TO FOLLOW OUR ATLANTIC ROW ON THE MAP GO TO THE ‘ATLANTIC ROW 2010′ TAB ABOVE, OR SEE BELOW FOR OUR BLOG UPDATE!

If you want to contact the crew while they are at sea, please text the number below using the link. Due to technical problems, emails are no longer being received by the crew so texting is the best way of getting your message to them.

You can now send a FREE text message of 160 characters to the crew by using this link : http://messaging.iridium.com and entering their number, which is : 881631667053

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Welcome to the online home of ‘World Ocean Rowing’. The aim of World Ocean Rowing is to provide safe and successful ocean rowing expeditions for the growing number of ocean rowing enthusiasts around the world.

The first of these expeditions commences in January 2010 - a row across the Atlantic Ocean (East to West) in our state-of-the-art ocean rowing boat (Sara G - above). See Atlantic Row 2010 for more details. The crew for this row is already selected but if you are interested in our future ocean rowing expeditions, see the ‘Future Projects’ section for our plans for 2011 and beyond!!

Blog

9th March, 2010: Friends and family are assembling in beautiful Barbados and there is a wave [see what I did there?] of excitement in the air as everyone prepares to see their loved ones disembark from Sara G. tomorrow evening!  After another weather-related delay yesterday resulting in a fairly low mileage for that day, the crew is back on track again and making over 3 knots.   The much-anticipated arrival is predicted for tomorrow evening between 5pm and 11pm and it can’t come soon enough (although it has to be admitted that the beautiful beaches of Barbados, not to mention the rum cocktails, have helped brighten the spirits of everyone who has waited so long for the big arrival!)

6th March, 2010: Almost there!!  Only 275 nautical miles, so 500km to go now!! The first arrivals of the welcome party will touch down in Barbados tomorrow (the easy way, by plane!) with the rest not far behind within the following few days.   The crew are now counting down the days until the end of their adventure with mixed emotions; the excitement of seeing their friends and family, regret that the adventure is ending, pride on their amazing accomplishment and relief at being able to sleep in a real bed, to eat some proper food, to drink a cold beer or two and to finally let those sore bums heal!  Wednesday is still the predicted arrival date and we hope to have an estimate of the timing on Monday…

4th March, 2010: Less than 500 nautical miles to go!!  As of 10.30 yesterday morning, just 478 miles left, having already covered over 2,600.  The crew are exhausted but getting very excited about their impending arrival, and so is the sealife!  In the last couple of days, they have seen a whale (on Tuesday) and more dolphins (yesterday)!!  Spirits are high, winds are on their side and current predictions for the arrival are for next Wednesday afternoon…

February 28th, 2010: After a couple of relatively slow days due to a change of course in order to narrowly miss another low-pressure system, Sara G is picking up speed again.  An exciting event for the crew is that one of Mylène’s friends is an amateur astronomer and has contacts in NASA.  Through his contacts, he arranged for a photo to be taken of Sara G. (or at least, the area where the boat is currently!) from an international satellite!  A link will follow when available.  This week, the crew achieved their fastest speed recorded so far :  5.4 knots!   The crew are starting to get excited about their arrival in Barbados, which should be around 10 days from now.    Friends and family are now starting to book their trips out to there to welcome them and treat them to some well-deserved R&R.

February 23rd, 2010: The crew saw the first humans they have come into contact with since since their departure today, quite an emotional experience and one that surely brought home the solitude of the voyage to each of the rowers.  The people they saw were on an English yacht, on its way to an island north of Barbados.  As they passed them, although keeping the required distance away from Sara G, the crew was able to chat to them for 10-15 minutes.   In other news, Peter has come up with a novel and inventive way of protecting himself from the flying fish, having received two on the head during the night!  The device is apparently constructed of two towels, strategically placed around the head and although he is unlikely to be patenting it any time in the near future, it has been Christened the “Fish Defender 5000″!! The crew is rowing at a good speed and are hoping to make a 70 n.m. day today.  Please keep the texts coming, each and every one is appreciated!!

