Row, row, row your boat..

[Gob]

A team of female rowers have arrived in Australia nine months after setting off from San Francisco to cross the Pacific Ocean.



The Coxless Crew rowed out under the Golden Gate Bridge in April last year.

After 257 days at sea, with supply stops in Hawaii and Samoa, their 29ft boat, Doris, crossed the finish line at Cairns just before 01:00 GMT.

The crew - made up of three permanent members and three others each rowing a leg - have claimed two records.

Laura Penhaul, Natalia Cohen and Emma Mitchell, along with final leg rower Meg Dyos, hugged each other as they entered the Marlin Marina in the Queensland city.

Sharing beers with family and friends who had gathered to welcome them, the adventurers described their achievement as "an overwhelming experience".

Laura Penhaul, 32, originally from Cornwall but now living and working in London, is the founder and leader of the Coxless Crew. The lead physiotherapist for British Paralympics Athletics, she is a keen marathon runner, cyclist and triathlete
Natalia Cohen, 40, is based in London. An adventure tour leader and manager, she has lived and worked in more than 50 countries in the last 15 years and has completed the Inca Trail in Peru 10 times
Emma Mitchell, 30, originally from Marlow in Buckinghamshire and now living in Portsmouth. An expedition manager, she has rowed for England and is an ex-Cambridge Blue who competed in the Boat Race
Isabel Burnham, 31, is a solicitor from Saffron Walden near Cambridge who joined the Coxless Crew for the first leg, from San Francisco to Hawaii. She also rowed for Cambridge University
Lizanne van Vuuren, 27, a South African osteopath who grew up in Newbury, was part of the crew for the second leg, from Hawaii to Samoa.
Meg Dyos, 25, an English graduate who works as an estate agent in London, joined the Coxless Crew for the third leg, from Samoa to Cairns

Despite taking three months longer than originally planned, the 9,200-mile (14,800km) expedition has set two world records; the women becoming the first all-female team and the first team of four to row the Pacific.

They rowed continuously as pairs in two-hour shifts, sleeping 90 minutes at a time.

Each consumed 5,000 calories a day, devouring freeze-dried meals with a side of protein bars, chocolate, fruit or nuts, washed down with desalinated sea water.

But they took a Christmas cake on board as a treat on 25 December, a day which they unsurprisingly spent at sea.

Along their epic journey they had to contend with a battering from a tropical storm, waves the height of houses and the approach of a humpback whale that surfaced just yards away from their boat.

Drenched by rain and seawater they endured painful sores, but also faced temperatures so hot they cooked a pancake on the deck just from the sun's rays.

The expedition, which is raising money for the charities Walking With The Wounded and Breast Cancer Care, has been filmed for a documentary called Losing Sight Of Shore

[Long Run]

Nicely done.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Nicely done indeed. Lots of British spunk there... well, not so much of that maybe but definitely a terrific job.

But I'd count "three permanent members and three others each rowing a leg" as being a team of er.... 6 (six).

How does that qualify as a team of four?

[Bicycle Bill]

A team of female rowers have arrived in Australia nine months after setting off from San Francisco to cross the Pacific Ocean.

The Coxless Crew rowed out under the Golden Gate Bridge in April last year.

HUH - UH - UH - UH - UH......



He said the girls were coxless.  HUH - UH - UH - UH - UH!!

-"BB"-

[TPFKA@W]

Bet they have heard that tired, pathetic "joke" before.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Obviously, they were making the joke themselves. If it's tired, tell them.

[Gob]

Four ex-serviceman have become the first amputees to row across the Atlantic.
The group, who set off from the Canary Islands on 20 December, took 47 days to complete the 3,000-mile row to Antigua.

Lee Spencer, Nigel Rogoff, Paddy Gallagher and Cayle Royce finished fifth out of the 26 competing crews.

The Talisker Challenge - described as "the world's toughest row" - got off to a difficult start, with severe sea sickness hitting the team.

The team, who named their boat Legless, also had to contend with huge waves and sleep deprivation, rowing for two hours on and two hours off, twenty four hours a day.

They crossed the finish line in 46 days, 16 hours and 49 minutes.

Cayle Royce - 29, from Dartmouth. Suffered serious injuries serving in Afghanistan
Paddy Gallagher - 30, from Cambridgeshire. He was injured in Afghanistan while serving with the Irish Guards
Nigel Rogoff - 56, from Hereford, who lost his leg while taking part in an RAF parachuting display
Lee Spencer - 46, from Yelverton in Devon. He lost a leg when he was struck by debris when he stopped to rescue a seriously injured motorist on the M3

A tweet from Kensington Palace is among the hundreds of messages of congratulations for the crew on social media.

The exhausted, but jubilant, skipper Cayle Royce, who lost both his legs in a bomb explosion in Afghanistan, said: "We are so proud to be the first all-amputee team to row an ocean and extremely humbled by the support we have received."

He said the message the team wanted to send out was that there was life beyond injury.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Good for them - next, the Pacific?

At first I wondered how they did it without arms but then it became clear

[rubato]

Yet another crew naming themselves for not having parts. Is this going to be a 'thing'?


yrs,
rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

What's in a name?