Atlantic rowers off 'to good start, but it's been brutal'

ROWING"WE GOT off to a good start, but it's been brutal," was Ian Rowe's pithy summation yesterday of the first three days at sea of the crew of the Sara G, who are hoping to set a new record for rowing the Atlantic Ocean.

Rowe and five other oarsmen, including Dubliner Aodhán Kelly, left Tarfaya in Morocco on Monday afternoon and set a terrific early pace. They need to average 3.83 knots (nautical miles per hour) to beat their target of 30 days for rowing to Barbados, and they were well ahead of this on their first day – they covered a remarkable 4.96 nautical miles in one hour late that night.

But seasickness and easterly winds put a spanner in the works, and Wednesday was not a good day, with mileages falling significantly. The picture had improved again by yesterday afternoon, and the experienced skipper, Matt Craughwell, posted a phone log in which he said that the crew was establishing a routine and the winds were set to improve.

But it is tough going. Yesterday Rowe gave a graphic account of the sacrifices involved to Heart FM radio in England, who are sponsoring the row for Childline.

The Englishman with the apt name (I Rowe), said he was “absolutely knackered”. What kept the crew going? “To get the hell out of here, to be honest. We are on our third day; the way I look at it every stroke we take is a stroke closer to getting to Barbados.”

He was on deck as he spoke watching Kelly, Simon Brown and Craughwell pulling the oars in clear skies and sunshine.

“To give you an idea what the rowing is like, I think if you put a model boat in a washing machine, turned it on and imagine six guys in there – and you get your legs regularly beaten with a baseball bat as the oars keep smashing into your legs, that’s a little bit what it is like.” They have seen dolphins, turtles and a few ships, but Rowe said the view was generally one-dimensional: “It puts the sea into scenery, really”.

Kelly is doing the row for the charity Plan International, and specifically the “Because I am a Girl” campaign, which aims to break cycles of poverty and gender discrimination.

Back in Ireland, there is a High Performance development camp at the National Rowing Centre this weekend. In a recent camp, Olympians Seán Casey and Cathal Moynihan helped to coach young athletes.