101 Days across the Atlantic in a rowing boat
Introduction
A Brief History of Ocean Rowing
In 1896 two Americans of Norwegian descent set out from New York to row across the Atlantic Ocean for a wager. Georg Harbo and Gabriel Samuelson were the first recorded successful Ocean Rowers, and it was to be 70 years before others were inspired to follow their example.
In 1966 David Johnston and John Hoare set out in The Puffin on their ill-fated attempt to row from South Carolina, reluctantly being raced by two paratroopers Chay Blyth and John Ridgeway. The Puffin was lost at sea after a valiant 106 days, while Blyth and Ridgeway’s successful 90 day crossing has become one of the best known feats of seamanship of the Twentieth Century.
On 19 July 1969, the day that Neil Armstrong and his crew landed on the moon, John Fairfax landed on the Florida coast after 180 days, becoming the first person to row across the Atlantic single-handed.
On 12 October 1997, by which date only 23 people had successfully rowed an Ocean (and six had tragically been lost in the attempt), the first ever transatlantic rowing race set out from the Canary Islands. Organized by Sir Chay Blyth and The Challenge Business Ltd., The Port St. Charles Barbados Atlantic Rowing Race claimed the record as the longest rowing race ever at 2,900 nautical miles. Thirty identical two-person boats started the race, and 24 finished (two finishing with only a single rower still aboard), taking the art of ocean rowing to a new, much more professional level. The winning team, The Kiwi Challenger from New Zealand crewed by past Olympiad Rob Hamill and future Olympiad Phil Stubbs, smashed the previous record to finish in a staggering 42 days. The team which came last out of those who finished, in 101 days, was Carpe Diem. 2Lt Daniel Byles (RAMC) and team mate Jan Meek became the first and only Mother & Son team, and Jan the oldest person, ever to row an ocean.
Aims
1) To cross the Atlantic Ocean unsupported, using no means of propulsion other than rowing.
2) To set a new world record for the oldest person ever to row an Ocean.
Route and Timing
The expedition crossed the Atlantic from East to West; from Los Gigantes in Tenerife, the Canary Islands to Port St. Charles in Barbados, the Caribbean.
Favoured by the North-East trade wind the Canaries have been the starting off point for voyages of adventure, exploration and commerce since the discovery of the Americas. The start date of October was designed to avoid the hurricane season.
Phase 1: Preparation
The preparation for the Atlantic Challenge began over two years before the race started. The tasks ahead were daunting: neither Mum nor I were experienced rowers or sailors, nor were we anywhere near being fit enough. The organizer’s estimate for the overall cost of the project was in the region of £20,000 to £25,000 - a sum that we would have to raise ourselves through sponsorship. Despite being provided with a minimum list of mandatory safety equipment, we would need to identify everything needed for an extended sea crossing with virtually no backup, purchase and assemble the boat, and learn to use it all. Finally, we would need to identify the skills required to pit our wits against an unforgiving ocean, and learn them all from scratch.
We began by surrounding ourselves with ‘experts’ and taking advice. Friends who were experienced sailors and rowers. Boat builders. SAS water survival experts (…ssshhh…). Nutrition experts. We were even fortunate enough to meet Mike Nester, who actually rowed the Atlantic from Tenerife in 1986. All were adamant that we could do it, and being taken seriously from early on by people who had some idea of what we were about to put ourselves through was a tremendous boost to our confidence.
Personal Training
1) Physical:
There was a lot to do before we could say we were even close to being prepared. Physically, I was obviously fitter than Mum but I had never been a rower and the muscles and techniques required were a mystery to me. Mum meanwhile, had always listed her hobbies as classical music and reading, and her age was obviously a worry. Thus from the start our training regimes were different.
Still at University, I was able to take advantage of the training facilities available and start to put in the hours on the rowing machine. I was used to running and circuit training, and I continued with these activities against a backdrop of slowly increased rowing. For the final year of preparation before the start of the race, however, I was enrolled at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and obviously had to fit my rowing training in around the physical training syllabus that was imposed. As a sport I took up flat water rowing, but soon decided that rowing in a ‘four’ was of little practical value, and was given permission to travel to Wargrave near Henley-on-Thames on sports afternoons to row with Mum in a tub pair. In retrospect, even this was of limited value, and the general endurance training I was getting from Sgt Sharpe (our platoon Physical Training Instructor) was more useful.
