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 smiled as she nodded down at the sea. ‘It will all be fine. We will make it across! Just you wait and see…

      And so we set off towards the start line. With Janette at the helm, we rowed with all three of us up on the oars, with as much style and panache as we could manage. We were very conscious that our families would be watching the start on BBC Breakfast, curled up on the sofa at home, five days before Christmas and without their mums. We wanted to give them a bit of a show.

      ‘Okay, ladies,’ grinned Janette as we lined up at the start, surrounded by small boats, larger vessels, TV crews, a circling helicopter, shouting, waving crowds and Wayne and Tracy. ‘Let’s show them how it’s done!’

      We were poised to go. Janette held onto the mooring line with Carsten gripping the other end. This was the only thing that was stopping us from leaving. Carsten kissed Janette on the cheek.

      ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in Antigua.’ He let go of the rope. Our last contact with land.

      Janette pulled it on board. It felt strange. This was it. We were leaving. Our hearts were pounding. It was nerve-racking. It was our last touch. Our last bit of contact with land, with anyone else.

      From now on it would be just us four. It was going to be tough, but we were going to make damn sure we managed it.

      Janette stood tall. She was ready to steer the way. She knew we’d give it everything we could to show to the world we were ready, we were strong and we were women.

      ‘Come on, girls,’ she urged, her blonde hair whipping around her face. ‘Let’s do this!’

      Carsten sounded the klaxon and the loud, shrieking blast echoed around the harbour. The crowds roared and we were off, rowing in unison, giving it our best in our black Lycra rowing shorts and our Talisker vests, pulling our oars through the water powerfully and in time, together.

      ‘One! Two!’ shouted Janette from the helm. ‘Smile!’ she urged. ‘I feel like Queen Boadicea in the middle of her slaves!’ She laughed. ‘We’re Amazons!’

      ‘Quite elderly Amazons,’ said Frances, as she slid back and forth on her seat.

      ‘Middle-aged,’ corrected Niki.

      ‘Middle-aged Amazons!’ agreed Helen. ‘Who ARE going to cross an ocean!’

      The boats left La Gomera at 15-minute intervals, and it wasn’t long before we watched Row Like a Girl power past us. We had held the lead in the race for precisely half an hour! Possibly less. Not that we minded; we were more interested in hitting the first waypoint (a marker), which we had dutifully programmed into our GPS system and were trying to head towards, despite the ever-increasing swell. The problem, we soon realised, with being first out of the harbour is that you have no one to follow! And it didn’t take long before all the other rowers had also left La Gomera and disappeared.

      One moment we could see an ocean littered with boats – friends that we had made over the three weeks that we had spent on the island. And then, all of a sudden, we were alone. It was like an oceanic game of hide and seek. We were on our own.

      There was no time to worry about this, for even with land still firmly in sight, the ocean had plans. The waves were growing and the current grew stronger, and Rose was being pulled along in it. Time and again we tried to row, and time and again the oars were being wrenched out of our hands. It was painful. The sea was so strong that we could not get any purchase in the waves, and when we did the oars would shoot out of the water, sending us and them flying backwards, hitting us in the legs and the thighs, garrotting us or, even worse, whacking us extremely hard in the pubic bone. It was agony, and not what we had trained for at all. It was also cold, freezing cold, as wave after 40-foot wave broke over us, dousing us in icy salt water. We were being lashed from left and right, the oars flying everywhere. It was truly a baptism of fire; we were taking our wet-weather gear on and off constantly, and clinging onto the boat for dear life. And we had only just gone out to sea.

      ‘Call this a rowing race?’ shouted Frances as she held onto the side of the boat, as we rode yet another wall of 40-foot waves. ‘This is just holding on!’

      ‘I hate these waves,’ said Helen. ‘I can’t believe they are SO big.’

      ‘These aren’t big!’ shouted Janette. ‘This is nothing – 40 foot is nothing – 40 foot is easy.’ She smiled. ‘We’re perfectly safe.’

      ‘It’s like the best rollercoaster ride!’ grinned Niki, who, out of all four of us, was the one loving it the most. We were hitting 3.5 knots without even putting an oar in the water. Who knew she was such a speed freak?

      Meanwhile, everything was an effort. Moving around on the boat was so difficult. Constrained by our bulky wet-weather gear and the extreme rocking with the waves, even the smallest thing seemed impossible. Cooking was actually dangerous. The simple task of boiling some water and then trying to rehydrate a bag of chicken curry or beef stew could take up to 45 minutes at a time, as splashes of scalding hot water sloshed all over the place.

      But going to the toilet was the worst. We had two buckets – one for washing in and the other for doing our business. Being resourceful ladies we had naturally customised our toilet bucket with a grey plastic lav seat for a more comfortable experience. However, it is difficult to do one’s business with your weatherproof salopettes around your ankles while riding a rollercoaster wave, with a biodegradable wet wipe in your hand. Not forgetting the audience. In the front row.

      Not that any of us really cared about that. We’d seen each other in all forms of undress in the build-up to the race. We had shared more dodgy hotel rooms with badly plumbed bathrooms than we cared to remember. So performing on a bucket in front of the group was not the problem; staying on the bucket was. And keeping the contents of the bucket from flying back into the boat after you hurled it overboard or avoiding spilling it all over your fellow rower was something of a challenge. Also, remembering to fill it with a little water before sitting on it was clearly trickier for some members of the crew than for others. Helen was always the one having to scrub out her bucket after being surprised by her sudden need to go to the loo.

      Despite the huge waves and the strong current, we were sticking to our plan of rowing two hours on, two hours off. We were on the oars in our pairings of Frances and Niki, and Janette and Helen, keeping to our schedule and pointing the bow towards Antigua, 3,000 miles away.

      Even Helen. Every two hours she would come out of the diminutive cabin she was sharing with Niki and she would throw up, get on the oars, throw up, either row or not row, throw up. And she would remain there for the next two hours, being battered by the waves and throwing up, before it was her turn to go back into the cabin. Then she would get off her seat, throw up, knock on the cabin door to get Niki out of bed, throw up again, before dragging herself into the cabin, where she would lie, without moving, until she was called back up on deck again two hours later.

      The only two things that kept Helen going during those first few days were mugs of Ultra Fuel (an all-singing, all-dancing liquid meal-replacement drink, developed from extreme sports) and Niki. Every time Helen came off shift, Niki made her a mixture of Ultra Fuel and water, which Helen would sip in tiny mouthfuls, while lying motionless, for the next two hours. Oddly, Helen was not sick when she was lying down, and those precious minutes allowed her to metabolise the nutrients in the drink and prevent total dehydration. And dehydration on the ocean can be fatal, or at least fatal to your ambitions of finishing the race, as once it kicks in it is extremely difficult to combat. Which is exactly what happened to poor Nick Khan in the Latitude 35 team – after 10 days of chronic seasickness, he СКАЧАТЬ