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| PAST CHATS |
Feb 3 1999
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Big Breakfast - Sir Ranulph Fiennes |
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On Wednesday morning after a stint on the Big Breakfast, Sir Ranulph Fiennes scaled the heights of the latest technology to join us online for a chat... see what he had to say!
Sir Ranulph : Hello everyone...
C4ChatEd : Good morning Sir Ranulph
Gibston : Do you think that true challenges are dead? technology is so advanced that difficulties have to be created during your adventures by denying yourself support and resupply etc.? Is it too easy and risk free?
Sir Ranulph : You have to be specific in talking about this - if you take Antarctic travel then what are the risks? Number one - falling into crevasses because they're covered in snow and you can't see them. Number Two: the extreme colds. Number three: the vast distance means carrying food, which is heavy. The answers to these problems now, rather than in 1910, (when Scott was travelling), have hardly changed at all. In 1999 the likelihood of falling into a crevasse is exactly the same as in 1910 (there is no technical clever dick answer to this)... secondly the extreme cold is just as cold today. Towing very heavy sledges is no easier nowadays. You sweat as a result even in very low temperatures, and risk hypothermia unless your clothes are 100% breathable. Modern materials like Gortex and Polar fleece sadly are only about 85% breathable. So in 1999 we still have to use cotton - this was of course available in 1910. Lastly, food/starvation - this problem also unfortunately has not changed since Scott's day.
Jules : What sort of food do you take with you?
Sir Ranulph : The key is to get high-calorie but low weight foods. The most modern current five-thousand calorie foodpack weighs 2.5 pounds, which is exactly the same as in 1910. So we can only carry a limited amount which means we end up with the same starvation problems as did our 1910 predecessors. Obviously we do try to use every possible modern technique and material but, unlike with modern mountaineers, there are many fields of polar travel where the privations haven't yet been answered by modern research. Obviously there is much more to say on this topic, but I'm being told to end off now :))
a ghost : How do you 'become' an explorer? I mean, where do you start? :)
Sir Ranulph : You do not 'become an explorer' (using the true definition of the word) until you have genuinely opened up new terrain and also, hopefully, been able to map it for mankind. In 1979 my team in Antarctica was lucky enough to enter a vast area of the high plateau where humans had never been since the world was created. We mapped it, using aneroid barometers. Only two years later, mankind put up mapping satellites which could map the surface of the entire world thereby rendering 'explorers' redundant.
Dougal : When you were completely alone and many miles from anything man made, did you feel any sense of the divine ?
Sir Ranulph : I am standard C of E in my personal beliefs, and when things are very bad it certainly helps to believe in a friendly God. But I have to admit that expeditions are normally so packed with worry about such mundane things as the food lasting out, various gangrene, crutch-rot, frostbitten fingers, etc., not to mention, how to plan crossing the next major obstacle... that this tends to fill the mind with the result that thoughts about ethereal things seldom arise.
Peter OConnor : What training do you do building up to an expedition?
Sir Ranulph : This answer could of course take forever... :) I hate to be commercial but the simplest answer would be if you buy my current latest book (Fit for Life) which explains in great detail various things, including pre-expedition personal training.
cheeky : do you miss home when you're out an expedition, if so how often do you wish you where back there?
Sir Ranulph : The expeditions can be quite short ones. But the two-three month expeditions with no means of talking to the wife, can obviously get people feeling a bit homesick. The problems almost every minute of the day whether to do with crevasses, breaking ice, running out of food, completing the scientific programmes, and the ongoing fight to try to reach the current goal all fill the mind most of the time, and at the end of the day, people are totally knackered, and tend to get straight to sleep. So thoughts of home, or anything which is not to do with the immediate job in hand, don't really surface very much.
spike : Are there any expeditions that you haven't done that you really want to?
Sir Ranulph : Yes... there are one or two that I would really like to do. I'm hoping to start one early in 2000, but the sponsor has said they would withdraw their sponsorship if details of the project leak out. Sorry about this.
David Murtagh : I've read your book The Feather Men which was superb but how much was really fiction?
Sir Ranulph : This particular book (like The Sett) is either 100% fact or 100% fiction. The reader is left to decide which.
Peter OConnor : Which expedition do you see as your biggest achievement?
Sir Ranulph : I started trying to find the lost city of Ubar in 1968 and after eight big expeditions over a 26-year period finally discovered it in the Empty Quarter at a feature called Shis'r. This is in the desert area between Yemen, Saudi and South Oman. It was a definite feeling of accomplishment when we finally located this place which had been mentioned by Ptolemy, round about 100 A.D but which had disappeared about 3000 years ago.
cheeky : do you really only get 2 hours sleep in 24 when doing the eco challenge?
Sir Ranulph : Very good question. There are some top teams (for instance the New Zealand Eco Internet team) captained by John Howard who say they average 1.5 hours sleep in 24. They normally complete an Eco race in seven days. Our own team in 1998 received numerous penalty points which make you stay at check points overnight. As a result our *intention* to sleep for two hours every 24 was never put to the test. In 1999 we definitely will be aiming for 2 in 24.
omar : What thoughts kept you going when times were really difficult?
Sir Ranulph : This would take a very long time to answer, but I did write a book about one of the more difficult expeditions (the first unsupported crossing of the Antarctic continent) in 1993. The book is called Mind Over Matter. It answers your question in some detail and is available in libraries or can be ordered through bookshops.
Anna : There seem to be more women entering into the world of expeditions. What do you think of that?
Sir Ranulph : For thirty years my expeditions have been inspired and organised by a small group of friends, including my wife Ginnie. One of the more important tasks on the expeditions is the polar base leader/radio operator. That has always been done by Ginnie or, more recently, by Morag Howell (she comes from the Orkneys). I am on the board of WEXAS, which helps expeditions to all parts of the world, every year... we have noted an enormous increase in the last fifteen years in terms of women leading or participating in expeditions of every sort. This is great for everybody involved in the expedition business.
kab : when is your next expedition?
Sir Ranulph : The next expedition will be, Im'shallah, in February 1999.
C4ChatEd : Thats it everyone. Sir Ranulph has to leave us now, thanks for coming in and keep your eyes peeled to our Chat page for details of more live chats soon.
Sir Ranulph : I've been told to wrap up on the questions so I'd better be off. Very many thanks for your interest and I hope you may get going on your own expedition projects.
cheeky : thanx Sir Ranulph, good luck in the eco challenge.
kab : we wait in anticipation for your next report thank you so much
omar : good luck
moonbeam : Bon Voyages
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