Alex and I have been working hard on our plan for the trip since the end of last year.  Our main task was some exhaustive research to find out whether it was actually possible to take a hovercraft across 500 miles of Arctic ice.  As well as in depth meetings with hovercraft manufacturers we have also talked to people and organisations who are already using hovercraft in ice conditions – It is surprising how many we found.  The main issue for us is that for instance with coastguards in Scandinavia - each evening when they have finished work the craft is put somewhere warm and batteries are charged.  For us however we do not have that option and the cold weather is going to literally suck the charge from our battery!  We do have a handstart option that Bill the manufacturer has added specially for us but still don’t want to have to use it if at all possible.  To try and lessen any mechanical impact the cold may have we are going to travel for as long as we can when the weather allows, possibly up to 16 hours a day. Given the hovercraft is open this is likely to be pretty uncomfortable.

For the time being we have divided the responsibilites.  Al is hard at work trying to find the £50,000 in sponsorship we need to make the expedition happen!

I am looking after equipment, food and clothing.  My main focus at the moment is the logistics of getting the Hovercraft from Banbury to Resolute which is proving to be a massive pain in the arse!  Fortunately I have now found a brilliant contact in the freight industry, Martin Jackson from a company called Fourdale who has been a great help.  The plan is at the moment the hovercraft will be picked up by an articulated lorry in Banbury.  It will then travel to Liverpool where it will be put on a boat to Montreal.  From Montreal it will then be transferred to a train for a journey across Canada to Calgary.  Once it is in Calgary it will then go into another lorry for the journey to Yellowknife, home of the famous Ice Road Truckers and we can only h ope that the journey of our hovercraft is less eventful that there normal trips.  Once the hovercraft gets to Yellowknife,  Al and I will rendezvous with it there, and put the craft into a specially chartered Short Skyvan where we will fly with it on the last leg of the journey  across 1000 miles of pretty much nothing but snow, ice and rocks to Resolute, the second most northerly settlement in Canada (the most northerly Grise Fjord is only 75 miles further north!).

I have already signed the hovercraft up for Airmiles so suspect by the time we finish in May 2009 it will have enough for a well deserved holiday in the Bahamas!

The one thing I did forget to say is that due to the size of the hovercraft we pretty much have to take it to bits to get it into the Skyvan so when we get to Resolute the first thing we have to do is to put it together again.  I am currently trying to find a building in Resolute big enough to do this in the warm, however if it is not possible we will be trying to do this at -25°C.  Fortunately as the equipment specialist I have found a B&Q gazebo for £19.99 that should protect us from at least some of the elements while it is in one piece.

It is now a year until we leave for the Arctic which seems like a long time but it will go very quickly and we need to make sure we start to find at least some of the money so we can go ahead and get the hovercraft manufactured in time for its World tour.

As well as of attempting to be the first people in history to reach the Pole in a hovercraft, we are also attempting to raise a significant amount of money for BARB, our chosen charity.  BARB runs 2 rescue hovercraft in Burnham on Sea, Somerset and rescue loads of people every year from the dangerous sands and mud around Bridgwater Bay.  Anyone wanting to make a donation can do it via the charity page of this website. 

The team at BARB have been fantastically supportive, arranging some training for us in a hovercraft very similar to the one we are using and also arranging events to publicise the expedition with the media.  So far we have had lots of interest from BBC and ITV, clips of which can be found on this website and we are shortly to do something with Sky News.   

In terms of training, other than learning to fly a hovercraft properly we are in pretty good shape as I have been going to the Arctic since 1996 and Al last year took part in Polar Race, a race skiing and pulling a sledge across pretty much the route we are going to be using for our trip in 2009 so we have experience of the conditions and a good knowledge of the route.  We are also going to be leaving it till quite late in the season so that it will be a little bit warmer and also so we can gain information from other expeditions using the route that year as to what the ice conditions are like and where the broken ice is as we are very limited as to clearance on the hovercraft.  The trip in a straight line is 320 miles each way and we have fuel for 1000 miles so pretty confident we will be OK but if ice conditions are bad we may be pushing the hovercraft back to Resolute!