February 22nd, 2010: Under 1000 nautical miles left and the crew is now well into its longest stint on the oars, having now travelled for longer than they did before they had to go on sea anchor.  The crew is tiring in the unrelentless heat, as are various iPods and other luxuries, but rest assured, they are still battling on regardless.  Flying fish are still waging war against the boat and crew!! They are down to the least appetising dried food packages on the boat, the (dreaded?) green ones, having exhausted the luxury of British Army ration packs and the orange packets, which are apparently slightly more appetising than the remaining green ones.  However their arrival is estimated in about 2 weeks or so now, so it won’t be long before they are in Barbados enjoying a well-deserved proper meal and a nice cold beer.

February 20th, 2010: Sara G has now covered 2000 nautical miles of the 3000 required for her Atlantic voyage !!!  As the crew enters into its final third of this incredible journey, they would like to thank everyone who has supported them so far.  Keep the texts coming in to the number above, they’re free to send from the Iridium website and free for the crew to receive. They appreciate every morsel  of news and encouragement from home.   Mike cleaned the hull yesterday and their speed has augmented accordingly:  118km/64nm covered in the last 24 hours.   One of the cabins is leaking but they are working around this problem but have to empty the water every 2-3 days… yet another task in an already busy schedule.  But the team are still in high spirits, and are even a little disappointed to be coming close to the end of their amazing adventure! Still, they will all appreciate sleeping in their own beds again!!  Current predictions for their arrival date are between 8 and 11 March, but this is of course subject to change - as everyone who has been following their journey will have seen, the ocean is full of surprises!!!

February 17th, 2010: Winds are on our side now, we picked up a little bit of speed today as you can see from the tracker, but still not as much as we’d like to… we’ll be cleaning the hull of barnacles again and hoping that this will help as much as it did last time!  Caught some more fish today too, makes a great change from the ration packs!

February 15th, 2010: EMAIL IS DOWN AGAIN.  It looks unlikely that it will work again for the rest of the trip as this is a problem with the computer rather than the email system itself.  Any emails sent before 18.30 yesterday will unfortunately not have been viewed by the crew.  You can still send free texts to the number above.

February 14th, 2010: Valentines day on the ocean and the guys with wifes/girlfriends are wondering whether the flowers they arranged pre-row have arrived at the houses of their Significant Others!!

Another day of light/no wind but this is due to change tonight to N/NE winds meaning next week should produce some good miles towards Barbados! After 4 days of c. 40 miles/day, this is will be welcomed by the crew…

February 13th, 2010: Slow day today due to S/SE winds. Very hot too. All in all a tough day on
the oars.   Hopefully from Monday, the winds will change in our favour.  We also lost some of our cooking equipment overboard.  Peter dived in to get it, and managed to rescue Mylène’s thermal flask but we  lost the pan from our portable stove.  Oops!

February 11th, 2010: HALFWAY!! To celebrate, we all went swimming  (most naked – except Mylène!!) and while we were doing so, Matt caught 3 dorado! Delicious!! A great halfway treat!! We got some great photos jumping in off the boat in our birthday suits!!!

We also drank our can of Heineken and had some Pringles – all delicacies none of us has had in 31 days!!! We resumed rowing at 17:30GMT after a great R&R session.  Roll on the 2nd half !!

[Editor's note: fortunately for us, they have not sent us the photos referred to above! We'll have to make do with the one below which was received today!]

February 10th, 2010: Came very close to a cargo ship last night but we radioed the skipper and he changed his course in time!

Winds are directly on our stern now. The trade winds are thus in full effect but the forecast shows the wind to be slackening off (but still from due East which is good) over the next few days.

We are passing a few Woodvale Race boats (no, we don’t get to see them as we pass them!!!) and will continue to do so for the next two weeks before they bear further north for Antigua (we will be bearing further south to Barbados).

