Northwest Passage rower emerges from garage after 14-day coronavirus lockdown challenge, asking ‘what have I done?’
- Just two days into his 14-day charity challenge, Phil Kite begins to question his decision to lock himself in his garage and row for 12 hours a day
Phil Kite was barely a fraction of the way through his crazy coronavirus lockdown challenge when the magnitude of the task at hand dawned on him. The ocean rower had locked himself in his garage and was rowing two hours on, two hours off, continuously, until he completed 2,000 miles (3,218km).
“On day two, I thought, ‘what have I done?’,” said Kite, who started on May 4 and completed the challenge on May 17. “Particularly when I realised I wasn’t going as fast as I thought I’d go, I realised it wasn’t going to be next Thursday, it was going to be Sunday.”
Kite will attempt to become the first person to row the Northwest Passage with a team in July 2021. The 3,218km route through the Arctic opens up when the sea ice retreats in the summer, linking the Atlantic to the Pacific. Worryingly, the effects of climate change mean it is now open long enough for a rowing boat to make it through. In contrast, the first person to traverse the full passage, Roald Amundsen, took almost three years between 1903 and 1905 as his boat was continuously frozen to a standstill, despite the aid of sails and a motor.
Kite rowed across the Atlantic in 2018-19 and drew on his experience in the garage.
“The first week is very much the same as the Atlantic, you go though these ups and down. Then the second week, you begin to think it’s not so bad. Then towards the end it just seems to drag. The last bit dragged. It was very similar,” he said. “That last 24 hours, that was horrendous. That 2am to 4am shift, I just sat thinking ‘oh God, do I have to carry on?’”
The 11 other Northwest Passage crew members were contributing kilometres on their rowing machines too, helping Kite amass the required distance. They were raising money for four charities – Mind, Stroke Association, Daft as a Brush Cancer Patient Care and St Oswald's Hospice – who are all struggling to solicit donations with charity events like the London Marathon cancelled.