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Four
Britons aiming to set a new Atlantic world rowing record have faced a
freak 45ft high wave, it emerged today.
The crew of the Pink
Lady – Mark
Stubbs, 40, from Poole, Dorset, Pete Bray, 48, from South Wales,
Jonathan Gornall, 48, from London, and John Wills, 33, from Surrey,
are rowing from Canada to UK, and are less than 610 miles from the
finish.
On Friday the crew’s log read: “The wave height is currently around 15
feet – but during the day Pink Lady was suddenly lifted by a freak wave
of at least three times this height, raising adrenalin levels on board.”
For much of yesterday the men rowed hard one at a time for 15 minutes,
to minimise the danger of clashing oars on a rough sea with waves of up
to 20ft.
The Pink Lady rowers must cross the ‘Lizard meridian’ to finish – a line
from Lizard Point in Cornwall to the Ushant lighthouse in Cape
Finisterre, Brittany, the most westerly point of France.
They will then head up the Channel towards Falmouth for a landing at the
National Maritime Museum there.
The Pink Lady crew in their hi-tech carbon fibre boat have been training
together in coastal waters for two years.
Mr Stubbs said before they left St Johns, Newfoundland, on June 30:
“This ocean row is the culmination of six years of boat development and
endurance training.”
The Pink Lady has been developed as the world’s most sophisticated ocean
vessel of its kind.
The rowers are hoping to raise £50,000 for the British Heart Foundation.
Statistics show that, of all the 129 successful ocean rows ever
recorded, 61% were achieved by Britons. |
