Arctic Kites

Click here to catch a glimpse of the team training over the past week!

14 days to go and counting…! This week the final items of equipment arrived in the post, including a satellite phone from G-Comm and the tent floor insulation underlay from Multimat.

The I.T. has been sorted and we are now able to post blog messages with the satellite phone, as well as receive emails from the web-site on the satellite phone .

The tent flysheet has been modified with extra large snow valances sewn onto it to help prevent the tent from being blown away by the katabatic and pittarak winds!

Chris went shopping for his favourite snacks this week and we now have hundreds of tracker bars and fingers of shortbread in the house! Training is ramping down, which is helping the team to put on weight and Rachel is still managing to put on 1kg a week!

G-Comm has kindly agreed to lend the team an Iridium satellite phone! Hopefully the weather will be sufficiently kind that the solar panel will keep the batteries charged and we’ll be able to keep the blog up to date, direct from the icecap!

Multimat has kindly offered to provide Chris and Rachel with their top notch underlay to insulate the floor of their tent and help keep them cosy whilst sleeping on the ice!

With over 150 items of equipment on the kit list, each and every item needs checking, and if necessary modifying, to make it as easy to use as possible. Today this included modifying the kites so that they can be quickly reefed and used in stronger winds than they are designed for.

The recent blustery conditions provided the pefect excuse to trial the new Beringer Parawings. Rachel practised the human flying technique before reefing the kite to induce some control!

The Parawing sails arrived in the post today and we can’t wait to try them out during our training week in Finse, Norway.

Terra Nova has kindly supported the team by donating specialist equipment for the expedition.

The team is thrilled to have received support from Extremities. The Extremities Mountain Toesters and Thicky socks will be key to keeping the team’s toes toasty and preventing frostbite!

The team is looking forward to taking delivery of two Beringer Parawings. These sails have proven themselves on previous expeditions and were trialled by the team in Finse earlier this year.