Janette piped up into the silence.
‘I feel so nervous, as if I’m about to get married again!’
‘What the hell are we doing?’ asked Helen.
‘Who knows?’ replied Niki. And we all looked at one another.
‘Well, come on then!’ said Frances, standing up. As the one who’d got us into all of this, she wasn’t going to allow us to sit around as if there was nowhere else we should be. ‘Let’s do this!’ And with that, she led us out, leaving the table and, indeed, her sunglasses behind.
The briefing room was silent, but we were worried and disconcerted to see that Lauren from Row Like a Girl was visibly upset as we listened to Carsten Heron Olsen, CEO and race director, run through his last-minute safety list. Quite apart from how sorry we felt for her, she was one of the few who knew what it was really like out there. And the gift given to each of the boats in the race from the people of La Gomera did not help much either. It was a gladdening picture of the Holy Mary to stick on the wall of the cabin, which (we noticed) no one refused. It was like we were being read our last rites. What the hell had we let ourselves in for?
The silent, tense atmosphere of the briefing was in massive contrast to the noise outside. We walked, blinking, into the sunlight to be faced with cheering, waving crowds and a loud local band. The sound was overwhelming and as the deafening drums beat out some unrecognisable tune, we all processed in silence behind.
Yorkshire Rows had been given the honour of going first out of the harbour. The fours were leading out and we’d been chosen to head the race out of San Sebastián into the Atlantic. It would probably be the only time we would be leading the race itself and we felt extremely proud and sick with nerves as we walked towards Rose, moored up on the pontoon. Our hearts were pounding. Our hands were sweating. This was it. There was no turning back. Helen, who is normally one of the most garrulous of us all, was completely silent. We were trying to focus. Then, what had begun in apparent slow motion began to frantically speed up. Suddenly it felt like a panic, as we all started asking if we had everything. Where was this? That? Frances had lost her sunglasses. Where the hell were they? Janette was fumbling with the tiller, making those last-minute skipper checks – battery levels, harnesses and comms. Niki’s feet wouldn’t fit in her shoes and Helen was looking for some sort of sign that everything was going to be fine.
Looking for signs is Helen’s thing. She has a very close friend, Dawn, who reads angel cards and tarot.
‘It was through her that I learnt about looking for signs,’ she once explained to the rest of us. ‘You just have to open your eyes to see them, whereas before I would have my head down and didn’t look at what was around me and didn’t see the opportunities or the potential in any situation. But she taught me that actually you’ve got to look, and there’s always someone ready to help you, supporting you. But you have to look and listen.’
In the run-up to the race Helen was seeing signs all the time. She’d go into restaurants and there would be oars on the wall. She went on holiday to a cottage in Robin Hood’s Bay only to find a great big blade in the kitchen. But feathers are really her thing. She sees them everywhere. They are small indications of affirmation and support.
‘Helen!’ shouted Sarah, one of the PR girls working for Talisker, as we were poised at the oars, about to set off. ‘Look! Look in the water beside you!’ We all turned and there, sure enough, floating in the water right next to Helen, was a large white feather.
‘There you go!’ she smiled as she nodded down at the sea. ‘It will all be fine. We will make it across! Just you wait and see…
And so we set off towards the start line. With Janette at the helm, we rowed with all three of us up on the oars, with as much style and panache as we could manage. We were very conscious that our families would be watching the start on BBC Breakfast, curled up on the sofa at home, five days before Christmas and without their mums. We wanted to give them a bit of a show.
‘Okay, ladies,’ grinned Janette as we lined up at the start, surrounded by small boats, larger vessels, TV crews, a circling helicopter, shouting, waving crowds and Wayne and Tracy. ‘Let’s show them how it’s done!’
We were poised to go. Janette held onto the mooring line with Carsten gripping the other end. This was the only thing that was stopping us from leaving. Carsten kissed Janette on the cheek.
‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in Antigua.’ He let go of the rope. Our last contact with land.
Janette pulled it on board. It felt strange. This was it. We were leaving. Our hearts were pounding. It was nerve-racking. It was our last touch. Our last bit of contact with land, with anyone else.
From now on it would be just us four. It was going to be tough, but we were going to make damn sure we managed it.
Janette stood tall. She was ready to steer the way. She knew we’d give it everything we could to show to the world we were ready, we were strong and we were women.
‘Come on, girls,’ she urged, her blonde hair whipping around her face. ‘Let’s do this!’
Carsten sounded the klaxon and the loud, shrieking blast echoed around the harbour. The crowds roared and we were off, rowing in unison, giving it our best in our black Lycra rowing shorts and our Talisker vests, pulling our oars through the water powerfully and in time, together.
‘One! Two!’ shouted Janette from the helm. ‘Smile!’ she urged. ‘I feel like Queen Boadicea in the middle of her slaves!’ She laughed. ‘We’re Amazons!’
‘Quite elderly Amazons,’ said Frances, as she slid back and forth on her seat.
‘Middle-aged,’ corrected Niki.
‘Middle-aged Amazons!’ agreed Helen. ‘Who ARE going to cross an ocean!’
The boats left La Gomera at 15-minute intervals, and it wasn’t long before we watched Row Like a Girl power past us. We had held the lead in the race for precisely half an hour! Possibly less. Not that we minded; we were more interested in hitting the first waypoint (a marker), which we had dutifully programmed into our GPS system and were trying to head towards, despite the ever-increasing swell. The problem, we soon realised, with being first out of the harbour is that you have no one to follow! And it didn’t take long before all the other rowers had also left La Gomera and disappeared.
One moment we could see an ocean littered with boats – friends that we had made over the three weeks that we had spent on the island. And then, all of a sudden, we were alone. It was like an oceanic game of hide and seek. We were on our own.
There was no time to worry about this, for even with land still firmly in sight, the ocean had plans. The waves were growing and the current grew stronger, and Rose was being pulled along in it. Time and again we tried to row, and time and again the oars were being wrenched out of our hands. It was painful. The sea was so strong that we could not get any purchase in the waves, and when we did the oars would shoot out of the water, sending us and them flying backwards, hitting us in the legs and the thighs, garrotting us or, even worse, whacking us extremely hard in the pubic bone. It was agony, and not what we had trained for at all. It was also cold, freezing cold, as wave after 40-foot wave broke over us, dousing us in icy salt water. We were being lashed from left and right, the oars flying everywhere. It was truly a baptism of fire; we were taking our wet-weather gear on and off constantly, and clinging onto the boat for dear life. And we had only just gone out to sea.
‘Call this a rowing race?’ shouted Frances as she held onto the side of the boat, as we rode yet another wall of 40-foot waves. ‘This is just holding on!’