Boat and Equipment
The History of our boat Speedo
The boat that we will be using is made of fiber glass rather than the less robust and heavier plywood boats you can buy and was first built in 2003 by Justin Adkin, himself a keen ocean rower and already has crossed the atlantic four times clocking up around 14,000 miles in the process and has raised just under £100,000 for a number of UK charities.
The first person to undertake the marathon Atlantic crossing in her was Stuart Boreham, a cerebral palsy sufferer who in 2004 became the first physically disabled person to row the Atlantic unassisted and his progress was charted by a BBC Documentary Team. I'm sure you'll agree that that was a monumental undertaking and he succeeded in raising the grand total of £25,000 for Macmillan Cancer Relief to help fund a nurse for a year. After a spirited challenge Stuart and 'Macmillan Spirit' crossed the finish line in Barbados on 03 March 2004 having travelled a total distance of 3,341 and having spent 109 days 12 hours and 9 minutes at sea.
Stuart Boreham and Macmillan Spirit in the Atlantic
After that challenge the boat passed on to two new owners from a very different background for the 2005 race with Al Howard, aged 34 and a sales director for Airbus and Nick Rowe, aged 40 and a Project Manager at Standard Chartered Bank at the helm and while Howard had been inspired to join the team after witnessing the horrible aftermath of the new year tsunami disaster that hit Aceh in Thailand Al had signed up because of his spirit of adventure, describing the race as an 'endurance event that seems to never end'. Not content just ploughing the sea between La Gomera and Antigua the team shipped the newly named 'Ghurkha Spirit' to a fund raising dinner in Hong Kong at the famous Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club where over a hundred famous names attended the night and where Kenneth Crutchlow himself summarily explained that Al and Nick were adventurers and that especially in these days adventurers were worthy of support. The results of the dinner were better than expected with stories appearing in all of the main Hong Kong papers and real time coverage on the main TV and cable stations that resulted in some real offers of sponsorship. Being ex Gurkha officers and friends for fifteen years Al and Nick aimed to raise £ 0 for the Gurkha Welfare Trust and Sight Savers International charities.
Also known as Boat Number 16 Al and Howard crossed the finish line in Antigua at 01:21 GMT on Sunday 05 February 2006 with a crossing time of 66 days, 13 hours and 16 minutes.
Ghurka Spirit in a swimming pool in Hong Kong
After setting such a blistering time the mantle, and the boat, then passed on to Anthony Taylor a 31 year old lawyer from Manchester in mid 2006 where she was subsequently renamed the 'Albatross' and entered into the Woodvale 2007 cross Atlantic race. Anthony managed to raise just under £10,000 for his favourite charity Christies Cancer Hospital in Manchester, a charity he and his father have supported for the past several years after they performed a miraculous operation on his father to remove a brain tumour.
Anthony and 'Albatross' crossed the finish line in Antigua at 18:11GMT on March 30th 2008 with a crossing time of 78 days 8 hours and 11 minutes.
Anthony Taylor and Albatross nearing Antigua
And now, in what will be by no means the final curtain the 'Albatross' has passed to me and christened 'Speedo'. My aim is to beat the 66 days taken to cross the Atlantic by Al and Howard and to try to raise £50,000 for the NSPCC, will I succeed and just what have I taken on!?
