AN ADVENTURER today revealed he had failed in his quest to become the first man to sleep on a treacherous rocky islet in the North Atlantic.

Andy Strangeway, of Full Sutton, near Pocklington, said that on the way to Rockall - a remote, uninhabited rock at the most westerly point of Europe - the weather conditions were perfect.

The 43-year-old had aimed to become the first person to sleep on the islet without the assistance of a helicopter and without shelter.

But Andy, who travelled to the rock on a yacht with ten other people, said that when they got within about 30ft of the islet, the sea had a swell which could carry a person 20ft up or down.

"The only way people could get on to the rock was they were taken across in an inflatable," he said.

"And then they would have to, within a few feet of the rock, jump out of the inflatable into the swell.

"It's one thing diving into a 20ft swell, scrambling up or being thrown on for a few seconds - then being up there for a given period of time. If you get left there and then you can't get off - you are out of rescue zone."

Andy, who decided not to attempt to get on to Rockall, said he made that decision because "it wasn't worthwhile. What I could have got from it and what I was risking for that was not worth it".

"You don't know what's going to happen - and out there, if things do go wrong, you've got no back-up," he said. "We thought we had the perfect conditions and it was only within 20ft to 30ft of the islet where the swell changed. It's almost like a surge - like a sucking, blowing effect."

Andy, who made history last year as the first person to spend a night on all 162 of the islands off the Scottish coast, said six people in the party managed to get on to the rock. When asked if he felt he had achieved anything on the trip, he said: "I would say I've got knowledge which I never had before and I know other ways of how to do it."

"The only question is whether I get the finance raised to do it and that's where we're currently up to," he said.

Rockall is about 25 metres wide at its base, rising to about 22 metres, with a small ledge of 3.5 by 1.3 metres, four metres from the summit.


Fact file

Rockall is a tiny, isolated, uninhabited, pudding-shaped sea-rock situated in the North Atlantic Ocean about 300 miles from the coasts of Scotland, Ireland, and Iceland. The sea area around it, also known as Rockall, features in BBC Radio's Shipping Forecast.