursuits with good kayaking qualifications. Pete Davis, the oldest at 40, was in the RAF. The others, all at least 10 years younger and civilians, were Sam Cook, Colin Litton, John Anderson and Nigel Matthews. In August 1974, Colin took them on a training trip around the Isle of Sky, a voyage of 180 miles which they accomplished in a highly satisfactory eight days. “That was a fantastic trip,” he says. “We hardly saw anybody. There were no midges and the scenery was magnificent. It’s a classic journey.” Nigel Matthews disagreed. “Skye was hell. The paddling was hard and there were so many midges.”
Mortlock had been worried about social compatibility, pointing out that several of the group were total strangers and that, “kayaking breeds individualism to a marked extent,” but the group settled down quite adequately. The only serious problem was Colin Litton’s shoulder and wrist which gave him considerable pain. One day he had to be towed nine miles. “We learned a lot about towing,” says Mortlock laconically. Their fishing tackle proved successful with a regular catch of mackerel, though he was less lucky with birds.
After Skye, each man took on special planning responsibilities. Pete Davis for example looked after all the maps. Each man was to have his own set strapped on deck in front of him so he could refer to it while paddling. Each set contained 30 sheets and each one
had to be waterproofed on either side with clear Fablon – a time consuming exercise which proved gratifyingly successful. The only map lost was destroyed by fire at a campsite. Colin Litton had the inspired idea of living off the expedition rations for a fortnight before departure. In this way he discovered that the manufacturer invariably suggested a minimum rather than an adequate supply of their product. As a result Mortlock says it was the best fed expedition he had ever known, even though the catapult taken to catch wild birds proved sadly ineffectual. For a long Arctic voyage, they all agreed a new sort of boat was needed, which could take huge quantities of supplies without losing too much manoeuvrability. They took their problem to Frank Goodman, an experienced paddler who ran a kayak building company, Valley Canoe Products, in Nottingham. He eventually came up with a refined version of the kayak which is so successful that he is now marketing it.
By mid-June they were ready. Pete Davis hitched a free lift in an RAF Hercules while the rest followed from Newcastle. After some local arrangements were finalized, they set out from Bodø at 10am on 3 July. Pete Davis’s log paints a grim picture: ‘The weather was foul, rain and a cold south west wind of force 3-4. In passing squalls the wind strengthened to force 5-6 and the visibility went down to 500 metres.’ By 4.30pm they had completed 19 miles and made camp on some sand dunes. The day after, the weather was too bad for paddling and they rested. Davis tried fishing but gave up after 10 minutes. He couldn’t let go of his paddle for fear of overturning. The weather continued poor through most of the trip. Indeed it was the worst since local records were kept from 1867.
The early days were the worst. “The first 100 miles were the hardest psychologically,” says Mortlock. “You kept thinking what are we doing here? You must be mad! I couldn’t think how we were going to manage 500 miles of this, though it didn’t bother me too much because my first priority was safety. I didn’t worry about North Cape. I lived from day to day, and if we were safe, then that in itself was a success. The worst thing was the sheer bloody hard work and grind of paddling.”
A good paddler uses more than his wrist and shoulders. Each man had a foot bar in approximately the same position as the pedals in a sports car. With feet pressed against this, the paddler brought every muscle into action. Sea kayaking is supposed to be done with a low paddle action, but they soon found a high one perfectly satisfactory.
They would eat supper of soup, stew, if there was no fish, and apple flakes or sweet biscuits. They only had alcohol on the few occasions they stopped in towns and villages. Afterwards everyone would write up his log. They would listen to the weather forecast or on Sunday nights treat themselves to the BBC World Service sports news. The few books, Tolkien, some Alistair Maclean, were passed around from one to the other and sleep came at about 11pm.
Much of the excitement centred on stops when they met Norwegian contacts arranged beforehand, like Mr Hanssen Hammerfest who provided such a gargantuan breakfast of cheese, reindeer, bacon and eggs, that the day was almost ruined by dyspepsia {Ed: I had to look this one up in the dictionary – it means indigestion}. Another time, a suspicious Norwegian Navy helicopter called twice after reports of unidentified submarines offshore. And then there was the old woman of Finnlandsness who spoke no English but insisted on inviting them all into her farmhouse kitchen, feeding them on waffles and coffee, while removing and washing the entire expedition’s filthy socks.
