I Rowed the Atlantic. And discovered I’m a fretter.
Before rowing the Atlantic I wouldn’t have characterised myself as a fretter.
Fretting, as I understand it, comes from not feeling in control. I don’t mean worrying, where there might be a single upcoming event causing stress. Nor deep-seated anxiety. Fretting is more of a mithering; constant dithering about minor concerns. It serves no purpose either — nothing is solved by fretting.
Still, perched upon a small rowing vessel for weeks on end, a thousand miles from dry land and at the mercy of Mother Nature, there were many small things for me to fret about. So I did.
On December 11th 2022 I set off with my rowing partner Dan Wise from La Gomera in the Canaries, competing in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. We rowed our boat Axel continuously in alternating two hour shifts, for 53 days, reaching Antigua on February 4th 2023.
Fretting about batteries
A few days after setting off, overcast conditions hit us for the first time. Up until then we’d enjoyed blue skies and I’d been happy to accept that our massive lead acid batteries, which depleted as we used them during the night, would reliably recharge with solar energy each and every day. Solar panels, it turns out, are far more exacting than that. With light cloud cover they contributed precisely nothing to the energy requirements onboard. A salty covering would reduce their efficiency even more.
Additionally, the sun’s arc means that one or other of the panels would be hampered during certain times of the day. For most of the journey the stern panels faced sunrise so did their best work mid-morning, and the bow panels enjoyed late afternoon and evening. For maximum combined charging, the sun being overhead was naturally ideal.
After a couple of overcast days it became clear that we were consuming too much energy onboard and that we’d have to make choices. We had navigation equipment, the AIS (automatic identification system), a water maker, navigation lights, cabin lights, peripherals like radios, sat phones, and cameras, all of which needed charging. We couldn’t run everything and assume the batteries wouldn’t discharge completely.
This in itself wouldn’t be a huge problem, we’d just be powerless until the sun could next help us out. But I really didn’t want to be without power. Specifically, I didn’t want to be without power steering.
The autohelm is a clever little device. It’s the size of an apple strudel, and when you set a bearing using your chart plotter, it knows which way you want to be heading. By checking in with the GPS it can determine the direction you’re moving (forward motion is important for this bit) and if it senses you’ve veered off course it will adjust the tiller arm to steer you back.
It constantly twitches and fidgets as its arm shoots in and out, moving the rudder left and right to keep the course true.
All is well until a wave or gust of wind shoves the boat too far off course (15º in the case of our unit). All too often in northerly conditions we were trying to row across the sea, with the wind pushing at an angle against the side of the boat. My sailing mates might describe this as a “broad reach”, or “beam reach” at more extreme angles. Either way, with the wind and waves hitting Axel on her sizeable flank, it was easy to knock her beyond the autohelm’s 15º tolerance.
When this happened alarms would sound, the autohelm would disengage, and in big seas panic would ensue. With the autohelm no longer helping, Axel would quickly settle into the worst possible position; resting broadside, with waves able to direct all their energy against the side of the boat. If a vessel is to capsize, this is when it will most likely happen.
To compound this stressful situation, we had no remote means to adjust the autohelm. Whichever unfortunate was rowing at the time would have to haul the oars in, get up and clamber over to the instruments on the stern bulkhead (being careful not to get the safety lines tangled on the way) turn the alarm off, reset the autohelm, then return to the rowing position to try and manually drag the boat back round to the right direction. Once within the range of tolerance, the autohelm would take over again.
Assuming all was well again, the rower would continue his shift and his heart rate would return to normal without further problems. His companion would remain sleeping, unaware of the drama. In worse cases the boat would stay locked in its broadside position with the rower shooting panicked glances to his left at the approaching waves, unable to get things moving. Perhaps the second rower would be dragged naked from his nest, to assist half-asleep with course setting or man-handling the oars.
In big seas these encounters were usually frantic.
In the dead of night, with little to illuminate oncoming waves, they were worse.
In the dead of night, with large seas and high winds, the whole ordeal was always terrifying.
I was adamant I didn’t want to experience all of the above whilst steering manually, and I therefore fretted about drained batteries for most of the journey.
Fretting about ghosts
Jacko, a good mate of mine and salt-hardened captain of the southern seas, told me over a beer before we left that the graveyard shifts were where we’d need to knuckle down. That’s where we could make a difference, he said, because night time is when people get frightened. It’s human nature to grow cautious and hunker down at nightfall. Vision is impaired, we misjudge distances, we tend not to eat at night, the draw of a bed (however damp) is strong. And then there are the ghosts, of course.
