Not rowing the Atlantic - UPDATE
UPDATE - the boys are making excellent progress, enjoying great conditions and literally flying along. ETA tomorrow , Sunday! Myself, Clara and Niall's parents have safely arrived in Cayenne and we'll be off to the suppermarket to stock up on ice cold Coke and beers. The champagne really is now on...
Arrival plans
Arrival Right now we've just 222 miles to go to Cayenne and 170 to the nearest bit of coast. In the last few days we've enjoyed strong currents from the east/north east pushing us largely towards our arrival, albeit a little bit further south than we'd like. We tried fighting it last night but desp...
Hot, hot, hot....
Not a great deal to report - Rose keeps plodding on and every hour / day they get closer to Cayenne and an ice cold Coca Cola (the big request from all of them!) The heat, sores, aches, pains and exhaustion are all taking their toll but ETA is now only 5 days away - Monday 24th April (day 49). Some...
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"
5/6 of the row complete - ETA whipping around a bit - will it be Sunday, will it be Monday, or later?! Less than 500 nautical miles to go and updates below from Niall and Ralph. Keep the support and messages coming - this last week is when they'll really have to dig deep and overcome all their ache...
Day 41
With a lot of hard work we will arrive in Cayenne! We are 40 days at sea and we have just completed the 5/6th mark of the crossing, which means a little under 500 nautical miles to go! For the first time since the 1/3 rd mark we gained time on the record schedule! (2 full hours ;) ) With a sleek ro...
Into the last quarter and the charity blog
Firstly an update from those amazing boys in a boat. The 75% marker was passed on day 36 but some unfavourable currents have meant progress has been slow. The world record target is still achievable but it looks like it will be touch and go. Come what may land creeps ever closer so keep crossing you...
Journal update 3rd April
I ended the last blog saying Saturday was very uneventful, well I will wait to the end of the day in the future. Shortly after that blog we did an inspection of the Auto Helm because it started to play up again. Niall noticed that the bolt that secures the rudder to the arm and retains it from falli...
Lost Property
So I thought that the visit to the tuck shop in the fwd cabin would be the highlight of my Friday afternoon and was looking forward to planning when I was going to eat the treats over the coming week. ROSE and the ocean had different ideas. I packed my sweets into my trainers along with the meal I h...
Journal update 31st March
The weekend was pretty stress free, I continued to coach Clément on his technique which as come on in leaps and bounds since he first started. On the Saturday evening we spent time each watch gazing at the stars and discussing all the travelling he has done over the last 5 years. He is a truly inspi...
Staying motivated
On Friday I decided to start the day with some humour and cheer, I heard the 10 min shout to get on watch so put on my clothes, grabbed my Red Noses (DJ Boogie and Dr Nose). I put on DJ Boogie because I am always wearing headphones listening to the great Spotify playlists you have shared with me. Ni...
Day 37
day 37 5 weeks underway and the arrival in Cayenne is approaching. I chose French Guiana as our point of arrival being the most stable country in South America. That changed a bit last week, when, for the first time in 50 years, riots and demonstrations broke out. The rocket launch where we hoped fo...
Life on the sea for a month
I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce you to some of the ways of life on board a ocean rowing boat. Cooking and food On board all our food is freeze dried from Summit to Eat. The meals recommend being prepared with boiling water but Niall is now sticking with cold to save time. I pre...
Day 31
2 / 3rd of the Atlantic crossing accomplished. About 2 weeks and 1110 nautical miles to go. The delay due to faulty autopilots and barnacles growth underneath the boat we lost time on the current world record schedule, so the ETA has fallen from 45 days and 22 hours halfway to 47 days and 6 hours. S...
Never a dull moment but they're almost 2/3 of the way!
by Helen To say this endeavour/experience is a roller-coaster doesn't really get close to describing the highs and the lows that they and we are going through but every day we ( / they - it's interchangeable!) get a day closer to the finish line and cocktails on the beach!! (Assuming we can get int...
