What qualifications are needed to enter the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge?

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Team Roaring40s Ocean Rowing

4 min readFeb 26, 2023

Atlantic Campaigns is the organisation behind TWAC and they see to it that entrants have all kinds of hoops to jump through before making it to the starting line. Why? To ensure participants have the best chance of reaching the other side of the Atlantic, as safely as possible.

One thing you’ll be required to do if you sign up is complete a handful of maritime courses, teaching the basics of ocean rowing, survival techniques, VHF radio use, first aid and emergency trauma, navigation, and personal survival.

In our case, Dan (being a yacht captain) already has tickets way beyond these basic level qualifications. But even he had to renew his first aid because his certificate was set to expire before December 2022.

I had none of the required tickets, so I’ve had to sit them all this summer.

Which qualifications are you asked for?

At the time of writing, Atlantic Campaigns ask for the following RYA (or equivalent) certificates:

Marine Radio Short Range Certificate (VHF)
Basic Sea Survival Certificate
Marine First Aid Course
Essential Navigation and Seamanship Course
Ocean rowing course (run by the Atlantic Campaigns safety team)

Dan and I both attended the ocean rowing course last year. It was run remotely and involved a day of being walked through all manner of situations by Fraser from Atlantic Campaigns. For a Zoom meeting it was actually really interesting, and we talked at length on buttock care and management.

The other four qualifications weren’t so simple though.

5 ways I made things difficult for myself (a cautionary tale)

I made things way more stressful for myself than they needed to be.

I missed the fact that the deadline for submitting qualifications is September 1st (not the day of the race as I’d thought). This meant that I needed to complete all of them during the summer months, when sea schools typically don’t run courses because everyone in the yachting world is sailing.
In fairness, Dawn Wood of Aurora Sea School in the UK was running all the necessary courses during the summer, but my passport was due to expire within 3 months so I couldn’t use it for traveling. Thanks to Brexit and COVID, quick-turnarounds on British passports are a thing of fiction in 2022. I was stuck in the EU.
Some schools in Spain were open to running courses as long as I could find enough people to attend. This worked, but meant more effort.
When I finally did find schools where the courses were running, some were STCW qualifications rather than RYA, which meant an extra process of having Atlantic Campaigns check the curriculums.
I did 3 courses in Mallorca (Spain) and one in Antibes (France). Doing everything in one place would have saved time and money.

Thanks to:

Somehow, I’m now fully furnished with the necessary certificates. It wouldn’t have been possible without the help of:

Amanda, who’s led a colourful career all over the world as yacht paramedic and first aid teacher to seafarers. She works with MSOS in Palma and stepped up in July, foregoing some of the costs as sponsorship to the campaign. That sorted the first aid and trauma response. What a legend.

Tony and Sofi at Deep Blue Sea Training in Palma who ran the VHF and Navigation courses for me, most of which are completed online with exams in person.

Tony and Femke at Bluewater — famed bar sponsors from our golf event last year — told me of a sea survival course being held in Antibes. The very next day. By this time I was back home in Andorra, so I leapt into the van and headed east for 7 hours. A day of life jackets, life rafts, talk of beacons, emergency procedures, and worst case scenarios, and I was done. With days to spare!