December 23rd was our first new moon, and it came with unusually quiet conditions. Our head torches bathed the deck in eerie red, but they did nothing to illuminate the scene beyond the oar blades. A thick layer of cloud hid the stars, so my 2am shift started in complete and total darkness. As had become normal, at five-to I opened the hatch and peered out to see how Dan was doing.
“I’m not hanging around.” he said, “For the last thirty minutes I’ve been hearing laughter over there and it’s freaking me out.”
He waved a finger out into the void, over to where we might normally see the skyline.
The conditions were so still, if any other boats had been nearby we certainly could have heard people onboard. There were no nav lights to be seen (though that didn’t signify much as ours weren’t on either). I glanced at the plotter and the AIS system which pinpoints other vessels within range. There was nothing. At the stroke of the hour Dan unclipped and, without another word, dived into the safety of the bow cabin.
And so, for the next two hours, I was alone with the sirens.
We learned later that other crews had heard similar noises that night, and that at other times hallucinations were commonly reported amongst the fleet; sightings of loved ones on deck, hearing of voices. Towards the end of the crossing my own exhaustion regularly gave rise to delirium and confusion. Mountaineers, alone in their thoughts as they trek from camp to camp, will often describe an overwhelming sense that they’ve had company along the way.
So I didn’t particularly take Dan’s comments seriously, but I remember glancing over my shoulders a few times during that shift.
Fretting about staying upright
Capsizing is one of the things you read about as a prospective ocean rower. All the best tales of Atlantic or Pacific crossings include boats tumbling over, rowers being dragged around with them, and equipment being lost to the waves. Anyone locked in their cabin during a capsize gets the cement mixer treatment, inevitably damaging themselves by banging their heads or some other body parts.
Modern ocean rowing boats, like our Rannoch R25, are all designed to be self-righting. Assuming the cabin hatches are firmly shut, the weight of the vessel is distributed so as to keep the whole thing turning in the event of a capsize. It will neatly reset in its upright position, hopefully with nothing breaking in the process, and ideally with all crew members still attached and conscious.
Two things were drilled into us every day by the Atlantic Campaigns safety team in the run up to the race. The first was to stay clipped onto the boat when you’re on deck. We wore harnesses (without leg straps) throughout the crossing for this purpose.
I didn’t actually remove mine from the moment I put it on in La Gomera. It was quite often soaking wet when I hit the sack, but putting a damp harness on after waking up is just as unpleasant as wearing it whilst sleeping. Whenever on deck we’d have three-point safety lines attaching these harnesses to various straps on the boat.
The second rule was to keep the hatches shut, no matter how calm the sea, or hot the cabin. The most benign of conditions can serve up random waves to turn a boat over, and with hatches open even by a small amount the cabins will fill with water and prevent the vessel from righting.
These two seemingly logical actions are exactly the kind of things ocean rowers choose to ignore (or simply fail to do) when they get tired and complacent. Several times towards the end of the row I’d stand up after completing a watch, go to unclip myself so I could climb into the cabin, only to realise I’d failed to clip on in the first place.
Still, capsizing always held a certain allure for me. What a unique adrenaline rush it would be! What a tale to tell. It would surely complete the ocean rowing experience. Provide a defining moment in this adventure of a lifetime. That was how I felt until we nearly capsized and I completely changed my mind.
I’d already been surprised the first time I dived into the water to scrape clean the hull. The sea at that moment was remarkably calm, the surface almost oily smooth, and the boat was motionless as far as I could tell. But the invisible current under the surface dragged me metres from the boat in just a matter of seconds. Were it not for the bow line tugging at my harness, I might have struggled to get back.
The more significant reality-check came in livelier seas, a week or so into the crossing. It had been a good day so far. The skies were a brilliant blue, the sun was warm, but the wind and waves were strong and pushing us south west. We were in the biggest swell we’d experienced so far, and this all made for exhilarating rowing conditions. I was on watch just after midday, Dan was resting in the cabin, and the boat was barrelling along (just a few knots feels like barrelling in the world of ocean rowing). An hour in, I needed to stop for a toilet break, so I pulled the oars across the cockpit and bumbled my way over to the rear of the deck. We were still learning at that stage, and during that first part of the race I found it easiest to relieve myself standing up, using a wide-necked bottle, steadying myself with one of the stainless steel bars we’d had fixed on top of the cabins.
With wind swirling around me, I was thrilled by my surroundings; stretching my aching limbs, standing tall at the rear of the boat and looking right down into the deep troughs left by enormous waves as they rolled underneath us. Until they didn’t.
