And now, standing here, that decision to enter the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge – one of the toughest races on earth – made after a few too many glasses of Pinot on a cold winter’s night in York back in January 2013, looked like a moment of total madness. It had taken us nearly three long, hard years to get to this day. We had always said to each other that the hardest part of the race, the toughest challenge, would be getting to the start line in the Canary Islands in the first place. And we’d managed that. We’d done the difficult bit. We’d raised the money, won over enough sponsors and managed to convince enough people that we were serious and worth backing. But now, here we were, staring into a cauldron of currents and tides, with hurricane-force winds and waves up to 60 feet high, not to mention the giant shipping tankers who could take out our little rowing boat at a moment’s notice. We were also trying hard not to think of the sharks, the whales and the marlins, which had been known to skewer through the hulls of boats in the middle of the night, plus the scorching hot sun, the driving rain, the injuries, the sores, the exhaustion and the endless, endless rowing. It would be two hours on, two hours off – eat, sleep, row, repeat – which we estimated we would need to keep doing for at least 50 days, or possibly a touch longer. We’d certainly need the emergency bottle of mango gin we were planning to squirrel into the hold.
‘It’ll be fine,’ said Helen with a rictus grin and an exaggerated shrug, just as another huge wave hit the rocks below. ‘We know we’ll make it to Antigua.’ She nodded.
‘We just all have to think positive,’ said Niki.
‘The strength of our team is each individual member. The strength of each member is our team.’ Janette was quoting from our ‘On-board Values’ sheet that she’d presented for our perusal and approval 3,000 miles away in Yorkshire.
Standing there, staring at those powerful waves, we were all desperately trying to be positive, think positive and breathe positive, whereas deep down we were all wondering: why the bloody hell have we decided to row across an ocean in the first place? We all knew there was a chance we wouldn’t make it across. But now was not the time to dwell on the negative. This was going to be life-changing. But we knew that. We were all in this adventure not to escape life, but for life not to escape us. And this was it. The sun was beating down, the salt air filled our nostrils; it was Helen who eventually broke the silence.
‘And’, she added firmly, ‘no one is allowed to cry.’
We arrived in La Gomera on the last day of November 2015, two weeks before the start of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. The four of us were about to row 3,000 miles from our base in the Canary Islands over to Antigua in the West Indies. We’d been told that preparation was one of the most important parts of the race and we had been determined to get to the Canaries in good time to sort out and organise our stuff, and also to make sure that there would still be the necessary essential supplies left in the few shops on the tiny volcanic island.
BBC Breakfast had decided to film us leaving the UK, saying goodbye to our back-up team, friends (lots of friends), family (lots of family) and supporters at Manchester Airport. Out of the 26 teams making the Atlantic crossing this year they had chosen us – Yorkshire Rows – as the team to follow. We were naturally thrilled as we were desperate to make as much money as possible for our chosen charities: Maggie’s Cancer Care and Yorkshire Air Ambulance.
The TV cameras were rolling as we stood at the Thompson check-in to Tenerife, surrounded by friends, relatives and our piles of suitcases, packed with a water pump, bags of brazil nuts, wet-weather gear and chafe-free pants, hoping they wouldn’t make us pay for excess luggage, when we were approached by the strappingly good-looking former Olympic champion James Cracknell, who had famously rowed the same race with Ben Fogle, off the telly, some years before.
Exuding ebullient charm, he had been sent by the BBC as our surprise guest to see us off and deliver some last-minute pearls of wisdom. Unfortunately, no one had told Janette, and in the confusion of suitcases, faces and bright lights, she waved at him to move away.
‘Shhh,’ she warned, index finger in the air. ‘The BBC are filming over there.’
‘But –’ began James, looking a little confused.
‘Can’t you see the camera?’
Not recognising the handsome rower, Janette was convinced he was another competitor in the race.
‘They are trying to get their shots.’ She was squinting a little into the light. ‘Could you just keep quiet until they are finished.’
‘I was just –’ the handsome Cracknell ventured again.
‘Shhh,’ she replied.
Eventually, finally, Janette was introduced to her dashing interlocutor, and after red-faced, profuse apologies, James was allowed to deliver his final words to camera, which were that we would all hate each other one day and love each other the next, and that this would be a recurring pattern until we finished crossing the ocean. He warned us we’d have blisters where we never thought we could have blisters, and he added that he thought we’d make it, as we had all been through a far worse experience: childbirth.
With his encouragement ringing in our ears, we set off for the Canaries – our chafe-free pants securely in the hold and at no extra cost! On our journey to get to the Canaries we had been helped, not only very significantly by our families, but also by so many extraordinarily generous people along the way. One of these was 88-year-old Ron from Halifax, who owned a haulage company in Yorkshire and an apartment in Tenerife. He’d read about us in the Yorkshire Post and had contacted us via our fundraising website offering his services as our official meet-and-greeter in Tenerife. Having never met him before, we, of course, had no idea what to expect as this charming, diminutive elderly chap met us at the airport. Not only did he manage to pack all our hugely heavy suitcases into his car, but he also then proceeded to take us all out to lunch in Santa Cruz before depositing us at the ferry to catch the boat over to La Gomera island itself.
Less than an hour later and the marina at San Sebastián was buzzing with energy as we arrived. We checked in at the headquarters for the race and were handed our access passes to the harbour. As we made our way through the giant security gates at the harbour entrance, the first thing that hit us was the noise: shouting, chattering, laughter, the sound of sawing, blowtorches, hammers. There was so much work going on.
‘Is anyone else feeling nervous and excited?’ asked Niki.
‘I can’t believe we’re here,’ said Helen.
‘I can’t believe we’ve got this far,’ added Janette.
‘At last,’ smiled Frances.
There were crews of rowers for the race everywhere, boats lined up alongside each other. The teams were from all over the world: pairs, solo rowers and, like us, other teams of four. There were 26 teams in total, all preparing for the race and wandering up and down the jetties. Their huge piles of kit, ropes, buckets, grab bags, water pumps, drogues, sea anchors, radios, flares and first-aid kits were strewn about the wooden planks in a form of very ordered chaos, ready to be scrutinised by the race organisers – a painstakingly precise process in which each and every piece of equipment is checked, along with the competitor’s ability to use them. It is not only an inventory of the boat; it also tests her and the team’s seaworthiness. Anyone failing this process is not allowed to race.
Bang in the middle of it all was Rose – our beautiful Rannoch ocean-going racing boat and very much the fifth member of the team – 8 metres long and 1.5 metres wide, and glowing white in the sunshine. We were so eager to see her we picked our way through the teams to find her. We had missed her since she’d been packed onto a cargo ship and sent south two months earlier. Finally we spotted her, sleek and shiny with new Glide Coat paint to help her speed through the Atlantic. She was moored up next to a bold green boat powered by the only other all-female crew in the race – Row Like a Girl. We immediately climbed aboard and, like