Christmas spent rowing in middle of Atlantic Ocean

FOR the participants of the “world’s toughest row”, Christmas this year was a little different.

Crews spent yesterday (Thursday) on the Atlantic Ocean as they continue their 3,000-mile journey to English Harbour in Antigua.

Among the challengers, who set off from San Sebastián de la Gomera in the Canary Islands on December 14, are former rugby union player Ollie Phillips, who lives in Shiplake, and Rosie Tong, a personal trainer who grew up in Henley and now lives in Reading.

The pair, who are each in their own crew, are in the middle of the gruelling rowing schedule, in which they spend two hours on and two hours off until they reach their destination.

The crossing is estimated to take between 40 and 60 days and will be battling through sleep deprivation, 20ft waves, and the threat of capsizing or encountering sharks, all in aid of raising money for their chosen charities.

Despite the hardships, both rowers said they hope there will still be time for some Christmas festivities, including a call back home.

Miss Tong, 26, whose parents Alex and Paul live in Henley, said that she first learnt about the challenge while working at the former River & Rowing Museum in Mill Meadows in 2019.

She said: “There was a boat in the car park from a veteran team who did the race.

“When I worked out what the boat was for, I started following the race for a few years and thought that I would give it a go.”

Miss Tong signed up last year, even before finding a crew, and “Row with the flow” formed after meeting together online.

Her crew has the tagline “Three women, three decades, 3,000 miles” and, as well as Miss Tong, it comprises Mel Jarman, 33, and Clare O’Reilly, 46.

They have been sponsored by Henley businesses, Gabriel Machin, the Three Tuns pub and the Henley Distillery and will be fundraising for the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust and Ocean Generation.

The crew packed some festive clothes to wear on Christmas Day. Miss Tong said: “By Christmas, we’ll probably be extremely tired but hopefully we’re having a fantastic time.

“If the weather allows, we will stop and have a meal together. We’ll be wearing Christmas outfits and eat food that’s different to what we’ve been eating.

“If we didn’t do that, it’ll just be a lot of rowing, just the same as all the other days.”

On their two hours off from rowing the boat, the crew will have to complete chores including cleaning and making drinking water from seawater using an electric desalinator.

Miss Tong, who is a former member of Putney Town Rowing Club, said she had rowed for a couple of years “but not seriously” while crewmate Ms Jarman has some previous experience but Ms O’Reilly has never rowed.

Before setting off, the trio had to log 120 hours in the boat they are using during the crossing, which they did in Plymouth and Essex.

Miss Tong attended Trinity Primary School in Henley before moving to Birmingham to pursue an education in ballet. She went to the world-renowned Elmhurst Ballet School and continued to dance until she was 21.

Now working as a personal trainer at a gym in Reading, she said it was nice to have a range of experiences among the crew. “I think we all agree that having not known each other before we started this has been good,” she said.

“We’ve spent a lot of time together doing various training on the boat but then we’ve also still got a lot to learn from being in certain situations on the way.”

Mr Phillips, who lives in Shiplake with his wife Lucy and children Lillie-Mae, seven, Nia, five, and Alfie, four, is in a boat with three friends, Tom Clowes, Julian Evans and Stuart Kershaw.

Their journey is expected to take about 40 days and they are raising funds for My Name’5 Doddie, the Clocktower Foundation and Shiplake Primary School, which Mr Phillips’s children attend.

Mr Phillips said it would be the first time he would be spending Christmas away from his family but that he was hoping to FaceTime his kids via a Starlink satellite link. “It’s going to be a challenge during the time around Christmas and on Christmas Day,” he said. “That’s the bit I’m really not looking forward to. But my kids have been great about it. They’ve been absolutely incredible.

“They’re quite young, so they don’t really fully understand what Daddy’s doing and my eldest has been a little bit impacted as she is older and understands more.”

During the crossing, each crew is estimated to row in excess of 1.5 million oar strokes and the average rower loses around 8kg during the crossing.

The living quarters has minimal room for sleeping and there is no toilet, with the rowers using a bucket.

Mr Phillips described the space aboard the boat for sleeping and eating as “absolutely nothing”. He said: “You sleep along the ends of two hatches at the end of the boat. You slide your legs underneath where everyone’s rowing and you try and have a kip for an hour and a half.”

Crews will experience a range of temperatures, from as low as 10C during the night shifts at the start to well into 30C towards Antigua and Barbuda, with the sea temperatures around 20C to 25C.

Mr Phillips said: “Towards Antigua it gets progressively warmer and it gets to the point where it’s absolutely sweltering, so it’s about how do you manage that and your fluid intakes.” The former England Sevens skipper is no stranger to challenges, having previously taken part in a rugby game on Mount Everest, trekked 100 miles across the Arctic, sailed around the world, cycled the width of the United States and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.

“I’ve always been fascinated by this challenge,” he said. “I’ve done a few adventures in my time but there was never the right time to do it.”

But after a crew member dropped out just before Christmas last year, Mr Phillips was asked by Mr Kershaw if he wanted to take part.

Mr Phillips said: “There was probably a multitude of reasons as to why I probably would have or should have said no but I didn’t.”

He described his wife as an adventurer but said that she was apprehensive about the challenge.

Mr Phillips said: “Lucy loves all this stuff but this is big. She’s not a massive fan of this challenge but, equally, she understands it is my want to do it.

“Over time she has got more supportive and more interested in it all but I still think if you said to her, ‘look, do you want him to go?’ she would say, ‘absolutely not’.”

Mr Phillips said he had been spurred on by those who had rallied behind him in the lead-up to the event.

In September, he organised a charity ergo challenge at Shiplake College to help the crew achieve its fundraising target. More than 100 people took part, comprising members of the local fitness community and parents and teachers at the school.

“You build a community that comes with you along the way,” he said. “There are all these people that have sponsored and contributed and been part of the journey.”

He added: “I really want my kids to be proud of their mum and dad and to lead an inquisitive, curious and explorative life.”