The whole scene changed in an instant. Instead of passing under the boat, firmly lifting it and placing it down again, a breaking wave clawed the stern and took hold. The back end rose as the whole boat was taken with the face of the wave. I gripped the handrail, eyes widening as I struggled to understand what had changed and why this was happening. We picked up speed, white water boiled all around us, and the roaring noise made the situation even more alarming. It dawned on me that I might be thrown in. I realised that I was looking downwards at the fore cabin, hooking my arm now around the handrail, and was horrified to see Dan’s hatch disappear under the water as we plunged down under the surface. The boat corkscrewed, a huge volume of water washed across the deck and I fell to the side, expecting the boat to carry on and tip over, but at that moment the drama subsided and calm returned.
We settled, upright, and as quickly as the noise and chaos had started, it abruptly disappeared. Dan threw open the hatch to see what was going on. He’d found himself standing upright in the cabin, bags and equipment tumbling around him. I was in a state of mild shock. We’d lost a few items, including a jar of coffee, Dan’s shoes, a porridge bowl, and several other things we’d foolishly neglected to tie down.
The sudden violence had snapped one of the carbon fibre oars in half. It was the oar my daughters had decorated with drawings and messages in Spain, and I was overcome with sadness as I watched the two pieces drift off, out of reach, in our wake.
We tidied up the mess and gathered ourselves before I started rowing again. I’m not a naval architect, I don’t have the slightest understanding of weight distribution on marine vessels, but I assume our close call was because I’d been standing upright and quite far back, upsetting the boat’s centre of mass precisely at the wrong moment. I was quite sure I no longer wanted to experience a capsize. And from that moment on we moved around the boat with extra care, keeping our weight as low as possible.
Fretting about latitude
Our stubborn unwillingness to capsize influenced the route we took during the week following Boxing day, and consequently led to my final source of fretting: being too far south.
Around the 22nd of December the whole fleet was given warning of a strong weather system approaching to our north. This unusual low pressure was due to last days, and would almost certainly give us huge seas and high winds, coming directly from the north, effectively blocking all efforts to push west.
The bigger teams were fortunate; they’d already made enough progress to reach calmer seas, so found themselves beyond the grasp of our Yuletide weather system. For me and Dan, however, and the rest of the fleet, conditions were about to get rough.
Sure enough, on Boxing Day, the forecasted cold northerly wind made an appearance, clouds formed on the horizon, and the swell grew.
We could no longer row; the sea was so lively the oars would get snatched from our hands. Besides, we were now heading almost directly south; our reluctance to tip over meant we weren’t prepared to push even 5º across the waves. For a few days we’d be unable to travel in any direction other than where the seas took us, and that meant we’d need to go as slowly as possible, otherwise we’d be taken too far off course.
Meanwhile Blurge, another sailing friend of mine, was heading across the Atlantic, preparing for the winter Caribbean season. He texted me from the carpeted comfort of his bridge that same day:
“I hope you guys are doing ok in this worsening weather. We are WELL north of you and in 3.5m NE waves. My friend is running for cover in Cape Verde.”
Crews of sailing and motor yachts were struggling all around us, but they at least had the option of powering through or escaping to safety. We had no choice but to lash the oars firmly to the cockpit and cross our fingers.
The night of the 26th was wild. Swells had reached a reported 4.2m now; officially “heavy seas”. Lying in my cabin, with just a few millimetres of glass fibre between me and the dark abyss, I found the immense rise and fall oddly soporific. I had complete faith in the structural integrity of the boat. Even so, once in a while I’d hear the growl of rogue waves as they came to life, building, seeming to come from an entirely different direction to the rest, before smashing into the side of the boat with alarming ferocity. Several times Dan and I would pop out from our hatches to check on each other after these collisions. Each time we were convinced that something would have snapped or broken loose, but everything held together well.
The day of the 27th passed in much the same way. Huge swell, gigantic sporadic waves, and a complete inability to make progress towards Antigua.
By the 28th Mother Nature was taking a breather and we managed to get ourselves on a bearing of 225º (exactly SW), which meant we were making some westward gains at last. Other boats had dared to add more west to their route, but two teams duly fell victim to the waves and capsized; fellow pair the “Dream Boats”, and foursome “Fight Oar Die”. Thanks to a damaged superstructure which let in water, the latter weren’t able to right their vessel either, having to be rescued by a Dutch Merchant Navy ship in dramatic fashion. They ended their Atlantic challenge safely in Nova Scotia two weeks later.
Latitude is measured in degrees, where the equator is “0ºN (North)” and the very top of the planet measures “90ºN”. We began our journey in the Canaries at 28ºN and were aiming to steadily make our way across and down to English Harbour, Antigua, at exactly 17ºN.
Currents and winds in the Atlantic mean we would naturally drift south west, but it would be difficult to climb back up. By the 28th of December we’d reached 18ºN and didn’t have much west to show for our efforts. It was time to make a sharp right.
