Some Quick Calculations
Published on 02.04.2010 - One Man Epic Mission North Pole
After all those dreams of some great nosh and the ambience of a Fremantle bistro, Tom has made a kind of assessment of his adventure. Leaving the finances aside, he thinks that he will be able to achieve his goal.
An ultimate appeal dated 31 March was launched on Tom Smitheringale's website: Sponsor needed to help Tom to be picked up at the North Pole.
Explanations: when he went out on to the ice, the Australian had still not found what is called in the trade a "major sponsor", who could help him to conclude the financing of his adventure. In fact, he hadn't even found the 20,000 dollars necessary for his pick-up once he had arrived at the North Pole. But pooh-poohing this end-of-route problem, Tom set out nevertheless.
Now he is calculating his chances of achieving his goal and realising that it really is possible that he could get to the Pole in time. He has taken 62 days of victuals with him; as one month has just elapsed, he therefore has 30 days of rations remaining for doing the last 500 kilometres. To succeed, he must therefore imperatively progress by 16.7 kilometres per day (500/30 = 16.66666666). And he thinks it's possible.
With the improvement of the living conditions on the ice (less wind, less negative drift, a better surface for skiing, etc), Tom and his second, Jim the Webmaster, estimate that they can continue the adventure with an iron will because, for the moment, good is prevailing over not-so-good. Obviously, not too many bad surprises need to come to cripple the pace of the man who in Fremantle is called 'Captain Awesome', 'Dora the Explorer' or 'the Mega Man'.
As we have already written: one of the keys to Tom's success -if success there is at the end of the day -is and especially will be due to the fact that this Australian force of nature believes that the fact of being over there, in such an environment and accomplishing such an odyssey (he uses the word "magic" to describe his experience), far outweighs the terrible suffering that the many difficulties that he has encountered on the way have inflicted upon him.
