Q: how did you raise the initial funds for the expedition?

>> STEVE: By the autumn of 1992 Jason and I had a design for a pedal boat and a route around the world, but no money. We had no reputation in expeditions and no reason for anyone to take our idea seriously.

I decided that if I could cycle seventeen hundred miles from London to the Sahara Desert in seventeen days, then people would realise that I was serious. They might even sponsor me to do it, with my guarantee that I would only make them pay up if I got to Marrakech on time.

I cycled out of central London at noon on October 22nd and arrived in Marrakech at 2pm on November 7th, after sixteen days and two hours. The ride raised over two thousand pounds to buy the wood to build the boat. I raised this amount not because I asked everybody I knew to support me, but because I asked everybody I knew to ask everybody they knew to support me.

Anyone who donated over ten pounds was promised an inscription of their name on the pedal boat, even though it was still just an idea on a piece of paper. And this is how, with determination, we eventually managed to build a £25,000 boat to begin our journey.

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