David Hempleman-Adams

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Sir David Hempleman-Adams in Antarctica (2018)

Sir David Kim Hempleman-Adams , KCVO , OBE , KStJ , FRSGS , DL (born October 10, 1956 in Swindon , Wiltshire ) is a British entrepreneur , adventurer and author . He achieved international fame in 1998 as the first person to complete the Explorers Grand Slam . He began his career in adventure sports as a mountaineer before turning to polar trekking and later aviation . Hempleman-Adams took part in more than 30 polar expeditions and set over 40 world records recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), mainly in ballooning . In 2017 he was knighted by Elizabeth II for his services to the Duke of Edinburgh's Award .

biography

Childhood and youth

David Hempleman was born in 1956 in Moredon, a district of Swindon in the south-west of England's county of Wiltshire . While his father, the chemist Michael David Hempleman (1937-1992), traveled a lot for professional reasons, he grew up in a so-called council house and attended elementary school in Moredon. When David was nine years old, his parents divorced and he chose to stay with his mother. She moved with her son to Stoney Littleton near Bath and remarried, whereby he took the name David Adams. It was only at the age of 24 that he decided to have a double name . There he first attended the Writhlington Comprehensive School .

In doing so, as David wrote in his 1997 autobiography , he was transformed from a boy in a railroad town to a country boy. He loved getting dirty and hard work in the fresh country air and soon discovered his spirit of adventure. His first trip abroad took him to skiing in the Austrian Alps in 1970 . At the age of 13 he first came into contact with rock climbing in the Brecon Beacons and his enthusiasm for mountain sports was awakened. He completed the International Youth Program under the auspices of Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and at the age of 18 won the Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award , which included a 120km hike.

education and profession

Hempleman-Adams completed his A-Levels at the City of Bath Technical School and focused on geography , biology and chemistry . After high school he studied business administration at Manchester Metropolitan University and devoted his spare time to mountaineering. During an exchange program in New York , he met Steve Vincent, also from Swindon, who became his first expedition partner. He then attended the Bristol Polytechnic , a postgraduate degree , which he with the degree MBA graduated.

After his first major travels, Hempleman-Adams took an eight-year break from expeditions, made a career in his father's company in South Marston, and started a family . In 1992 his father Michael died and he took over the management of Robnorganic Systems Ltd. (previously Robnor) who made epoxy resins . After a few years as company director, he sold the company for a rumored sum of 6 million pounds to a chemical company in order to be able to concentrate more on his expeditions from now on. In addition to his career as an adventurer, Hempleman-Adams is the non-executive chairman of Global Resins and chairman of the Hempleman Investment Company, a real estate company . He is also a board member of a Singapore- based PLC .

Expeditions

Alpinism

His first major expedition led Hempleman-Adams together with Steve Vincent in August 1980 to Mount McKinley . A year later, he climbed Kilimanjaro , but did not have the Seven Summits in mind. Looking for new challenges, he started with the Polar - trekking . With the support of his father's company, he went on a trip to the North Pole in 1983 , for which he was able to raise a total of 40,000 pounds. The attempt to reach the northernmost point on earth for the first time alone and without aids, however, failed. More than 320 km from the finish he suffered two broken ribs in a fall and had to give up. A year later he reached the magnetic North Pole for the first time, but an accident prevented another target arrival at the geographic North Pole. Together with his team, Hempleman-Adams looked after a young Canadian who had broken into the ice and lost his equipment.

Hempleman-Adams (second from left) with the Everest expedition in 1993

On several of his expeditions he was sponsored by a local brewery in his hometown of Swindon. After an eight-year break, Hempleman-Adams led an expedition to the geomagnetic North Pole for the first time in 1992 . His next major project, the ascent of Mount Everest , was delayed by the birth of his second daughter and the sudden death of his father. On October 9, 1993, he finally stood on the highest mountain on earth for the first time. Within a year he also climbed Elbrus and, at a chance meeting with Rebecca Stephens , the first British Everest climber, developed the plan to conclude the Seven Summits. At Christmas 1994 he was on the summit of Mount Vinson and two months later on Aconcagua . In April 1995, after 15 years, he concluded the summit round with the Carstensz pyramid in New Guinea , making himself the first British man to climb the highest peaks on all seven continents. For this achievement he was appointed a member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).