Gradually a routine was established. Pete Davis worked out a schedule based on 20 miles a day, resting on every fourth day. To keep to that they got up at 7.30am and spent the first half hour just getting warm. Over breakfast of Alpen, some biscuits with jam, and tea or coffee, they listened to the weather forecast. The two tents were packed back into the kayaks together with the primus stoves, food, sleeping bags and spare clothing.
Fully loaded the kayaks weighed about two hundredweight {224 pounds} (Stein Olav: ca 100 kg) and in choppy water it sometimes seemed like, ‘paddling a pregnant cow’. They paddled from 9am to 1pm at roughly four miles per hour (Stein Olav: ca 3,5 knop). Sometimes they were close enough to talk, usually about technical problems. More often they would be immersed in their own private worlds.
Before long, Colin Litton’s wrist and shoulder began to play up again. Possibly it was teno-synovitis, an inflammation of the wrist tendons peculiar to paddlers who have to tense their wrists and exert them simultaneously. Inevitably it slowed him down and one of the others stayed behind to keep him company, a chore which Mortlock suggests, paradoxically, helped to keep the expedition together by forcing its members to think beyond their own hardships. Occasionally the two smokers, Matthews and Mortlock, would pause for a quick smoke, but otherwise their progress was constant until lunch at 1pm. Then they would paddle on for another four hours.
Just before 6pm they would stop to fish, atching innumerable cod and three salmon. In the last days of the journey however they became too tired to bother. By the end of the day, even getting the boats out of the water and above the high tide mark was a real chore. Once the tents were up, “one person would get a brew on and we’d strip off our horrible wetsuits. This suit is, as its name suggests, always wet. It is a bit like living in a hotwater bottle,” said Nigel Matthews. “It is all right when you are on the move, but it is hell getting on first thing in the morning.” Other clothing, particularly sweaters, became very damp and only really dried out on rest days.
Progress continued, hard but steady and well within schedule. After eight day’s paddling they had covered 164 miles; after 10 days, 222 miles. Then on 16 July, they came nearest to disaster, not with a gale or shipwreck but with something altogether more mundane – a boil on Nigel Matthew’s bottom. The doctor in Tromso didn’t lance it but instead cut out a huge chunk of flesh leaving his patient in considerable pain. It was obvious that he must rest or give up, but in his absence the rest of the men agreed that they would wait for him to recover. “I was really touched,” says Matthews. The social compatibility which had worried Mortlock had evidently been achieved. Unfortunately the only way Matthews could continue, even after two day’s rest, was with a six inch foam rubber cushion under his bottom. This disturbed the delicate equilibrium of the kayak and the next day as they were surfing down a fiord before a heavy wind, he overbalanced and capsized. “We were having a whale of a time,” he says, : and generally enjoying ourselves then suddenly I went over.” As an experienced paddler he executed an Eskimo roll. His wet suit and laborious waterproofing of boat and equipment prevented damage to anything but his uncovered face and hands. The hatches prevented water entering the fore and aft hatches. Only a little got into the cockpit. One refinement on the kayaks was a pump which could get rid of 20 gallons of water in less than five minutes.
“The water was terrible,” says Matthew. “Probably about 3˚. When I came up my face felt as if someone had put it in a vice and screwed it up really tight. It was the only time that anyone fell in, except when they were launching or disembarking, and they only suffered one piece of damage to a boat, when Mortlock’s kayak was holed by a rock on a beach. They sealed it easily and it gave no further trouble.
On 29 July they reached the North Cape to find someone flashing a mirror down at them from the top of the rocky headland. It was their boatbuilder Frank Goodman, who had flown up with his family to greet them. They afted the boats together for photographs and passed around two miniatures of Scotch by way of celebration. They then spent an anticlimactic day paddling to Honningsvagg for final disembarkation and the journey home. They had kayaked 469 miles through the Arctic in 20 days of paddling.
https://www.ukseakayakguidebook.co.uk/nordkapp/1975%20Nordkapp%20Exped%20Report%20-%20KASK.pdf (page 6 and 7).