Day 30
The last few days we have been busy with the autopilot, but now we seem on the right track. Another problem was that we really slowed down, while rowing under near perfect weather conditions. Eventually we found out, and the reason was rather foolish. There is a substantial barnacles growth under t...
Day 28
Already 27 days underway and past halfway of the Atlantic crossing. We are now in the trade wind zone for quite some time, although currently the wind is moderate. In a few days we are going to adjust our course to 250 degrees west to French Guyana.There is little shipping in the area now, but the f...
Day 27
Life was a bitch these troubled days on the ocean; a couple of days ago tiller arm number two (autopilot) stopped working. Bad news since this was nr 2 of three autopilots while not even being halfway. Well, we still had one left.... but it was kind of strange that they all had the same failure whil...
We're not celebrating yet....
Relatively busy few days here. On Wednesday morning we passed the half way point of the trip. Not much celebrations really as we all understand there is still a very long way to go. Equipment failure and adverse weather conditions remain the 2 big unknowns. Of course it's nice to know that the long...
From the horses mouth!
Now nearly 3 weeks into the row, our daily routine is very well established. 24 hours breaks down roughly as follows: 12 hours on the oars - maybe 5mins per 2 hours watch to take on some water/food otherwise all rowing. The 3 night watches are tough - it will never feel normal being woken at 1am to...
Every cloud has a silver lining
At Lunchtime on Tuesday 21st we organised the watch change, Niall had come up with a process of how this should happen with the least impact to the team. Fortunately for me it had no impact other than getting to spend the afternoon with my new watch buddy Clément. For the others it meant a combinati...
Almost 1/3 complete
So we are getting close to our next milestone and the other evening, whilst rowing under the stars, I managed to fall asleep and continued to row. I was abruptly woken when my pace became out of sync with Ralph and our oars clashed. It was at that point rowing had now become a subconscious act so I...
...since the last night of doom
Quite a lot has happened on board Rose. Wednesday 15th about 18:00 we arrived at the Canaries, a key milestone (waypoint) on this passage. The crew were in high spirits, and seeing land again after 9 days at sea was an odd feeling. Our skipper Ralph referred to it as "seeing a Christmas tree from th...
The night of doom
The Night of Doom Well what can I say... after we set off on the 6th March due to being delayed by weather it looked like we had a clear passage to the canaries. We knew that if we could make it there in 9 to 10 days then we were on track for a good record attempt. The first 6 days seemed to match t...
Day 6 - Getting into a routine
Saturday 11th started off with a beautiful sunrise making the clouds in the sky a fiery red. At this point we had settled into the watch rotations and they were working well. 10mins to the second hour of a current watch either Niall or I would shout to both cabins to give them a wake up warning. Thi...
Day 5 - Calm before the storm
Friday 10th was quite a relaxing day, the sea state was calm and there was no cloud cover making it blistering hot. It made it feel like a 2hour watch was much longer as the sun zapped the energy out of your body. We managed to maintain about 4.2knts of boat speed for most of the day and this was in...
Day 4 - Cold, damp & dull
The two graveyard watches this morning were extremely tough. The weather had changed covering the ocean in thick fog, we had approximately 250m visibility. As I came out of the fed cabin it felt like a scene from pirates of the Caribbean and I was expecting Jack Sparrow to appear from the fog. The 0...
Day 3 - Turtle Rescue
Today was off to a flying start with the wind and wave direction supporting the original passage plan. Niall is still suffering from a lack of sleep so we suggested he swapped rooms for day. The aft cabin where he normally is contains the Navigation equipment and the auto helm, unfortunately it does...
Day 2 - Milestones
Day two started with a 5-7am row with a sun stunning sunrise. We also had quite a bit of other traffic crossing in front and behind us, it is quite nerve racking waiting to see if the container ship has spotted you. Whilst we are doing well some of the crew are struggling a little. Both Ralph and Ni...
Day 1 - The adventure starts
9:00-11:00 was the first watch of the day and I was feeling anxious but also excited. We spent about 30 mins just practicing and having some drone footage taken. Just before we left the harbour exit we started the spot tracker and then Clément and Ralph went off watch. Initial the first 30 mins felt...