Four Mums in a Boat: Friends who rowed 3000 miles, broke a world record and learnt a lot about life along the way. Janette Benaddi

were a bunch of lunatics who had no idea what we were doing. But then, out of the blue, Helen really caught his eye. Or Hélène, as he insisted on calling her. She was rowing along with Caroline in a double scull (although judging by the amount of attention she was getting from the frankly rather ridiculously handsome coach, she could quite well have been rowing alone).

      ‘Oh, Hélène,’ he said. ‘Come see, it is like zis.’

      ‘Oh, Hélène,’ he would say again. ‘You stroke soft like zat.’

      ‘Oh Hélène, zat is good!’

      ‘Oh Hélène, don’t you worry!’

      ‘Oh Hélène, let me ’elp you.’

      And all the while Hélène was making cooing incompetent noises, giggling, flicking her hair and generally batting her eyelashes. François helped Hélène into the boat. He helped Hélène out of the boat. He showed Hélène how to turn, what to do, where to go. He was très attentive.

      ‘What am I?’ demanded Caroline at one point, just as he sorted another one of Hélène’s ‘little problems’. ‘Bloody invisible?’

      The following morning, Janette came down to breakfast in a cloud of Chanel perfume, armed with a low plunge-necked vest and a very sturdy, barely hidden push-up bra.

      ‘Right,’ she announced with a hoist of her bosom and a tug on her straps. ‘He’s not going to be talking to Hélène today!’

      But even Janette’s substantial cleavage was no distraction for the enraptured François, and Hélène received his full and undivided attention for the next three days. It was one of the many jokes that we shared during a fantastic four days when we hung out, chatted, drank wine and tried to nail down some very serious decisions about crossing the ocean.

      Such as, what shall we put on our playlists? Janette rather eccentrically decided that she was only going to have Edith Piaf. If the boat was going to go down, all she wanted to hear was ‘Je ne regrette rien