The end is near! Nearly less than 300 miles to go and the race continues! 🚣🏼‍♂️

After a strong battle with Atlantic Discovery we managed to break away from them during a low pressure system. With no wind assistance and just our Yorkshire grit to rely on we rowed relentlessly day and night. Now, 38.2 NM separates us and our sights are firmly set on Mad4Waves who are 23.5 NM ahead. They are already putting on a huge push to the finish with less than 300 miles to go so the relentless race to the finish continues. The race order isn’t certain and anything could change.
One thing is certain, that beer at the end is going to taste bloody good! 
With roughly 4 days to go until we reach Antigua things are starting to get quite Spartan onboard Victory. We are having to ration out the ‘good’ rations that we all like. We’re allowed 2 good meals a day and the rest of our meals have to be from the remaining mixture of unwanted leftovers from previous meal pace. We’re also having to ration out the last of our baby wipes (5 wipes per man per day). We’re also now down to our last 7 packs of Built On Beef Biltong so that’s being carefully rationed out too such a precious commodity 🤤.
We’ve cleaned our hull for the last time now. We managed to get in, get it cleaned and back onboard rowing within 16 mins. It was like something from a formula 1 pit stop. With the theory of marginal gains ever present in our minds it’s these things, as well as quick and efficient shift change overs that help and allow us to make consistent and strong daily progress towards the Caribbean.
We have seen a couple of HUGE ships in the last 5 days. One was a cargo ship measuring over 200m long and was over 3 miles away. We radioed her on our VHF and had a quick chat which was nice to have outside contact. Like 4 big kids we tentatively asked if the captain would toot his horn. With a slightly confused reply he said yes and sounded the deep billowing horn which was truly awesome! So much fun! The other ship we saw wasn’t such a welcome experience. It was at night and on the horizon we saw it’s bow light ...With no sign of it on the AIS (Automatic Identification System) we tried to contact her via our VHF. She didn’t respond and yet came ever closer. She must have been over 300m long and was coming to pass within 50m. We frantically kept trying to raise her on the VHF and were one step away from reaching for emergency flares  A collision with a ship this size, at night would be catastrophic. She wouldn’t even know that she’d hit us To our relief she eventually responded via VHF, the guy on watch sounded Russian, said very little and slowly the big floating building of a ship ebbed eerily away. 

The sun surprises us every day. We think it can’t get any hotter but every day the sun likes to prove us wrong. It goes from nice warm temperature, the sun rises, 10 mins later it’s blistering heat pounds the boat, the sun changes angle through the day, intensifies some more then 12 hours after rising it sets. The whole time beating down on us and making every stroke on the oars a real effort. Resting in the cabins is nothing short of being sat in an uncomfortable, rocking sauna. We row longing for nightfall and peace and tranquillity that it brings.
We’ve had so many awesome messages of support coming through encouraging us and helping to keep morale high. We thoroughly appreciate every message and well wish. Thank you. We’re giving it 100% effort and will continue to do so until the finish siren sounds in English Harbour. We are determined to do our charities and Yorkshire proud! 
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If you can then please donate to our chosen charities; The Royal British Legion and Soldier On. Every donation makes a big difference. You can donate through our website or by texting 70070 with the code ROWV59 followed by the amount. Many thanks in advance for all of your support for our amazing charities.

Royal British Legion "Soldier On!"

​With the front 3 teams way out in front, managing to break away when the rest of the fleet were caught in the low pressure systems earlier on in the crossing, our race is now for 4th place. 
With under 700nm left to go the race is still very much alive and the finish order far from decided for 4th - 6th place. 

Aboard Victory our routine has stepped up another notch. We’re now rowing 3 up (3 rowers rowing, 1 rower resting) for as long as possible each day/night. We then switch into 2 hours on, 2 hours off to recharge before going again. It is relentless!

With the whole of Yorkshire watching and the support of all of our families, friends and sponsors we are giving every day, shift, stroke on the oars 100% effort.

