News

For Ian Allen, crew member onboard Fours Class Boat, Boat No. 7 'Bexhill Trust Challenger', today is his Birthday.  Happy Birthday Ian and we wait with anticipation to hear how you celebrate the day – a birthday experience like no other and a day that you will never forget!

For solo rower, Simon Prior onboard Boat No 3 ‘Old Mutual Endurance’ the last few days have been particularly tough, averaging just 10 miles a day.  Despite having favorable winds, the currents are currently against him.  Each time Simon takes a break to rest, eat or to do necessary boat maintenance, he watches his progress and hard work from the previous rowing shift slip away as the boat moves backwards to where he started.

Last week, Simon was sitting comfortably in the middle of the fleet but the slow progress of the past few days have seen him drop to the bottom of the positions table.

With no one else onboard to share his frustration and disappointment, negativity did momentarily take over but encouragement and a few kind words from his family and friends back home have helped Simon to refocus on the end goal.

At the opposite end of the fleet, race leaders, the Ocean Angels onboard Boat No. 13 ‘Pura Vida’ experienced a very wet day yesterday with a large swell, big waves that constantly washed over the deck of their boat and rain drops the size of bullets, so large and fierce that they bruised the skin of the Ocean Angels on impact.  However, they refused to let the weather get them down and embraced the conditions off the high of their peach and pineapple party.

Guy and Andrew in Boat No. 6 ‘Flying Ferkins’ have experienced very similar conditions over the last 24 hours.  However, despite torrential rain, they comment on how peaceful the Indian Ocean is while rowing along under the bright light of a beautiful full moon and also how little wildlife they have seen.

For Boat No. 5, Rowing for Prostate, the past couple of days has brought mixed emotions.  Power problems together with a watermaker that drained any power left in the batteries has forced the crew to revert to their manual watermaker - a unit loaned to the team by Woodvale Challenge.

Adding pumping time to their already tight shift schedule has left the crew exhausted and team moral low.  However, 24 hours on and this punishing routine had enabled the crew to pump 20 litres of fresh water, enough to replenish the fresh ballast water that they had been forced to break into and their batteries have recharged to 50% capacity.  Another couple of days on this routine should hopefully enable the use of the electric watermaker once again and the team to revert focus back to catching the two Fours teams just ahead of them.

For all the latest positions of the teams competing in the Indian Ocean Rowing Race 2009, please go to the Progress Page on this site.