Fundraiser Wayne Ingram has explained what he is packing as he prepares to spend seven days afloat in a liferaft
With just four days to go until his liferaft survival challenge, charity fundraiser and former army medic Wayne Ingram has explained how he plans to survive in a liferaft for seven days.
In order to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital, Wayne hopes to simulate the experience of being shipwrecked and cast adrift in the open ocean.
However, his four-man Ocean Safety liferaft will be moored within the harbour walls of Portland Marina from May 18-25.
With this in mind, he is packing the bare minimum of provisions, such as you might find in a yacht’s emergency survival pack.
The first, and possibly most crucial item on his provisions list is a 1.5-litre bottle of water, which he believes will last him in four days.
For the last three days of the challenge, Wayne will use a rain funnel to catch drinking water and a reverse osmosis pump to purify seawater.
“The reverse osmosis pump is design to work in the open ocean, but I’m not sure how it’s going to work in the marina where the water won’t be so pure,” Wayne admitted to MBY.
Dinner is served
Next up is food, and Wayne has just three HotCans ration packs to last him the week: beans and sausages, chicken chausseur, and meatballs and pasta.
Wayne’s strategy is to avoid the temptation to eat or drink for 24 hours before working through his ration packs at a rate of one per day.
Once these are gone, then Wayne’s primary source of food will be raw fish that he hopes to catch himself from the waters of Portland Harbour (pictured below).
BCB International and Weymouth Angling Centre have both provided survival fishing kits, including lures, lines and hooks, but Wayne will only have bait to use once he has caught hit first fish.
The father of two admits that he is a little squeamish at the idea of gutting and eating raw fish, although his daughter has urged him not to throw away the eyes as they are a valuable source of water.
“I’ve never eaten raw fish before, apart from Yo Sushi, so this is going to be a whole new experience,” Wayne added.
And he will not be able to wash the taste away either, as his liferaft will include a toothbrush but no toothpaste, which can speed up the dehydration process.
Braving the elements
Once food and water are taken care of, Wayne’s next challenge is braving the elements. He will be kitted out in Henri Lloyd waterproof trousers and a fleece at first, but he is also taking an Ocean Safety survival suit, which he will sleep in.
“The water temperature is going to be 7 degrees, so I’ll probably have to sit on my bag to keep the cold out,” he adds. “The liferaft has a thermal floor but it is just a little barrier, it’s not going to stop the cold completely.”
And it looks like Mother Nature won’t be going easy on Wayne, as Portland is forecast to experience light rain showers and a high of 14 degrees Celsius next week.
“I’ve had a look at the weather forecast and it looks shocking, but there’s no going back now. If it rains I’ll try and catch it in the rain funnel and empty food packets,” Wayne continues.
Beyond this the only other items in Wayne’s liferaft will be used to document his experience. He will be using an iPhone and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 to broadcast daily podcasts to his personal website, while a Go Pro Hero will be capturing video footage.
Solar-powered chargers from PowerTraveller will keep all these devices topped up, maintaining a crucial link to the harbourmaster, who Wayne will check in with twice a day.
All of this is in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital. Wayne has set himself a fundraising target of £20,000 and he has already raised £3,500 through his JustGiving page.
We will be publishing the full story of Wayne’s liferaft survival challenge later this summer in an upcoming edition of Motor Boat & Yachting.
