Rowing an ocean... that will be the easy part!

Rowing an ocean isn't all about rowing. At times, it feels like the actual rowing will be the easy part of this journey. Everyone I spoke to when I first signed up told me that getting to the start line was the hard part... it is. Early morning and late nights are spent sending emails and letters to companies to source sponsorship that we still need, hours are spent each day in the gym getting fitter and stronger, training courses to equip us with the necessary skills to survive in the ocean fill up the weekends and then endless lists of tasks that need to be done fill the remaining hours.  The past few weeks have however been full of good news, including our announcement that we are working with Jack Tompkins from Southpaw Sport to create a documentary of our row, which will be released hopefully towards the end of the year. Here's what the past few weeks have looked like for us... 

Training Courses

​To enter the Great Pacific Race, a number of qualifications have to be passed before you are allowed to leave. This ensures that should anything happen whilst we are at sea we are trained in how to deal with the situation. I completed my RYA Competent Crew course towards the end of last year, and followed up in the new year with my VHF Radio course (so we can communicate with any other vessels we may see) and First Aid at sea. A few weeks ago we completed the RYA Sea Survival course as a crew, a course although very fun to complete, we hope to never have to use the skills we learnt. We spent time in the pool practicing life raft drills, survival skills and learning all the things that could go wrong with the equipment designed to help us survive, and then got the chance to set off flares - something we hope to only have to use when we cross the finish line in Hawaii! With 5 courses complete, the crew are now part way through completing the final qualification which is the RYA Yatchmaster Offshore Theory course thanks to Kipper Sailing (​www.kippersailing.co.uk). 

Boat Prep

We might still have 8 weeks before we leave for California but Danielle, our ocean rowing boat, has a six week trip aboard a container ship to get to the start line. She ships this week to ensure that she has arrived and cleared customs by the time we get to Monterey. We spent three days at Hamble Point Marina going through all our equipment, checking everything worked and getting in some more rowing hours. Jack from Southpaw Sport was there to capture some footage for the documentry, and created the short edit below to give you a look at what we got up to. 

Weather Routing & Navigation prep

We are working with the incredible Stokey Woodall who will be our weather router and on-land support whilst we are out at sea. We will speak to Stokey daily who will advise us on the best route to take given the weather, wind and currents, and will do his best to keep us out of too much trouble. We spent three days on the Isle of Wight planning our route, learning to navigate using the stars should we lose all our equipment, creating our own charts and covering safety and navigation until Stokey was happy we had a good chance of at least heading in the right direction. There isn't much (anything?) Stokey doesn't know so we feel like we are in very safe hands!! 

Fitness Testing

We have all been training hard for the past few months, and last week we were put through our paces at ESPH in a set of fitness tests, to establish our baselines pre-row and also give an insight into what we really need to spend the next eight weeks working on. We did our body composition (turns out the extra kgs I've gained is actually almost all muscle and my body fat % is lower than I thought/want it to be... more doughnuts for dinner for me!!), sub max VO2 testing and strength testing. Overall I was really happy with where I'm currently sat and am confident that myself and the rest of the crew are going to be in a really good place fitness wise when we leave Monterey. 

As always, if you want to support our multi world record attempt row raising money for Mind and championing solutions to reduce plastic pollution in our oceans you can do so at www.justgiving.com/PacificTerrific. Getting to the start line is tough (take a read of our blog post on this here), and therefore any support in helping us get there and enabling us to raise significant funds for charity during the row are really gratefully received :)