Mum meanwhile was starting from a much lower base, and her first port of call was to a local gym where she presented them with a challenge. They had to design a program, which in two years would enable a fifty-two year old woman to row across an ocean. The gym rose to the challenge and allowed Mum to train with them for free, putting together a package which started gently, and slowly built up to a tough mixture of running, cycling, weights and the inevitable rowing! So mum probably had a much more focused regime than I did, and one that obviously did the job.
Our biggest worry for most of the two years was our lack of experience rowing in the sea. We planned several excursions to the coast, which were constantly postponed, firstly because the boat construction kept falling behind schedule, and towards the end through lack of time. In the end our sole practice period in open water took place in Tenerife the day before the race, when we were able to take Carpe Diem out for one hour. Some people are horrified when they hear this, but knowing what we now know I don’t believe it made the slightest difference. Had we been out in the Channel, I think all we would have achieved would have been to worry ourselves needlessly, as the conditions in the open Atlantic were very different from those near the shore. Mike Nestor, our advisor who successfully rowed the Atlantic in 1986, had already told us that the best practice we would get in ocean rowing techniques would be the first few days.
“By day three, you will be as skilled as on day sixty-three”
He was right.
2) Necessary Skills:
Besides rowing technique, it was clear that there were an awful lot of necessary skills which we did not possess. What we were attempting was an ocean voyage which few people had ever undertaken, and there were no real guidelines. Sailing was, however, the obvious source for most of our needs. I was already a competent crew, and one of the first things Mum did was to book herself on a day skipper course. Mum also completed a VHF Radio Handlers course and a Navigation course. One of our sponsors, The Acland Hospital, also arranged a one-on-one customised Red Cross first aid course for both of us.
A close friend who is an experienced open water sailor spent many hours and used up a lot of fax paper trying to imagine every problem we might encounter, and to prepare us for it. I, meanwhile, spent every available moment (which were precious few) at the boatyard hassling Dave, our boat-builder, and the electrician - trying to understand what they were doing and why in the hope that if (when) it went wrong I would be in a position to do something.
Despite all of this, what we didn’t know when we left Tenerife for the open seas more than outweighed what we did. Perhaps if we had understood better what we were doing however, we might not have done it!
3) Mental Preparation:
This was something extremely personal, and probably as important as the physical preparation. Mike Nestor, our advisor, had told us that our biggest problem would not be the Ocean, but getting along with each other. We were never worried about this however, believing our unique relationship to be our competitive advantage over the others in this aspect of preparation. Ultimately, we were proved right - not a single cross word was said during the entire trip.
The only other preparation that could really be done was to obtain as much information as we could that might be relevant. A list of some of our preparatory reading can be found at the end.
The Boat
The Challenge Business Ltd. designed the boat, and the intention was for all teams to compete in an identical hull. To this end all teams were obliged to buy a flat packed ‘kit’ which resembled an airfix model. The idea was that each team, by following the clear instructions, could build the boat in their back yard in a maximum of two hundred man-hours. This turned out to be a woefully inadequate estimate.
Lacking the time or skills to build the boat ourselves, we took it to a professional boat-builder in Oxfordshire with the instructions and received a quote on the basis of two hundred man-hours. Six hundred man-hours and many angry phone calls to the designer later, we had ended up spending over double the quote. We soon began to realise that the initial estimate of £20-25,000 was unrealistic, based as it was on the assumption that the actual building of the boat would cost nothing. Eventually, less than six months before the start of the race, we were presented with a completed hull which was still clearly not an Ocean going vessel. Our plans for full sea-trials were rapidly receding.
To fit the boat out with solar panels, electric lights and battery chargers; with winches, a radar reflector and in short, everything which made it a viable vessel in which to row the Atlantic; we took it to David S.J. Graham a boat-builder in Wargrave. He became what we had hoped our initial builder would be - an advisor, a team member, and a friend. Often working until the early hours, and flying out to Tenerife for last minute tinkering and to see us off, he did far more work than we could ever have paid him for. The boat that took us across the Atlantic was Dave’s baby not ours.