In January 1996, Hempleman-Adams single-handedly covered almost 1,100 km to the South Pole on skis . Within a month he reached the magnetic south pole by boat and in May of the same year the magnetic north pole. In March 1997 he set off for the geographic North Pole for the first time in 13 years with Rune Gjeldnes and Alan Bywater. The 800 km ski expedition ended with Bywater collapsing into the ice, damaging his sled. Because the expedition was to be carried out without aids, the three of them waived air support. In a 1997 interview with the Independent , Hempleman-Adams replied jokingly, "No, the only ice I saw as a child was in my dad's gin and tonic" when asked if he came from a family of "explorers". On his fourth He finally reached the geographic North Pole on April 29, 1998 together with Gjeldnes. This made him the first person to succeed in the so-called Explorers Grand Slam , a combination of climbing the Seven Summits and reaching the two poles. He was subsequently honored with the title of Officer of the British Empire (OBE).

In 2003 the Briton undertook the first solo expedition to the geomagnetic North Pole, which he had already failed two decades earlier. On May 22, 2011, he led an Icelandic expedition to the summit of Mount Everest, which he reached for the second time. Unlike in 1993, he rose from the Tibetan north side. The human physiology in extreme environmental research trip raised over £ 1 million for charity. Due to exhaustion and problems with the oxygen supply, he had to spend a night with a Sherpa at 8,300  m in the so-called death zone .

Aviation and shipping

In 2000, Hempleman-Adams, inspired by Andrée , went to the North Pole in a balloon.

From the late 1990s onwards, Hempleman-Adams drew attention to himself with exceptional achievements in the field of aviation . On December 11, 1998, he became the first person to cross the Andes in a hot air balloon . He received special recognition in 2000 for the first solo balloon ride to the North Pole. The flight across the Atlantic took him 132 hours and was inspired by the Swedish polar explorer Salomon August Andrée , who suffered a fatal crash landing during his attempt in 1897. The Briton processed this experience in his 2001 book At the Mercy of the Winds .

In the following years, Hempleman-Adams set more than 40 world records recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) in various fields. At the end of September 2001 he attempted the first solo balloon flight over Mount Everest, but the Chinese airspace surveillance, which was tightened as a consequence of the terrorist attacks in New York , ruined the project. In 2003, after two failed attempts, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean between Canada and Great Britain for the first time alone in a hot air balloon with an open wicker basket. A year later he set a new world record in altitude in a Rozière in the Denver , Colorado area . In an AM-05 class balloon, he reached a height of over 12,500 m and again came into conflict with the local air surveillance. In 2007 he also set the altitude record in a conventional hot air balloon over Alberta . In 2008 he and his co-pilot Jonathan Mason became the first Briton to win the prestigious Gordon Bennett Cup in ballooning . In 2009, he beat the 26-year-old endurance world record with a helium balloon by six hours. For the more than 14-hour journey across the Midwest of the USA - which is not harmless with up to 300 m high transmission masts - he prepared himself with a strict diet in order to achieve the necessary weight loss.

In June 2016, Hempleman-Adams set out from Bristol to circumnavigate the Arctic . The dangerous sea voyage usually lasts three years, as both the Northeast and Northwest Passages are filled with pack ice for long periods of time . However, the team managed to cover the 13,500  nm counter-clockwise route within four months and one day. The Norwegian Børge Ousland achieved this for the first time in 2010. Hempleman-Adams was shocked by the largely ice-free passages and took the opportunity to draw attention to global warming .

