"I can't straighten my fingers" - McGowan

ROWING SOLO ATLANTIC CROSSING: FOR 90 minutes of each two-hour period today, Seán McGowan will tie his claw-like hands to his oars and attempt to propel his small rowing boat a little closer to the Americas.

“I can’t straighten my fingers. The pain in them wakens me at night. I strap the fingers to the oars with some webbing,” he explained yesterday. The pain, he says, is like “a ball hitting the top of your fingers”.

The Limerick man, who is attempting to become the first Irishman to row solo across the Atlantic, is driven by the aim of making progress to the south, across the direction of the waves, to 20 degrees latitude. This way he should catch winds which will aid his progress to Antigua – and keep him away from the storms which almost finished him last Monday.

“I woke up at three in the morning with two foot of water in my cabin,” he told The Irish Times. “There were 30 foot (nine metre) waves and 20 knot (37 km/h) winds.”

He bailed out the boat as best he could and contacted Woodvale, the organisers of the Atlantic race from the Canaries to Antigua, to tell them he was in distress.

He did not send a Mayday signal, and told his brother Tom not to alarm his wife, Lorraine – if he ended up in the water and his Epirb (electronic distress call) went off then they were to take it he was in a life raft and had abandoned his eight-metre craft, Tess.

It might have been even more tragic than that.

“When you see waves that size, you do fear the worst,” he admitted. But he found the source of the leak – the intake for his watermaker – and by the time the support yacht, Aurora, arrived a day later he was able to see the fun in their joke about “the luck of the Irish”.

Luck has not been the key characteristic of the 852 kilometres covered so far. McGowan’s VHF radio and watermaker have been malfunctioning; he was driven away from his course by the conditions; one gate holding an oar has twice broken and the new version he created using a “junior hacksaw”, a piece of pipe and some padding has to be treated “very gently”.

The storm was, he opines now, “a blessing in disguise” as it allowed his body, which was wracked by pain and lack of sleep, some time to recover.

Yesterday he was in reasonably good spirits. “It’s been a really tough ould time. But I’ve had two days of rowing, which is great.”

The messages of support from family, friends and even complete strangers “make a huge difference”, and the support for his charity, Soweto Connection, is very important to him.

Even as he describes the very worst of his ordeals, he adds, unbidden, a promise: “I have no intention of stopping. That will only happen if the boat breaks up or goes over and sinks. I’m going to do this.”

He adds: “I just hope to get through this (so) it won’t be a waste of time for everybody.”

Meanwhile, the inaugural National Fours Head will be incorporated into the St Michael’s Head of the River tomorrow at O’Brien’s Bridge in Co Clare.

The weather forecast is excellent, although the recent rain could make conditions in the field where boat trailers park very muddy.

NUIG must be serious contenders for the men’s senior fours title. UCD and Commercial both have two crews entered, while St Michael’s and a composite of University of Limerick and Castleconnell complete the line-up.

While eight senior men’s fours were entered, Shandon have already opted out, choosing instead the flexibility of the rolling head. This, and the lack of representation from Ulster, points up a weakness of the National Heads project – at this time of year clubs tend to place proximity and competition for as many crews as possible above thoughts of national titles.

The senior men’s quadruple sculls title is set to go to the host club, St Michael’s, who may have the services of local hero Sam Lynch.