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Bird stalks Ocean Rower
12:59 p.m. EST Apr 5, 2004
Matthew Boreham has been involved with ocean rowing since 1995. He had an aborted attempt in the Challenge Business Atlantic rowing race in 1997. His second attempt in 1998 was again from Tenerife but this time solo. Gear failure put an end to that crossing. 1999 was a northern crossing from Newfoundland. Shipping difficulties delayed the start by so much that he turned back.
This is the latest report from Matt’s wife on his progress in 2004;“Well a very frustrating few days for Matt. Having got under the 500 miles to go, everything was looking good for arriving on April 10th. Then the weather changed out there. Winds pushing him NE, back towards the start! All the hours rowing produced low mileage, and the end looking further and further away.
All this is made harder by the food situation. Matt had lost 500 cals a day by eating the last of his tracker bars (the rest were damaged by water and the oats had gone mouldy). But as of today the last of his sports energy bars have been eaten, leaving him with even less calories per day. He can always get more food on the boat. ORS will, if he requests it of them, of course supply him with food, but then it becomes an assisted crossing. I can hear many of you saying "so what" to that, but Matt has dreamed so long of rowing the Atlantic as an unassisted crossing, that to take help would be the destruction of an 8 year dream!
"An evil, horror movie type bird" (how Matt described it) joined the boat for a day and a night. It had a very long beak and kept creeping up on Matt trying to peck him. At one point when he was on the phone to me in his cabin, this bird was trying to get in the cabin with him to attack him! All that night it was on the cabin roof, trying to get in. I am glad to say it left the next morning.
The Alison May ran over a turtle last night! Matt rang to say there had been a huge bang, so he had leapt to see what it was he had hit, and it was a very stunned looking turtle. The turtle floated for a few minutes stunned then suddenly dived away from this terrible thing that had run him over!”
The naked rowers; mother and daughter Sally and Sarah, are 884 miles from the finish. No news on whether they have run into any peeping toms.
This is Matthew Boreham's fourth attempt at rowing east to west across the Atlantic. He is currently going solo and unsupported and has a little over 300 miles to go. The total distance is 2907 miles.
Mother and daughter team Sally and Sarah Kettle have been out rowing the Atlantic ocean for a little more than 2 months now. Sally’s first row was with her boyfriend Marcus Thompson (Tommo). The couple had to retire from the race after 6 days due to sea sickness which brought on Tommo's first seizure in over 2 years. That's when Sally called on her mom Sarah to replace Tommo: "When Sally first phoned me from the boat asking if I could take Marcus’s place I couldn’t believe my luck! I packed some baked beans and some rice cakes and caught the ferry from Tenerife to La Gomera the next morning.
Ocean Rowing Society Atlantic Rowing Regatta ORSARR 2004 takes place to celebrate the 35th anniversaries of the first East-West solo ocean row by John Fairfax and first West-East solo ocean row by Tom McClean; and 33rd anniversary of the first Atlantic East-West double row by Geoff and Don Allum.
Sally and Sarah are team pink, Calderdale - The Yorkshire Challenger. Matt is team yellow, the Alison May
Image of Matt and the Alison May leaving Gomera courtest of the Ocean Rowing Society
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