For many years, David Hempleman-Adams was a Trustee of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award . In return, its co-founder and namesake Prince Philip was the godfather on some of his expedition trips. After several royal awards, Hempleman-Adams was appointed Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) by the Queen in the course of the New Year's ceremonies in 2017 and has since been allowed to bear the title of Sir . The ceremonial awarding of the knightly order was carried out by Prince William .

family

David Hempleman-Adams married Claire, who was six years his junior and a solicitor whom he met while studying in a bar in Bristol in 1980. The connection resulted in three daughters who at least partially followed in their father's footsteps and set some age records.

His eldest daughter Alicia (* 1989) was the youngest person to cross Baffin Island in northeast Canada in April 2005 . Single-handedly, she covered the distance of around 322 km in 10 days, even breaking the fastest time of her father, who was waiting for her at the finish. Back in 1998, at the age of eight, she set a record when her father had her fly in to the North Pole, making her the youngest person in the northernmost place on earth.

His middle daughter Camilla (* 1992) became the first and youngest British woman in April 2008 to reach the North Pole on skis. The 15-year-old accompanied her father and was part of a 13-person expedition group.

Amelia (* 1995), his youngest daughter, accompanied Hempleman-Adams in December 2011 on a ski expedition to the South Pole in the footsteps of Ernest Shackleton . After 156 km on skis, at the age of 16, she became the youngest person to have reached the southernmost point on earth under her own steam. The girl named "the freezing cold, dried food, pulling frozen poop in a sleigh and Papa's snoring" as the greatest challenges.

David Hempleman-Adams lives with his wife in Box east of Bath.

successes

Explorers Grand Slam

aviation

  • 1998: Balloon crossing of the Andes
  • 2000: Balloon ride to the North Pole - first solo expedition
  • 2003: Balloon crossing of the Atlantic - first solo expedition in an open wicker basket
  • 2004: world speed record in the airship
  • 2004: World altitude record in a Rozière (12,557 m)
  • 2004: Flight from Cape Cod to the Cape of Good Hope in a Cessna
  • 2004: World altitude record in the airship
  • 2004: Distance world record in the airship
  • 2005: Highest formal dinner party in a hot air balloon (7395 m)
  • 2007: World altitude record in an ordinary hot air balloon (9900 m)
  • 2008: Victory at the Gordon Bennett Cup
  • 2009: Endurance world record in a helium balloon (14 hours, 15 minutes)
  • 2011: America's Challenge balloon race victory

More expeditions

Awards

bibliography

  • A Race Against Time. British North Pole Geomagnetic Expedition 1992. The Self Publishing Association 1993, ISBN 1-85421-199-4 .
  • Toughing It Out. The Adventures of a Polar Explorer and Mountaineer. 2nd Edition. Orion, London 1998, ISBN 0-7528-1740-X .
  • with John Cristopher: Ballooning. From Basics to Record Breaking. The Crowood Press, 2001, ISBN 1-86126-423-2 .
  • With the wind to the North Pole. A modern adventurer on the trail of a historical tragedy. Frederking & Thaler , Munich 2002, ISBN 3-89405-228-7 (original title At the Mercy of the Winds ).
  • Arctic solo. A spectacular hike to the North Pole. Goldmann , 2003, ISBN 3-492-40186-4 (original title Walking on Thin Ice ).
  • with Sophie Gordon: The Heart of the Great Alone. Scott, Shackleton and Antarctic Photography. The Royal Collection, London 2011, ISBN 978-1-905686-43-8 .
  • Alan Cotton. A Painter's Journey to Everest. David Messum Fine Art, 2012, ISBN 978-1-908486-23-3 .
  • No such thing as failure. The Extraordinary Life of a Great British Adventurer. Constable, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-4721-1303-0 .
  • Open water / breaking ice. The Polar Ocean Challenge. A Voyage of Exploration Around the North Pole. Halsgrove 2017, ISBN 978-0-85704-316-0 .