A phrase we have coined as a team is ‘Atlantic Maths’. We’re always all so fatigued, often sweltering in the midday sun and hungry too. This leads to the simplest of tasks being surprisingly complicated. Take the simple task of working out a new shift rotation and who is on when, who is resting when or how far we have rowed in the last shift, day or week .... out here it’s like being in an 'A' Level maths test.

With all of us now locked out of our Spotify accounts we’re down to our iTunes music and our audiobooks Audio books have actually been really popular amongst the team. Will has now finished ALL of the Harry Potter books Duncan has listened to Mike Tyson’s, Guy Martin’s and Jason Fox’s audio books/ autobiographies. Glyn has listened to a series of books about Alexander the Great. Fraser has been working his way through 86hours worth of Sherlock Holmes.

Letters from home have been a real morale boost at this stage in the Expedition. It’s been over a month at sea now so opening carefully written letters from loved ones has been amazing. 

We had the pleasure of seeing support yacht SY SKYE this week. She was making her way through the fleet checking up on the crews and making sure everything’s running according to race rules. 

With only an estimated 10 days left aboard Victory before we arrive in Antigua it is now more than ever we ask you for your help by supporting our two chosen charities; The Royal British Legion and "Soldier On!". If you can then please donate. Every donation makes a big difference. You can donate through our website or by texting 70070 with the code ROWV59 followed by the amount. Many thanks in advance for all of your support for our amazing charities. 

Please donate here. https://www.row4victory.com/donate.html

Day 20 - Day 25 aboard Victory.

The last 5 days have been AWESOME. We’ve seen in Will’s 36th birthday and are now just over 1,000 miles left to go! 
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We’ve managed to make great progress since Fraser has been back on the oars despite rowing through a big low pressure system. Consistently hitting over 70NM in the last few days.
We made up 24 miles on Atlantic Discovery to then cross paths within 0.2NM!  The Atlantic Ocean is thousands of miles wide and the fleet is spread over 900 miles so this really was a unique encounter. It was awesome to see their boat Ellida only a few hundred metres away. We called them on their sat phone and wished one another a Happy New Year and good luck for the remainder of the crossing to Antigua. Top lads!

Ellida isn’t the only boat we have seen this week though. We also had the pleasure of seeing a beautiful Yacht called Alejandra. She was also travelling to the Caribbean but at a steady pace of 11.6 knots (which happens to be faster than our top speed so far while surfing a huge wave). They saw us on the AIS (chart plotter) and came over to see what we were. It’s not often you see rowing boats over 1,000 miles from land so they were inquisitive. They came up along side us and all of the crew came out on deck. It was amazing to see new people for the first time in over 3 weeks.

They didn’t speak much English but we all waved enthusiastically at each other and wished each other well. They very kindly offered to give us a big bag of supplies and alcohol, but tempting as it was we had to politely decline their very generous offer. We are on an unsupported crossing of the Atlantic Ocean and had we accepted anything from them our crossing would then be classed as a supported crossing. It’s ok, we didn’t want that fresh watermelon , sweets , and beers anyway.

Wildlife report: We saw another whale but the conditions were too rough to get in this time so we observed from deck which was still really awesome. We saw a school of Dorado which were beautiful, so bright and exotic! Hedwig is still here and visits us daily.

Will’s Birthday was a great day! Not very often you get to spend a Birthday in the middle of the Atlantic, certainly one to remember. Glyn, Fraser and Duncan all thought the other had sorted Will’s birthday card so in the lead up to his birthday we fashioned a card out of a ration pack. It sounds pretty desperate but it worked really well and Will enjoyed the sentiment. We didn’t forget the booze though as Row4Victory barman Fraser cracked out a small bottle of whisky for us to toast the birthday boy.

