The British RAF mountain climbing team, commissioned by Prince Charles, had some
thing extra to boast about after conquering Mt. Everest - they also made history
by BOATING at 20,000ft.
The airmen used an ultra-light folding Porta-Bote dinghy manufactured by Porta-Bote
International of Mountain View, California USA, to set an altitude record for boating.
The boat which folds to 4 inches (11cm) flat, was able to be transported up Mount
Everest strapped, in the folded configuration, on the back of a yak! Although inflatable
craft could have been used, the airmen preferred something that did not need inflating
at high altitudes.
They were concerned with the obvious danger of an inflatable exploding and suffering
from punctures. An ordinary aluminum or fiberglass boat would be too heavy to transport
20,000 feet up the side of a mountain. They required a very lightweight boat that
was virtually puncture proof. The men from the RAF Mountain Rescue Service took the
folding Porta-Bote as a precaution against being stranded by melting glaciers. They
expected to find the lake frozen. But it had thawed slightly and they were able to
break the ice and "set sail".
And expedition leader Flight Lt Ted Atkins, 42, said
his 13-man crew used snow shovels as paddles to cross a glacier lake high above the
Himalayas. He joked: "I've flown in an RAF Nimrod at 20,000ft before, but I've never
paddled a boat at that altitude.”
Flight Lt Atkins added: "The water was gray and seemed bottomless. It was a strange
feeling paddling in a boat way above the cloud layer." A spokesperson of Porta-Bote
International, stated that his company has submitted an application for their folding
Porta-Bote to appear in the Guinness Book Of World Records as the first and only
boat in the world to be "sailed" on a lake 20,000ft above the earth and clouds, a
new historic altitude boating record.