During the final few months, Dave sent many faxes to the organizers explaining when he wanted to alter part of the design and why. Usually we were forbade from doing that which we felt was necessary for both safety and comfort, but some alterations were allowed and the boat began to take on an individual feel. Just how individual the boats would ultimately be wasn’t apparent until they began to arrive in Tenerife and we could all compare our handiwork, and our ideas. It was fascinating to see the different approaches people had taken to the same problems. As Sir Chay Blyth commented:
“I’ve never seen so many completely different ‘identical’ boats”.
Fund-raising
The initial estimate for the overall cost of the project was £20-25,000, which at the time seemed an achievable goal. In the end, we spent over three times that. The entire cost had to be met through fund-raising, sponsorship and grants, all of which we were responsible for finding ourselves. Our first port of call was Companies House in London, where we formed the limited company: ‘Jan And Dan Rowing The Atlantic Ltd.’ This enabled us to register for Value Added Tax (VAT) and claim 17.5% back every time we purchased an item of equipment, which in the case of the boat kit at £6,500 was quite a considerable sum.
Raising the money to purchase the boat and equipment was probably harder than actually rowing across the Atlantic. Much of the preparation had to wait until the last minute simply because work could only proceed as quickly as the money became available (thank goodness for that last minute, otherwise nothing would ever get done). Our initial ‘chicken and egg’ problem was one of credibility. Until we had the boat, all we had was a dream. Anyone can announce that they intend to do something out of the ordinary, but when you’re asking companies to part with thousands of pounds you need to show them a concrete commitment. We did this by raising a loan with the National Westminster Bank to cover the cost of purchasing and assembling the boat kit. This was guaranteed on our cottage, and so from the start we effectively mortgaged our home to pay for the race.
Once we had a boat, we had credibility. We had demonstrated our personal commitment to the project financially, and we could invite potential sponsors to the boatyard to see Carpe Diem actually being built. The latter was quite a photogenic option, and also started what was to become a rush of media interest in the project. The task of converting publicity into cash, however, was not an easy one.
One of my first tasks was to fill in an Adventurous Training Form (Alpha) and the project formally became EX CARPE DIEM (TIGER). This enabled us to tap into the various sources of help and funding which are available through the Army. We were awarded Cash in Lieu of Rations (CILOR) for our time in Tenerife, plus a cash contribution towards our travel costs. Perhaps more useful though, was clearance to approach the Directorate of Services Food Management for help with provisions. Major Martin was able to provide the expedition with 300x24hr Ration Packs (one and a half each per day) plus an additional £1500 towards the costs of extra food supplements, which was a considerable weight off the budget. Our first big income boost then came in the form of a £5,000 grant from the Berlin Infantry Brigade Memorial Trust Fund.
The bulk of our income came from individual and corporate sponsorship. Individuals were encouraged to sponsor us 1p a mile (£29), while small firms could give 10p or a pound. Besides raising money to cover our costs, we aimed to raise at least £10,000 to donate towards our chosen charities: The National Cancer Alliance, The Oxfordshire Association for the Blind and Challenor School (a Barbados school for mentally handicapped children). What is sad, is that had the costs remained as expected, we would have ended up donating nearly £20,000. As it is, we ended up more than that in debt.
Besides private sponsorship, small firms were encouraged to ‘buy’ a spot on the boat for £500 upwards, and our major sponsor - Seven Seas - gave £5,000 (plus VAT of course!). Alongside cash donations, many firms were able to give equipment or services in kind. Remember, ask for what they can say yes to, not for what they have to say no to.
Publicity
As the ‘Mother & Son’ team, we obviously had an advantage when it came to public relations. For a while, we were also the oldest and youngest entrant in the same boat, but at the last minute a twenty-one year old stepped in as someone’s replacement thus pipping me at the post. Mum is, however, now the oldest person ever to row an Ocean. All of this gave us considerable media appeal, and from early on we found ourselves sought out first by local press, and later by the national press and some television programs. We found that publicity feeds on itself, and that making time for relatively small publications would often lead to something bigger. Each time we appeared in print, it would lead to a rash of phone calls from other journalists who read about us and then wanted to feature us from another angle. We were even telephoned by a PR company that had been retained by another team, who asked us what our secret was!
Our biggest coup was being offered a video camera with a waterproof housing by BBC Midlands Today with which to film the crossing. They covered our story from the start, even sending a team to Tenerife and to Barbados, and we ended up with nine and a half hours of ‘on-board’ footage, which we had hoped would be made into a mini documentary. Alas, this was not to be, and after running a small series of reports before, during and after the race, the BBC kindly turned all of the tapes over to us bar the final tape of us crossing the finish line which they sadly lost.