Injury report: Will spilt some boiling hot water on his leg while making his dehydrated rations. He’s ok, healing well and hasn’t missed any rowing. Glyn smashed his head on the bow cabin wall right onto a bolt causing quite a lot of bleeding. He patched himself up and cracked on and is absolutely fine now. All of us are fighting through sores, blisters and hotspots on our hands, feet and bums but all managing well and rowing hard around the clock.

We are rowing in support of The Royal British Legion and Soldier On if you can, then please donate. Every donation makes a huge difference. You can donate through our website or by texting 70070 with the code ROWV59 followed by the amount. Many thanks in advance for all of your support for our amazing charities.”

On the surface nothing looks any different, we haven’t seen land since day two just never-ending seas in their various states as far as the eye can see or massive black night skies peppered with a billion crystal clear stars. It’s still mostly stiflingly hot, scorching sunshine by day and somewhat cooler at night whilst staying humid and uncomfortable in the small, sweaty (and increasingly smelly) cabins. The routine is well established and has the odd effect at making time pass really slowly in the short term but fly past in the longer term. Each cycle of four hours feels like a day, you wake, you eat, you row, you wash, you eat and you sleep. A full days’ worth of activity that you happen to carry out six times in 24 hours. It makes a day feel really long but we find ourselves wondering where the weeks have gone and the milestones seem to come round quickly, quarter of the way, a third, Christmas and now a half. 
 
Beneath the surface though the difference is immeasurable. We are no longer beginning this challenge but finishing. We dare to start counting down the days and miles rather than up. We are no longer getting further away from our loved ones but closer. When you think you’ve given your all you can find reserves in new depths to think your now going home and back to family and friends.
 
The first half has brought us an entire range of emotions and experiences. Rowing away from the start line was the most exhilarating moments of our lives yet the was also an odd, uneasy feeling along with it. The first 3 or 4 days are a blur now, it’s weird but none of us can recall much about them now. In the military we call this time the shock of capture, this is when we are trained to try and make for an escape as this tends to be the most successful chance to get away you’ll have. There is no escape on an 8-meter ocean rowing boat, there are no options, you simply must just row. As if to compound these feelings we were suffering from some vicious sea sickness, cold sweats and forceful vomiting which is draining at the best of times never mind when your rowing 12 hours a day. Sipping on liquid meals and water we got through it and one by one we came good, slowly starting to crave real food to eat. Well within the week we were cooking meals and eating on deck in all but the very worst conditions without a twinge of nausea, a feat that seemed impossible just a few short days before. You can feel the food and it calories go to work, you recover faster and can work harder on the oars. You start to notice your body more, as you get tired at night and start to slow down you eat a snack bar and within minutes the carbohydrates have you back at the coal face, grafting away. You start to learn to time these peaks on troughs of energy to coincide with your break to help assure a quick decent in to your short sleep, every second starts to count.

1000 miles done coincided with Christmas Day and was like the best present you could hope for. Such a significant chunk of the journey done, a third of the way there. Although the weather was turning back in our favour throughout the day (thanks again Santa) we took advantage of the relative calm at lunch time to take 10 minutes off from the oars all together, share a mince pie, open our secret Santa gifts and make the phone calls home to our children, wives, girlfriends and families.
 
We are lucky enough to be able to get the occasional update from the support team back home, affectionately known as the Homefront. News from home and updates on the other teams we befriended at the start line really help to boost morale and the lads all enjoy updating the team with news from their loved ones. One of the best boosts though comes with news that what we are doing here is having the desired effect and that people seem still be supporting us.
 
Every click on that donate button or text donation is fed back to us and we’re continually blown away by the unwavering generosity of the people who hear about what we’re doing for the Royal British Legion and Soldier On! and feel moved to contribute. What we’re going through is insignificant compared to the pain, trauma and loss felt by some of the people these 2 incredible charities help every day of the year.

Get on board today by supporting Row4Victory by sponsoring or donating - please visit www.row4victory.com/donate or by texting 70070 with the code ROWV59 followed by £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10.

For more information about the race: taliskerwhiskyatlanticchallenge.com
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