Chapman Freeborn – Aerial Aid Drop Specialist - Comes to The Rescue of
Hungry French Trans-Pacific Rower Off North-Western USA Coast!
3rd November 2005
Chapman Freeborn Airchartering got a very unusual plea for assistance from
Eagle Aviation, a French airline whose aircraft we frequently charter.
Eagle’s
Antoine Garbaccio called the Chapman Freeborn London Passenger chartering
team to plea for help on behalf of a friend, 32 year old self titled “adventurer”,
Emmanuel Coindre. Coindre is seeking to single-handedly row across
the Northern section of the Pacific Ocean in a specially designed one-man
rowing boat, Lady Inky, raising funds for Paris’s Necker Hospital
for Sick Children.
This huge challenge consists of a 9,000km trip from Choshi, Japan to San
Francisco, USA across stormy seas. Some 350 nautical miles off
the northern California coast, Coindre called his friend Garbaccio on his
satellite phone to say that owing to severe weather slowing his progress,
he was running low on protein rich provisions and hunger was sapping his
strength.
Eagle Aviation know well that Chapman Freeborn are very good at finding
innovative solutions to unusual problems, Garbaccio called Chapman Freeborn’s
Julie Black.
She immediately contacted her London office colleague, Claudette Gharbi
who was on secondment to our Atlanta office and Claudette worked with Paul
Siegel in the cargo chartering department to find something which could
do the job. The project needed a cost-effective solution which had
the duration to fly out off the coast and drop to Coindre below, which ruled
out many of the aircraft which would ordinarily have been considered
Initially, we found a Mitsubishi MU-2 but when the FAA could not approve
that aircraft type to fly so far out to sea, we had to look further afield,
eventually locating a Dornier 228 air drop specialist all the way from Wyoming
who already had FAA Approval to undertake such operations. The FAA
then required that the operator carry a satphone in order to communicate
with Coindre and liaise concerning his actual location which caused another
delay while one was arranged to replace Coindre’s which was long broken.
When communication with Coindre was established, Claudette Gharbi was able
to talk with him at length about his requirements and his travels so far. As a native Frenchwoman from London, on secondment to our Atlanta office,
she was able to provide the tired and hungry rower with encouragement and
support in French which was appreciated almost as much as the chocolate
bars!
Antoine Garbaccio gave us a very specific shopping list of 200 chocolate
bars, bags of cakes and cookies, chewing gum, vitamins, instant mashed potato
mix, peanut butter, Nutella… and of course, the satellite phone! Poor Emmanuel had been rowing for 120 days and was deliriously hungry and
very happy indeed to see the extremely well-wrapped package flutter down
from the rear of the Dornier operated by Bighorn Airways of Sheridan, Wyoming
on Saturday 22nd October. And pilot, Randy Leypoldt was delighted
to see it float.
It took two days to arrange and the shopping was the easy bit….
But we got there in the end and Emmanuel rowed in under San Francisco’s
famous Golden Gate Bridge at 22:30 on 1st November after 129 amazing days.
For more information and to read Emmanuel’s weblog of his journey,
see http://www.emmanuelcoindre.com/uk/index.htm
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