Two young men, one rowing boat, and a non-stop unsupported trip across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Salcombe!

Every year we head down to Salcombe in Devon for our family summer holiday. This year I spotted a distinctive looking rowing boat out on the water. After a bit of searching I discovered ‘Team Ocean Valour‘; two young local adventurers who are planning an epic rowing expedition next May (2015). Their adventure has a compelling story so I contacted Tom Rainey and Sam Coombs to find out a bit more, and offered to help raise their profile a bit by writing a blog…

Their challenge is for the pair of them to cross the North Atlantic, from New York to Salcombe, in a rowing boat. Their objective is to be the youngest ever team to row from mainland USA to the mainland UK, entirely unsupported. To give some context to their mission, it’s a crossing which has been attempted around 60 times and completed by just 22 (with 5 crews lost at sea!) in 118 years of records. By compassion there have been over 5000 successful summits of Mount Everest.

The idea emerged to raise funds for The Brain Tumour Charity, an organisation particularly close to Tom’s heart after sadly losing his father Luke in late 2012. The guys also wanted to use the row to raise awareness of the growing North Atlantic Garbage Patch; an area of man-made debris which stretches hundreds of square kilometers, with over 200,000 pieces of debris per square km. This is largely plastics which never dissolve and have a significant detrimental impact on the life of seabirds and marine mammals.

These two graduates are in their early twenties and have spent their whole life on/ around water. They studied Marine Environment at University in Plymouth and have represented GB sailing around the world. They are also surfers, ultra marathon runners and extreme white water kayakers. It’s safe to assume these guys don’t do things by halves!

I met Tom last weekend and had a tour around their amazing £45k rowing boat, purpose built by ocean rowing specialists Sea Sabre. The trip will cover 3800 miles and they will experience freezing conditions, winds of up to 80mph and waves equivalent to seven-storey buildings! This is one seriously hardcore 2+ month long Ice Bucket Challenge…in a rowing boat!

The boat is pretty basic really, but has some important essentials…

• It has the latest Communications and GPS/ Navigation kit which will help them navigate and be seen on the Ocean.
• There’s solar panels for power and a water machine can convert sea water into drinking water.
• Speakers have been built into central area so they can play music from iPods.
• They have a Sea Anchor which is like a parachute. This will help them from drifting off course in bad weather.
• The sleeping area is Bijou, but adequate for both of them to fit in. However they’ll be doing a constant 2 hour rotation most of the time for rowing.

I really admire what these guys are doing, it’s a genuinely massive undertaking and one they seem to understand well. They also have some experienced people around them who are advising. This expedition has to be ranked highly in terms of challenging the human body to its absolute limits, both physically and mentally. The reality is that not many people could do this sort of thing.

You can see more of their story as it happens on their website and donate to the mission for The Brain Tumour Charity. They want to raise £250,000, on top of their costs.

Personally I reckon they could smash this target, especially if they get some support so please help spread the word…

www.oceanvalour.co.uk
Follow them on Twitter @OV2015
Follow their page on Facebook ‘Ocean Valour 2015’