‘Sara G’ is 11.1m long with a 1.8m beam. She was built with three sculling positions on the deck thus catering for a crew of 6 - 3 rowing while 3 rest. The boat displaces c. 1,750kg fully loaded (with a crew of 6 aboard her). The forward cabin sleeps 2 (1 at any one time apart from storm conditions) and the rear cabin will sleep 4 (2 at any one time apart from storm conditions). The hull is made of Duflex - a composite material with balsa core sandwiched between fibreglass sheeting. The entire boat is then wrapped in fibreglass for additional rigidity.

‘Sara G’ is provisioned to be fully self contained and unsupported for a 60 day voyage. The boat will utilise its own water desalination machine plus 300 litres of fresh water ballast stored in 4 litre containers. The desalinator relies on electrics but also has a manual pumping capacity in the event of power failure. Power is generated by 6 solar panels, charging two 40ampH gel batteries for redundancy. Safety is paramount. A complete inventory of modern safety equipment (Liferaft, Sat Phone, EPIRBs, Flares, Lifejackets etc.) will be in place on each expedition.

Track Record of Sara G

In 2007, Australian Steven Gates decided that he, along with 3 other rowers, were going to have a crack at breaking the record for the fastest row across of the Tasman Sea (NZ to Aus). The crew commissioned Dutchman Peter Bosgraaf to design a boat for the crossing. Bosgraaf went on to design ‘Sara G’ as a sister boat to ‘Vopak Victory’ - a 37ft craft which had endured the treacherous North Atlantic two years previous. ‘Sara G’ was born. The boat is named after his first daughter Sara and second daughter Georgia. On 30 December 2007, ‘Sara G’ smashed the 67 day record for crossing the Tasman Sea from New Zealand to Australia coming in at 32 days with 10 days under sea anchor!

In March 2009, ‘Sara G’ was bought by Matt Craughwell and shipped to England. After a complete equipment upgrade, the boat was shipped to Morocco in December 2009 and on 12th January 2010, ‘Sara G’ departed from Agadir – the first ocean row to leave from Agadir – and successfully crossed the Atlantic to Barbados in 57 days, 20 hours.