Asses are sore as ever on board but if this ocean rowing lark were easy, everyone would be doing it!!

February 8th, 2010: All well here. Pedro was standing up on deck last night scanning the horizon for ships when out of nowhere a flying fish (about 8 inches in length) flew out of the water and hit him in the neck. Shocked he was not; with military efficiency, Pedro reached straight for a Stanley knife just a few yards away from him and beheaded said flying fish! The remains shall be fried for Pedro’s breakfast in the morning!

We are bearing down on the halfway mark and expect to hit it on Wednesday night/Thursday morning whereupon a warm can of Heineken will be enjoyed by each of the crew members… except Peter who has traded his can with Matt in exchange for the use of half of Matt’s bed pillow as extra ass-cushioning for the rest of the trip!! Both parties are said to be very pleased with this agreement!!

One of the crew got the following email from their worried mother (God bless her!!). Needless to say we all got a good laugh from it:

“Before you set off you had a line going from Agadir to Barbados, a continuous green line on the chart that is still there.  As you set out you were right beside this line and as you have continued your heading south further away from it, as of now, your rowing line is approx 1 inch south of the green line.   just wondering are you aware of this?” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

February 7th, 2010:

Matt and Mylène jumped in and scrubbed the hull today to relieve it from barnacles. This has now added a knot to our speed over the ground!!

Having done 90nm in one day two weeks ago, we are soon going to have a crack at the world record for the most nautical miles rowed in a 24 hr period at sea. This record currently stands at 102nm (117 statute miles) which was set by La Mondiale from Jan 02 2008 (12:01 GMT) till Jan 03 2008 (12:01GMT). With 15-20 knots directly on our stern we reckon we can do it. Will keep ye posted!!!

February 4th, 2010: The crew passed the 1/3rd mark today!  Over 2000km rowed in total already, and a distance (as the crow flies) of 3643km left to go to get to Bridgetown.

February 3rd, 2010: Well, we have our email back!! Glad to be back rowing too after 5 days 4 hours on sea anchor.

We’re now looking at a 28^th feb to 3^rd march arrival but this is not confirmed obviously.

Went fishing yesterday. We ate the most beautiful fresh fish ever…dorado…beautiful, sea to fork in under 30 mins, heaven!

Spirits high onboard.  Please keep the emails and texts coming – they’re very much appreciated.

You can now send the crew a free 160-character text to the number above!!

February 2nd, 2010: The crew’s email is still down, which unfortunately suggests that the problem will last for the rest of the duration of the trip.   We should know by tomorrow if that is the case.  Apart from that, the 6 days on sea anchor meant that Sara G. drifted back a distance of about 64km/40miles/26 nautical miles.   They have, within the last 24 hours made that up, albeit in a slightly different direction as they are heading south and south west.    Obviously the progress they could have made during the time they spent on sea anchor will be difficult to get back, but hopefully they are now getting back into the rhythm of their shifts and can start clocking up some of the fantastic mileages that they had before the storm.

February 1st, 2010: Good news and bad news!  The good news is that the team has begun rowing again, although they are still battling with some serious winds and waves.  The bad news is the email is still down and it’s possible that it will be for the rest of the duration of the trip.   We should know within the next couple of days whether or not this is the case and if it is, we will find a work around which will be posted here.  Watch this space!

January 30th, 2010: The crew’s email system seems to be down unfortunately, however the crew is still on sea anchor due to the bad weather and may be for a few more days.  Further updates will follow when available!

January 27th, 2010: Having started the day well by catching a 3ft baracuda (a fish!) on our fishing rod line at 6:30am, we stopped rowing at 10:30am due to rowing backwards i.e. the now southerly wind/swell was pushing us north (despite our rowing) at a rate of .7 miles per hour. We thus deployed our sea anchor to reduce our backwards drift as much as possible. As these conditions are due to stay for a few days, we may not be doing any rowing agin until Sunday or Monday (hopefully sooner). The effect of this means that our crossing will now take an extra 5 or so days – depending on how much we get pushed back/how long the southerly winds prevail. In the meantime the crew can catch up on some well  deserved rest and further hone our fishing skills!!

