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"Current weather: Light westerly wind... yes, a head wind! Arrg!"
10:33 a.m. EST Oct 27, 2003
Fighting an onslaught of mini-weather systems brought by each passing cloud and a head wind that plagued Team Bluebell throughout the day, Faye and Andy must now nurse aching muscles. Progress was slow for the past couple of days, but indeed steady. 282 nautical miles in to the 2900 mile Woodvale Atlantic Rowing Challenge, Bluebell is now in eighth place.
Meanwhile, Team CRC gained 5 to 7 miles an hour on first place Holiday Shoppe Challenge and took over the lead this weekend. Team CRC is out in front now by a distance of 34 nautical miles.
No doubt, one of the luckier competitors thus far is third place team Bright Spark. Could they possibly be rowing the same race?! Out to sea for a week, they report they have suffered “not one iota of seasickness” due in part to “mostly calmish seas" and that horde of ginger products they brought along. Must be ginger not only wards off motion sickness, but also levels out perception? Other teams reported “roller coaster” seas and fought waves the size of buildings. Seasickness and rough seas already forced two boats to withdraw from the race and had left the others holding their stomachs for days.
Pass that ginger!
Sunday October 19, 2003 16 double handed teams from South Africa, New Zealand, France, the UK and the Caribbean (for the first time) set out from La Gomera in the Canary Islands for a 2,900 mile rowing race to Barbados on 24 ft boats made of marine plywood
The record of 41 days was set by Rob Hamill and the late Phil Stubbs in 1997. The teams will, on average, row 18 hours a day. Any outside assistance will disqualify the teams. Tins of food would weigh the boats down so freeze dried food (7000kcal per day), featuring such delights as chicken curry and Spotted Dick, constitute their staple diets.
The organizers have arranged for daily logs on the main website. In addition three of the teams use ExplorersWeb's Contact 2.0 with daily pics, voice dispatches and updates on their own websites. Our teams are Atlantic Wollf, Bluebell and Team RowingHome (the Caribbean pioneers).
Image of Team Bluebell courtesy of rowing.challengebusiness.com/en/
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