January3
By Mark Beaumont and Rob Pendleton
L-R: Matt, Aodhan, Simon, Yaacov, Ian, Mark
At 1pm on the 2nd January the Atlantic Odyssey crew set off on their East – West Atlantic row record attempt from Tarfaya in Morocco to Barbados.
They are attempting to row across the 3,000 miles of ocean in less than 30 days!
The team of Matt Craughwell (skipper), Mark Beaumont, Ian Rowe, Simon Brown, Yaacov Mutnikas and Aodhan Kelly play to row 100 nautical miles a day, via a strict regime of 2 hours on and 2 hours off the oars. Clearly this is not for the faint hearted and one that will test the mental and physical reserves of all those involved.
To put this all in perspective, the first ocean row was undertaken by two Norwegians, Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo, who rowed an open wooden boat from New York to France in 1896, but it would be another seventy years before the next ocean row in 1966, when John Ridgeway and Sir Chay Blythe succeeded in rowing from Newfoundland to Ireland.
And amazingly up until 1988, only 19 people had ever rowed an ocean. Now, there have been over 500 but strangely 321 of these have been Britons – so it seems that the adage ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’ applies to the whole of our island! For 500 people to have rowed an ocean sounds quite a lot, until you consider that over 3000 people have stood on the top of Mount Everest!
Sara G in Agadir
The first ocean rows were undertaken without any modern technologies and communications. They had to carry all the water they needed for their entire journeys and were truly tenacious and pioneering voyages. Gerard d’Aboville (1896-1982), who rowed the Atlantic, once said about these early crossings, ‘We were like test pilots, but without a parachute.’
The crew on this record attempt will be rowing in ‘Sara G’ an 11 metre boat, and the vessel in which the current world record was set.
The crew for his present challenge were selected from nine rounds of sea trials that began in April 2011. Their attempt will be fuelled by each crew member consuming between 5000 and 6000 calories every day, while expending somewhere close to 12,000 calories a day.
The team’s website said of the challenge: “Of the countless teams that have taken to the Atlantic trying to set the fastest time ever, the sub-30 day barrier has so far remained elusive. The first team to break this barrier will achieve, what has seemed for many involved, the unassailable mark in the sport’s history. We have a huge range of experience in the boat and come from many different backgrounds, but the stand-out fact for each member is their rowing history.”
Over the course of the journey the crew will be sending back regular blogs and pictures, and Mark will be writing exclusively for The Independent. In addition the crew will be able to send back brief voice messages through iPadio. To hear Matt’s departure messages click here:
Atlantic Odyssey Channel – 5th phonecast http://ipad.io/niV
Full details about the attempt can be tracked via www.Atlantic-odyssey.com and their dedicated twitter feed http://twitter.com/AtlanticOdyssey
