Adrian sails to save Antarctic

Guernsey Press and Star, 24 October, 2002

by Katherine Spencer.
Picture by John O'Neill

A ROUND-THE-WORLD yachtsman has been forced to make an unscheduled stop in Guernsey just days after setting sail.

Adrian Cross is making the three-to-five year circumnavigation to raise awareness of the plight of Antarctica. But bad weather forced him to pull into St Peter Port.

He has sailed to the continent before and spent time there on a global warming project.
His experiences in Antarctica were the catalyst for his current adventure, Operation Snowbird.

Mr Cross took an extended sabbatical from his career as an account manager for Standard Life and set off from Portsmouth nearly two weeks ago, aboard the 31ft Gentoo of Antarctica.

The trip is self-financed and he will be sailing single-handedly for much of the journey.

But for the first leg to Gibraltar he is accompanied by Fred Griffin, an artist who contracted polio as a child and recently ended 20-odd years of racing in various types of boat.

"I am going on this first leg with Adrian to go out of sailing on a high. My polio has not left much in my tank, so I intend to use my reserves of energy on a sailing trip that will give me enough memories to last me to my end" said Mr Griffin.

Both men ended up using rather more energy in their first two weeks than anticipated as violent storms have pounded the south coast of England since they set off.

"We have had the most horrific weather," said Mr Cross, who arrived in the island on Saturday. He had planned to go to Alderney or Jersey but decided to head for Guernsey instead during a window between storms.

Although the 30-year-old boat had been refitted before leaving the UK, a leak in the stern tube required fixing and Mr Cross decided to stop in Guernsey for repairs.

"She has been put through hell in the past few weeks but she has been brilliant. Gentoo reached speeds of up to 11 knots on the way to the island."

A Royal Yachting Association senior sailing instructor from the Midlands, Mr Cross left school at 15 and joined the Navy. He went on to become an aircraft engineer with British Midland, a profession which saw him visit the island several times, before joining Standard Life.

"I left school without any qualifications and my message to youngsters is that if you can get the qualifications, then great, but all is not lost if you do not make the grade," he said. "If you are focused and you stay focused, you can do it. I found out about Antarctica through a music teacher at school and it took me till I was 47 to go there. It took me a long time to achieve my goal and now I intend to talk about what I have done."

The Route To UNESCO Award...

In 1999 Mr Cross joined a team of explorers on Mission Antarctica to gather more information about the continent¹s problems. This five-year project was set up to protect the Antarctic and educate society about environmental changes. The main focus was to remove 40 containers of waste from King George Island in the Antarctic peninsula.

"I took a media team to log and catalogue the waste material that had been removed. We also took pictures of 16 global warming indicator sites. This team went deep into the ice to see what Antarctica was really about."

His team recorded hours of interviews with scientists, base commanders and Antarctic specialists from all over the world. Subjects included ozone depletion, global warming, wildlife issues and personal accounts of living in prolonged isolation.

The following year Mr Cross was made Special Envoy of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Mission Antarctica.