World record holders complete Atlantic epic

Over half of the crews in the World’s Toughest Row have arrived at Nelsons Dockyard, English Harbour, Antiqua, with HMS Oardacious first to arrive on January 17 having rowed across the Atlantic in 35 days, 4 hours and 30 minutes.

Sam Glover of Lynmouth, the only rower in the race from Devon, arrived on January 25. He was the first solo rower to arrive having rowed across the Atlantic aboard ‘The Entrepreneur Ship’ in 42 days, 3 hours and 15 minutes.

This week the weather has been dominated by strong southerly and south westerly winds, which have prevented ‘Intrepid 232’ making landfall and have pushed the fleet north.

This past week has seen the arrival of just one crew, ‘Intrepid232’, Rosemary Satchwell, Alison Smithurst, Helene Monpetit and Julie Brady, onboard their boat “Black Squid”, which crossed the finish line of the World’s Toughest Row in a time of 58 days, 12 hours and 30 minutes.

Arriving as this year’s 28th boat and setting a new World Record for the oldest female team of four to row any ocean. The four Jersey women set the new World Record with an average age of 58 years! Adding more than 43 years to the record. Now you might know why their crew name was Intrepid 232!

The four women started the journey with a bit of drama, as their RX45 boat got damaged in La Gomera. Luckily, it was fixed just in time for the race start but it was the last days of the crossing that stand out clearest for the team, facing arguably some of the most technically difficult weather in the history of the race.

Rosemary said, “We have worked for 2.5 years to get to this stage and we weren’t going to give it up that easily. We did not want to fail!.”