04.12.2002 00:00 URALAZ is traveling back home, and Fedor is getting ready for going to the South Pole on iceboat

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Today, December 4, only three days after the finish, the "URALAZ" boat has been loaded on to a trailer for its transportation to the Barbados capital of Bridgetown and then off to England.

This is being hurried because of the managemen's intention of the "URAL" automobile factory in cooperation with the Ocean Rowing Society to exhibit the "URALAZ" boat at the annual and very prestigious Boat-Show-2003 in London. The event will be held January 2-12, 2003.

During this show, Fedor will also meet the designer of the boat Phil Morrison and the shipbuilder Spud Rowsel to discuss the new joint project of designing and building an iceboat to cross Antarctica on the route of Patriot Hills (English station) - South Pole (American station) - the "Vostok" station (Russia) and the "Mirny" station (Russia).

We have great expectations that the management of the Ocean Rowing Society in London will also take the role of coordinators in this project, in transporting the iceboat to South America, in equiping the iceboat with "ARGOS" beacons, satellite telephone Thrane&Thrane, emergency beacon EPIRB, as well as the creation of an interactive chart of the iceboat's movement in the expanses of Antarctica like the one created by the ORS when Fedor Konyukhov was crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

From London the "URALAZ" boat will be transported to Dusseldorf for the exhibition in an analogous Boat-Show, but this time in cooperation with our Italian partners, the group of the FERRETTI GROUP cutter production. As has already been stated in the press, Fedor Konyukhov had a number of negotiations with the representatives of the FERRETTI GROUP in Moscow concerning the joint project - 80-day circumnavigation on the maxi cutter FERRETTI (over 30 meters) for the Jules Verne Cup. This project will be officially presented at the show.

After Dusseldorf, the management of the "URAL" factory is planning to exhibit the boat in Saint-Petersburg and then at the Boat-Show in Moscow in March, 2003. Later on the "URALAZ" boat will be brought to Nizhnyy Novgorod for the automobile SHOW where there will also be huge URAL trucks.