January 26th, 2010: 30 degrees, clear blue skies, light swell, music blaring from our on-deck speakers, fishing rod strapped to the deck on the off-chance… life is good for the crew of Sara G!!! 1975 nautical miles left. Hopefully we’ll hit halfway by Sunday then the countdown begins!!!

January 25th, 2010: 2000 miles left to go, we’re aiming for a c. 20th Feb arrival in Barbados.  Got very wet today, waves seem to break through the deck (on top of us!!). Winds lightening now, were expecting a few hard days on the oars. Thanks for all the well wishes. The crew really appreciate it

January 24th, 2010: The crew just keeps getting better and better!  Another 96 miles (154km) travelled in the last 24 hours and another milestone reached : their total distance travelled has surpassed 1000 miles as of this evening!

January 22nd, 2010: Another great day, another 83 miles closer to Barbados! And here we are with our first photograph of life in the mid-Atlantic!!

January 21st, 2010: “Even the most fantastic dreams can be achieved if we are prepared to endure life’s challenges” (Nelson Mandela).  And what a challenge the crew of Sara G. is enduring!  Huge waves and wind at a rate that literally knocked Mylène out of her seat (!) meant that the guys had to take a short break in the cabin and wait for them to pass.  Even so, upon returning to their positions and getting right back on the job, they achieved an amazing 83 miles today!

January 20th, 2010: Winds of 20knots on our stern made rowing light work. Well when we say rowing we mean rowing/surfing!!! 15ft swells pushed us west all the way through the night. Calmer conditions now. Thanks for all the emails. The boat and crew are coping well with the conditions and with weather like this we’re hoping for sub 40 days!!  89 miles in the last 24 hours bringing our total mileage for our first 8 days up to just under 600 miles!

January 17th 2010: The crew went swimming today!!  Spirits are high and we’re having a lot of fun!  We are making great progress, having just passed the southernmost point of the Canary Islands.  We have now rowed over 390 miles (628km), with yesterday being our best day yet - 85 miles in 24 hours!

January 13th 2010: As at 15.30 today, the crew of Sara G. has rowed a total distance of 92.35 miles (148.62km) !

January 12th 2010: After what seemed like an endless wait for the winds to change, Sara G and her crew left Agadir at 07:00 GMT today and have made good progress away from land.   Watch this space for further updates!

January 8th 2010: On standby in Agadir waiting for a more favourable weather window.. More news to follow when we have it….

January 6th 2010: Expecting to leave tomorrow (Thursday).

Note: when using the tracking map in ‘Atlantic Row 2010′, you may need to press the “-” (minus/zoom out) button on our tracking map to see where we are in relation to the overall Atlantic ocean.

January 2nd 2010: We are now all in Agadir awaiting our departure. We expect to row out of Agadir Marina on c. 6th January but this could be delayed due to an inappropriate weather window.

December 26th 2009: The crew of ‘Sara G’ is now enroute to Agadir in Morocco to prepare for the start of our journey across the Atlantic. The row will begin between 5th and the 15th of January - all depending on the right weather window. There will be a blog here from when the row commences and you track our progress in the ‘Atlantic Row 2010′ section or at http://system.marinetrack.com/eventviewer/?event=ar2010

November 26th 2009: After 7 days (and nights) of final preparations, Sara G was loaded into a container at midday today to start the 1st leg in her voyage across the Atlantic. She looks in stunning form and is one of the most comprehensively fitted out ocean rowing boats to take to the Atlantic. The RNLI certified the boat’s safety saying “the boat is very well prepared for its forthcoming voyage”. Onwards to the startline…

October 24th 2009: The crew and their partners/girlfriends have a night out to celebrate Mylene’s 31st Birthday!