We learned early on, however, that very few journalists were willing to pay for a human-interest story such as ours. Turning publicity into cash was harder than we expected, but what it did do was give us credibility with our sponsors and paid them back with a little publicity. Once we had achieved what we set out to do, we were finally able to charge for our story, but we still weren’t able to command more than about £400 a publication, and there were only a few before we were yesterday’s news.
Many people have asked why we did not write a book about our adventure, but both Mum and I felt that such a book would be quite narrow and of limited interest. We both feel that the story of our Atlantic crossing will one day be a chapter in a much larger and more interesting tale.
Phase 2: Tenerife
On the 17 September 1997, the boat was delivered to Felixtowe laden with supplies and equipment ready to be shipped to Tenerife by Interglobal. The previous few days had been a frenzy of activity to get everything prepared in time, with Dave (our boat-builder) actually sleeping on Carpe Diem at the boatyard two nights in a row - becoming the first person to have done so! There were still one or two outstanding jobs, and Dave agreed to fly out for one week to finish them and help us with last minute preparation. In the end, he stayed in Tenerife for nearly three weeks to wave us off at the start and see through what had become a personal project for him.
Less than a week later, Mum and I flew to Tenerife to meet the boat and to try to sort everything out in good time. The idea was that we would pack the boat, actually row her in the sea, and then spend the last week relaxing and eating for Britain. This was not to be. When we arrived, we were only the third team on the island. Key Challenger and Cellnet Challenge were already in theatre, and it was interesting to finally see some of the other boats that would be attempting the crossing. When we came to extract Carpe Diem from customs, however, our problems began. The Challenge Business did not yet have a representative on site, and a local businessman was looking after their interests. He was helpful in dealing with the bureaucracy, but for a price. The quaint Spanish custom of doing everything manana (tomorrow) fully applies on the island, and it was several days before our boat was brought to Los Gigantes, where we could unpack our stores and set to work preparing her for her first introduction to the sea.
Two weeks before the official start date, Carpe Diem was afloat in a borrowed mooring at Los Gigantes marina. By now, however, the Challenge Business representative was on site with the news that we were to be ‘scrutinised’ by the race authorities on Tuesday 7th October - five days before the start. This would involve showing all safety equipment, and taking the boat out of the water to weigh her! They also wanted to do this at a harbour 5 miles down the coast. By now, we were not alone in having our vessel in the water at Los Gigantes, and together with the other teams we successfully argued to be scrutinised on site. However, to weigh her Carpe Diem would have to be empty of all equipment other than that which was permanently fixed. Thus we were unable to pack the boat and balance her until literally days before we were due to leave. Our relaxing final week became a hectic scramble to organise all the kit in time, a task that wasn’t finished until late Saturday - the day before lift off. What made the whole thing really galling was that in the end the scrutinising consisted of nothing more than a quick chat by the side of the marina: no weighing, no detailed examination of equipment or boat. We could have done all of our packing the week before without penalty. This was, sadly, to prove typical of the race organisation.
By the time most of the entrants had arrived and displayed their boats, it became obvious that many had adopted a laissez-faire approach to the race rules. Dave, who had religiously contacted the organisers over every ambiguity and every change he wished to make, confidently predicted that half of the fleet would be disqualified. Some for tiny alterations which we had clearly been forbade from making, others for blatant redesigns of the hull: some had deepened the keel, and one boat had even added skegs, or ‘fins’, which we had all been expressly forbidden from doing. The organisers held a meeting of all involved to discuss the problem. The meeting was an acrimonious affair, with the more competitive teams accusing the Challenge Business of failing to show leadership, while they for their part admitted to underestimating how competitive some entrants would be. In the end it was thrown open to a vote, and all boats were allowed to compete - an unsatisfactory arrangement to many. On the Friday (two days before the start) we received a letter stating that we could now deepen our keel and add fins if we chose. It was almost comical.
