Four Mums in a Boat: Friends who rowed 3000 miles, broke a world record and learnt a lot about life along the way. Janette Benaddi

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СКАЧАТЬ were crews of rowers for the race everywhere, boats lined up alongside each other. The teams were from all over the world: pairs, solo rowers and, like us, other teams of four. There were 26 teams in total, all preparing for the race and wandering up and down the jetties. Their huge piles of kit, ropes, buckets, grab bags, water pumps, drogues, sea anchors, radios, flares and first-aid kits were strewn about the wooden planks in a form of very ordered chaos, ready to be scrutinised by the race organisers – a painstakingly precise process in which each and every piece of equipment is checked, along with the competitor’s ability to use them. It is not only an inventory of the boat; it also tests her and the team’s seaworthiness. Anyone failing this process is not allowed to race.

      Bang in the middle of it all was Rose – our beautiful Rannoch ocean-going racing boat and very much the fifth member of the team – 8 metres long and 1.5 metres wide, and glowing white in the sunshine. We were so eager to see her we picked our way through the teams to find her. We had missed her since she’d been packed onto a cargo ship and sent south two months earlier. Finally we spotted her, sleek and shiny with new Glide Coat paint to help her speed through the Atlantic. She was moored up next to a bold green boat powered by the only other all-female crew in the race – Row Like a Girl. We immediately climbed aboard and, like concerned parents, began to check her over just in case she had been knocked or bashed about on her journey. Fortunately she was perfect. In fact, compared to a lot of the boats in the marina she looked fabulous.

      ‘Not to be rude,’ whispered Helen, looking up and down the line of boats, ‘but none of these other boats are a patch on Rose!’

      ‘You’re right,’ confirmed Niki, also up on deck. ‘Rose is one of the more modern boats here.’

      But it wasn’t just the age and size of the boats that differed; it was what the other crews had done to them. As we wandered up and down the jetties, chatting to the other crews and introducing ourselves, it became apparent that quite a lot of the other teams had effectively ‘pimped their rides’.

      ‘The Antiguans have got a little cooker,’ said Janette. ‘They’ve taken out one of their rowing seats and put it in the middle.’

      ‘They’ve got rods as well,’ added Niki. ‘Apparently they’re planning to fish their way across.’

      ‘Fish?’ asked Helen.

      ‘They’ll get there when they get there, or that’s what they’re saying,’ continued Niki, looking extremely perplexed.

      ‘Team Beyond are taking gallons of olive oil to drink,’ shared Frances.

      ‘Doesn’t that give you diarrhoea?’ asked Helen.

      ‘Ocean Reunion have packed masses of peanut butter in a bag!’

      As we went up and down the boats, checking everyone out, we began to seriously doubt our preparation. Did we need a little cooker? Should we be fishing? Eating peanut butter, while glugging back the olive oil? What were we doing? What were we thinking? We didn’t belong here, among this group of extreme athletes. We were four mums from Yorkshire who really didn’t have any idea.

      ‘Enough is enough,’ declared Frances firmly. ‘We’ve done what we’ve done and we’re here now. Let’s get on with it.’

      With so many rowers, support crews and race organisers crammed onto such a small island, accommodation was at a premium. Fortunately, Janette had been to La Gomera the year before with her husband, Ben, on a recce for the team. So she’d tested out some of the restaurants and truffled out a couple of bars. She’d even spotted a glamorous five-star hotel high on the hill that she’d fancied for the trip, but Frances had other ideas and found a distinctly less salubrious but certainly more practical apartment for the four of us to hole up in until the rest of our families arrived to wish us well before the start of the race.

      An estate agent might have generously described the first-floor apartment as ‘characterful’. Helen optimistically described it as having ‘Spanish charm’, but then she had managed to secure the best bedroom – or perhaps that should be the only bedroom – with a double bed and a large wardrobe, right next to the bathroom. Janette ended up on the sofa bed in the lounge, while Frances and Niki slept in the ‘attic’ – a mezzanine open to the elements. They were forced to pee in buckets (much to the amusement of the neighbours), as climbing down the rickety ladder in the middle of the night was not an ideal way to avoid injury. And we could not afford injuries. Not now. Not after all our hard work, when we were so close to the race itself.

      On our first night, we had a meeting about how much kit we should take onto the boat. Obviously, the more kit we had, the heavier the boat and the more slowly we would be able to row. It was in our interest to keep everything to a minimum. There were essentials like the spare rudder and the hand-operated watermaker that simply could not be left behind, but Helen’s hair straighteners and family-sized glitter shower gel were certainly being sent back home before the race with her husband, Richard, as they were strictly a La Gomera ‘essential’ only. As indeed, it appeared, were our pants.

      ‘We only really need two pairs,’ announced Janette.

      ‘Two?’ asked Niki.

      Janette nodded. ‘We have to start somewhere, so it may as well be the knickers. We won’t be wearing them anyway.’

      ‘Why only two?’ asked Helen.

      ‘The weight.’

      ‘Knickers don’t weigh very much,’ continued Helen.

      ‘I know, but added to everything else you want, you’ll end up with a boat so heavy we can’t row.’

      ‘There are probably bigger and heavier items we should be arguing about. Like snack packs.’

      Niki flinched. During the long build-up to the race we had each, at various different times and stages, been assigned roles or duties. And Niki had been placed in charge of snack packs. It was one of the many jobs she is well suited to. For, despite the fact that she is slim and as svelte as you like, she likes her food. She has an extremely fast metabolism and when she is not eating, she is quite often thinking about what she might want to be eating next. So she was the logical person to put in charge of food, particularly snacks.

      Sufficient calorie intake on such a strenuous and mammoth journey is, needless to say, essential, and Niki researched her task impeccably with the razor-sharp precision that she brings to everything. Rules of the challenge stipulate that each boat must carry 60 days’ worth of rations per person, and with us burning anything between 6,000 and 10,000 calories a day, we obviously needed a lot of meals and plenty of snacks in between them. In fact, we’d been told that as the high-calorie ration packs themselves would soon bore us into not bothering or wanting to eat anything, the snacks were more than a treat; they could end up keeping us going through an especially long night out at sea or a miserable moment of depression, and could therefore end up saving our lives. And Niki had definitely investigated all avenues and scenarios. She had gone through what we should bring, and what could survive the sweaty, salty, damp journey. She had asked us what we liked, and what we might want to eat in the middle of a force-eight gale. Unfortunately, when Niki had emailed us all, none of us had really focused on her question.

      ‘We don’t mind,’ we all said politely. ‘It’s up to you.’ Turns out that was a decision we would certainly live to regret.

      Janette’s kit cull was ruthless, and knickergate rumbled on with talk of a mutiny and a plan to stash a secret bag of pants on the СКАЧАТЬ