October 23rd 2009: Sara G’s compass is swung by the famous Ron Robinson - who swung Ridgeway and Blyth’s compass over 40 years ago! We also conducted a successful self-right test which can be viewed at http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=332432785296&ref=mf

October 19th 2009: The crew met up in Lymington over the weekend for a sea trial from Lymington to Poole bay and back. A number of the boat’s sytems were tested, the sea anchor was deployed and retrieved and the crew got some good mileage under their belts. A few beers and a nice meal finished off a good day at sea. A short video of the sea trial can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxJiLSpWTvI

October 13th 2009: The full crew meets for the first time in Lymington this weekend for a sea-trial.

October 12th 2009: Stargate Nutrition vitamins are sponsoring vitamins for the crew. Their vitamin and mineral material has been designed to be 16 times more effective, 5 times more utilised and 6 times more retained than the vast majority (99%) of nutrient material on the nutrition market. These vitamins really are nutrition as nature intended!!

September 27th 2009: World Ocean Rowing are delighted to announce the final crew member to join our Atlantic Row in January – James Kenworthy! Another hurdle in the build-up to January is crossed! Read more about James in the ‘Crew’ section.

September 17th 2009: World Ocean Rowing are glad to announce the addition of Cork man Mike Jones to the crew of Sara G for the 2010 Atlantic Row. Mike brings a wealth of applicable experience to the crew and is eagerly looking forward to our January departure! Mike is looking for local sponsorship and can be contacted through his website www.atlantic5000.com. Mike joins the crew at an opportune time as Livar Nysted – due to a job opportunity with the Faroese Coast Guard – has unfortunately had to pull out of the row. We wish Livar all the best in his new position. We are still looking for our 6th crew member and have a number of candidates all showing strong interest!!

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September 16th 2009: World Ocean Rowing are pleased to announce that the weather and routing services of Peter “Stokey” Woodall have been employed for our first ocean rowing expedition in January. “Stokey” is a well known ocean sailor who has in 30 years made some 30 Trans Atlantic crossings and amassed more than a quarter of a million sea miles. He is a highly respected teacher in celestial navigation and has sailed to the Azores some 89 times teaching students completing their Ocean Yachtmaster certification. Stokey has done plenty of ‘weather and routing’ before (including for Pete/Matt’s record-breaking attempt on La Mondiale in 2009) and is recognised as one of the best in the business for guiding ocean rowing boats across the Atlantic.

September 6th 2009: Sara G takes to British waters for her first time for a sea trial in Lymington!

August 15th 2009: Pedro Cunha launches his dedicated website for the row - www.onemillionstrokes.org.uk . Check it out!! Pedro is eager for sponsors to come forward and has some attractive sponsorship packages on his website!

August 9th 2009: The crew head to Christchurch to continue the work-in-progress that is the preparation of Sara G for her Atlantic debut in January.

July 17th 2009: Only one spot remains on our crew of 6 now. See ‘The Crew’ section for profiles of the crew.

July 14th 2009: Pedro Cunha (Sweden) joins our 2010 Atlantic crew. Pedro, studying at Cambridge University, is a seasoned rower and has served in the Swedish Armed Forces. Pedro therefore brings many strengths to the crew and we are glad to have him aboard.

July 5th 2009: World Ocean Rowing travelled to Henley Royal Regatta to promote World Ocean Rowing and to talk to potential ocean rowers. The day was a huge success with numerous individuals expressing interest in our first expedition in January. We even managed to get a 9-minute promo interview on Regatta Radio!

June 25th 2009: Livar Nysted (La Mondiale 2009) and Mylène Paquette join our 2010 Atlantic crew. Livar rowed with Matt and Pete on their ill-fated first ocean row in January 2009 while Mylène Paquette (www.rameatlantique.com) is a determined and inspiring Canadian woman with a desire to row the Atlantic equal to that of Matt, Pete and Livar. Welcome aboard Livar and Mylène!