On Sunday morning, all thoughts of controversy were pushed aside as a clear day dawned for the start. The Harbour Lights, a local bar that had ‘adopted’ the race entrants, laid on a free breakfast for all of the rowers, and every boat in Los Gigantes was standing by to see us off. The atmosphere was electric, with crowds of friends, family and well wishers gathered at the marina. The sight of tough Royal Marines crying by the quay-side before the start was extremely moving, and really brought home to us just what we were about to attempt. The excitement was tempered by a touch of sadness, however, at the news that David Mossman of the Key Challenger was seriously ill with food poisoning and they wouldn’t be starting with the rest of us.
After an emotional farewell to loved-ones, we took our places at the oars and cast off. The start time was 1000, and by 0945 all thirty boats were spread out over the start-line, dwarfed by ‘3 COM’ the safety boat and outnumbered by well-wishers. The tension was incredible as the clock ticked down, until suddenly the flag went up and ‘3 COM’ blasted her foghorn. The race was on.
Phase 3: The Atlantic
After the foghorn had sounded, there was a sense of anti-climax. Rowing races are not speedy events, and it took a few moments for any outward signs of reaction to become apparent. Then slowly, surely, the tiny craft began to draw apart - some heading north, some south - each being hounded by its accompaniment of speedboats and pleasure craft. One’s horizon is very small in a tiny boat at sea, and it wasn’t long before the other rowing boats were out of sight. It took a little longer for the spectators to stop pausing alongside to take photos; but finally, a few hours after the start, we were alone with the Ocean.
As Mike Nestor had advised us, the technique of ocean rowing was one we picked up quickly. Before we left we had studied video footage of Peter Bird’s Pacific crossing, and had been curious at his peculiar style - rowing with one hand at a time: left-then-right…pause… left-then-right...pause. Without really noticing it, we soon adopted the same rhythm as a result of the wave action on the boat. Rowing in a 50’ swell was a different kettle of fish to rowing in a scrappy, choppy squall, and practicing on the Thames was of practically no use for either. We found that we settled into whatever rhythm was the most comfortable, and within 3 or 4 days our technique was as polished as it was at the end. Practice sessions in open water may well be useful and it would be questionable for us to advise anyone not to bother, but we believe other factors to be more important to overall success. It is more important to have the right equipment, the right attitude, and a well-prepared boat than to lose sleep over rowing in the sea.
The weather and conditions we encountered were generally typical for the time of year. The route and dates were chosen to avoid the hurricane season, which later turned out to be one of the mildest on record due in part to the El Nino weather front in the Pacific. It was this front that initially worried us, as any change to the normal weather patterns could potentially have interfered with the Trade Winds which blow from East to West across the mid-Atlantic. We needn’t have worried. It did take some weeks for the wind become favourable, however, and for the first 26 days we experienced only 2 or 3 days for which the wind was behind us.
It rapidly became clear that the wind was the factor that could influence the boat positively or otherwise. For days on end at the start we faced headwinds that did their best to push us back towards the Canaries - forcing us to end up completing two complete circles. We lost nearly 200 miles in all, adding weeks to our time and using up any spare time our food might have allowed us. Although it didn’t scupper us, those lost days used up any room for manoeuvre we may otherwise have had. The danger now was that another big hold up, and we risked running out of food.
By day 26 the elusive Trade Winds finally appeared, and for most of the journey kept up a gentle push in broadly the right direction. That the wind was a vital factor was proved by the fact that our record daily run of 55.7 miles took place on day 84, during a week of extremely strong wind and enormous waves. We were on our way.
Preparatory Reading
Merton Naydler, The Penance Way , Hutchinson 1968.
John Ridgeway & Chay Blyth, A Fighting Chance, Hamlyn 1966.
Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, Picador 1994.
Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm, Fourth Estate Ltd 1997.
Dougal Robertson, Survive The Savage Sea, Penguin Books Ltd 1973.
Lisa Clayton, At The Mercy of the Sea, Orion Books Ltd 1996.
117 Days Adrift
(Other books by Ocean Rowers):
John Fairfax, Britannia: Rowing alone across the Atlantic, Kimber 1971.
John Fairfax & Sylvia Cook, Oars Across the Pacific, Norton 1973.
Peter Bird & Derek King, Small Boat Against the Sea, Elek 1976.
Tom McClean, Rough Passage, Hutchinson 1983.
Deborah Veal, Rowing It Alone, Robson Books Ltd 2002.
Jim Shekhdar, Bold Man of the Sea, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd 2001.