The former university teammates have entered the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge and are now having a boat built for the two months that the 3,000 nautical mile trip will take.
“We are hoping to raise £60,000 for charities including the RNLI and Cystic Fibrosis, in addition to raising awareness of the need to tackle climate change,” explains team member, James Timbs-Harrison, who works for Mitsubishi Electric’s Heating Systems.
Along with teammates James Kendall, Liam Browning and Stuart Markland, they will take turns to row continuously in the 60-day race from San Sebastian in La Gomera, Canary Islands to Nelson’s Dockyard English Harbour, Antigua.
In addition to the fundraising total, the team is hoping to generate a significant part of the cost of the trip through corporate sponsors and the boat is already being named ‘Ecodan’, in honour of Mitsubishi Electric’s renewable heating range, following the announcement of their expedition sponsorship.
The intrepid crew already have a dedicated website (http://www.allbeansnomonkeys.com/), named after their University rowing team motto – ‘All beans and no monkeys’ which roughly translates as ‘consistent effort with no mistakes’.
The race is held in early December 2015 so the team has now started a rigorous training programme designed to ensure they can not only cope with the physical demands of rowing across the Atlantic, but are also fully prepared to live in the cramped conditions that will become their home for almost two months.
“I’m really looking forward to the challenge of becoming one of only 500 people who have ever rowed the Atlantic and raising awareness of the need for us all to do what we can individually to tackle climate change,” explains Timbs-Harrison, who will be blogging with the team throughout the journey.
The boat will also be tracked on a separate website so supporters can see the team’s progress day by day. Further details on the Atlantic Challenge are available at the official race website – http://www.taliskerwhiskyatlanticchallenge.com/