To my knowledge, no participating teams have ever found themselves too far south and unable to reach the finish line in Antigua. Some have certainly had difficulties pulling themselves up and into the harbour, but all have made it over the years. That didn’t stop my newfound fretting giving me visions of becoming shipwrecked in Guadeloupe.
From the moment we were able to change course, we hung onto a bearing of almost exactly 270º, pointing ourselves precisely westward, level with the finish line at 17ºN. Saying that, the reliable Trade Winds which push seafarers merrily across the Atlantic at this time of year were nowhere to be found. Depending on the changeable current and wind, maintaining course was straightforward on some days, and impossible on others. And factors would change, invisibly, from shift to shift. Several times I’d collapse into the cabin after two hours of graft, only to see on the plotter that we’d careened south without me realising. The following hours would then be spent trying to make up the position we’d lost. And so continued our dance for the whole month of January, weaving up and down as we marked our dotted line across the plotter screen.
The final route (see below) is absurd. I’d expected a reasonable curve across the ocean, like a plane descending towards a runway, but our race south and subsequent straight line across 17ºN won’t be one for future Atlantic rowing text books.
My fretting lessened as we worked our way towards Antigua. We were learning, and although we weren’t going as fast as we’d hoped, and we were thoroughly exhausted, we were competently adjusting our route to sea conditions. The Atlantic, however, had one more test for us. By the 26th of January we were cruising at an ideal latitude which gave us a small margin for error as we made our approach. We were just a few days away. But then currents and winds changed again, conspiring to rob us of our margin. The half a degree north we’d worked weeks for was taken from us over the course of an afternoon. We watched our latitude drain away, unable to stop the leak. And then at around midnight another storm hit us.
In driving rain and dangerously high winds we were suddenly rocketing southwards, at speeds we hadn’t imagined possible. Now well below Antigua and with no signs of slowing down, we had no choice but to hit the brakes.
The para-anchor is a broad parachute fixed to the bow by a 40m line. When deployed it fills with water and sinks well below the surface, pulling the boat round to face upwind and stopping it almost completely. This was our brake. Once we’d thrown it over the side into the blackness we felt Axel swivel around and come to an almost stop, oncoming waves now being sliced apart by the streamlined form of the bow. We wouldn’t be going anywhere for hours, so we crawled back into our respective cabins for some extended sleep while the storm raged around us.
By mid-morning we decided to get on the oars again. The whole Atlantic was still pushing us south, but it was no longer attacking us with such force. There was no way we could aim westward, but we realised that by pointing north we might at least minimise our freewheeling further toward the equator. Rowing directly into the waves felt unnatural; up until this point the sun had always been visible to the right, the waves more or less heading back across our right shoulder. But now we were looking south, the whole sea moving towards the horizon, with us trying to row uphill. It seemed fruitless, and morale onboard was low. But to our surprise, after my first two hour shift, we’d made progress north and bought back some of our margin. For the next 24 hours we gave it big guns, working at the smaller challenge at hand, and successfully fought our way back into friendly latitudes. We didn’t mind that we were no closer to Antigua. We’d overcome awful conditions through grit and determination, and doing so energised us for the final days.
Land ho
February 3rd was a Friday and came hand in hand with a full moon. We were also treated to following seas, favourable currents, and a stiff breeze “right up the chuff” (another nautical term I’ve learned from sailing friends).
Neither Dan nor I could sleep that day. Fighting to keep our latitude for weeks beforehand had exhausted us, but knowing we would be in English Harbour some time that night kept us wide awake. Antigua rose into view during the afternoon, and I spent the day fine tuning our approach angle. Clouds built to our north, but after weeks at sea I’d become comfortable with their presence and used to their influence. I felt completely at peace. There was no sense that we’d conquered the Atlantic, but I no longer felt like it was fighting us.
The distant clouds, as usual, foretold squally evening conditions. They approached at around midnight and the swell built accordingly. We embraced the light rain and enjoyed the fastest seas we’d experienced all race. Surfable waves, launching us straight toward the finish line. This is how I’d thought the whole adventure would feel! How wrong I’d been. But how thrilled I was to be enjoying the pace of those final miles. To my surprise, I realised that all my fretting had left me.
The clouds cleared, and Friday’s full moon floodlit Antigua’s imposing eastern shores. The first land we’d seen in months. As Dan heaved the oars, I tweaked our bearing back and forth to ease us into the island’s gravitational pull. The sea moved in confusing patterns, but we steered in smoothly, looming cliffs to our starboard, and made our way around the dark coastline.
As we rounded the final headland we were greeted by the race organisers’ boat; cheers and lights and familiar faces at last! We followed them in. Flares lit up across our field of vision. Claxons sounded.
We’d done it. No more fretting required. And so ended the most incredible experience of my life.