Web links

Commons : David Hempleman-Adams  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael David Hempleman. Companies House , accessed January 29, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Arise, Sir David! Swindon Web, December 31, 2016, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Jonathan Sale: Passed / Failed: David Hempleman-Adams. The Independent , February 20, 1997, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  4. ^ Up, up and away. In: Geographical. Campion Interactive Publishing, Vol. 72, Issue 6 (2000), p. 114 (English).
  5. ^ Barry Leighton: Explorer David Hempleman-Adams wanders the world. Swindon Advertiser, April 29, 2015, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Sir David Hempleman-Adams KCVO OBE KStJ DL. Order of Saint John , accessed January 29, 2019 .
  7. ↑ a b c David Hempleman-Adams: my five biggest adventures. The Telegraph , September 4, 2014, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  8. ^ First person to complete the Adventurers Grand Slam. Guinness World Records , accessed January 29, 2019 .
  9. ↑ a b c d e David K. Hempleman-Adams, LVO, OBE, MED '00. The Explorers Club , accessed January 29, 2019 .
  10. ↑ David Hempleman-Adams: No Such Thing as Failure. The Extraordinary Life of a Great British Adventurer. Constable, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-4721-1303-0 (English).
  11. ↑ Explorer achieves balloon record. BBC , September 20, 2009, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  12. ^ David Hempleman-Adams breaks balloon records. The Telegraph , September 20, 2009, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Polar Ocean Challenge. October 2016, accessed on January 29, 2019 .
  14. ↑ David Hempleman-Adams urges climate change action after Arctic voyage. BBC , January 2, 2017, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  15. ↑ a b The Royal Victorian Order. In: The London Gazette , Supplement 61803 (December 31, 2016), p. N4. (online) , accessed January 18, 2019 (English).
  16. ↑ a b Sir David Hempleman-Adams receives knighthood. BBC , December 30, 2016, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  17. ^ A b Clare Garner: David Hempleman-Adams - The man who broke the ice and entered the history books. The Independent , May 1, 1998, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  18. ↑ Explorer daughter's Arctic walk. BBC , April 14, 2005, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  19. ^ Holly Watt: Camilla Hempleman Adams, 15, breaks North Pole record. The Times , April 13, 2008, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Camilla Hempleman-Adams. Spiegel Online , April 28, 2008, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  21. ↑ Amelia Hempleman-Adams breaks record to become youngest to ski to South Pole. The Telegraph , December 9, 2011, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  22. ^ The Royal Aero Club Gold Medal. British Balloon and Airship Club, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  23. ↑ David K. Hempleman-Adams, LVO, OBE, MED '00. The Explorers Club , accessed January 29, 2019 .
  24. ^ Deputy Lieutenant Commissions. In: The London Gazette , issue 57445 (October 22, 2004). (online) , accessed January 18, 2019 (English).
  25. ^ The Britannia Trophy. Royal Aero Club , accessed January 29, 2019 .
  26. ↑ Who's been honored for New Year? Swindon Advertiser, December 30, 2006, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  27. ↑ Top balloonist given City Honor. BBC , May 28, 2008, accessed January 18, 2019 .
  28. ^ Order of St John. In: The London Gazette , issue 59888 (23 Aug 2011). (online) , accessed January 19, 2019 (English).
  29. ↑ Honorary Fellowship (FRSGS). Royal Scottish Geographical Society , accessed January 29, 2019 .
  30. ↑ David Hempleman-Adams, LVO, OBE. Round Square, January 8, 2017, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  31. ^ Explorer David Hempleman-Adams receives Sheriff nomination before Antarctic trip. Wiltshire Times, November 17, 2015, accessed January 29, 2019 .
  32. ↑ Chris Humpreys: Swindon-born explorer honored by the Queen for St John Ambulance role. Wiltshire Times, February 29, 2016, accessed January 29, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Hempleman-Adams, David
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hempleman-Adams, David Kim (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British entrepreneur, adventurer and author
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Swindon , Wiltshire