“Do either of you get seasick?” It seemed like an obvious question. “Dunno,” was the reply from both. For river-rowers Gearóid Towey and Ciaran Lewis, the rough sea is not their usual playground. We were on a training run between Skerries and Howth, with some of biggest waves the pair had ever trained in. Towey was feeling a bit queasy, which he put down to having no breakfast. Seasickness just wouldn’t do when you’re facing several thousand miles afloat on the Atlantic.
In November, Towey and Lewis will spend six weeks trying to become the first Irish crew to win the Atlantic Rowing Race. They are two of Ireland’s most talented oarsmen. Towey represented Ireland in the Athens Olympic Games in the lightweight double sculls, and Lewis has a slew of national titles to his name.
I reckon they must have eyes in the back of their heads. You rarely see them looking over their shoulders to check they’re on track. There’s a compass facing them, mounted on the rear portion of their boat, and Lewis, in the aft seat, is learning to keep them on track using a ‘back-bearing’. That’s all they look at. Then again, if you’re rowing across the Atlantic, there’s not much else to look at, just horizon in every direction.
The race runs between La Gomera in the Canary Islands and Nelsons Dockyard in Antigua, 2,935 miles from the west coast of Africa to the Caribbean. The winning time in the last race was a record 40 days and 5 hours, set by a New Zealand team but mired in controversy. The winning Holiday Shoppe team had trailed another Kiwi pair until the final stages, when Holiday Shoppe claimed to have capsized and lost several heavy items of gear overboard. Holiday Shoppe (now considerably lighter) then overhauled their compatriots to finish nine hours ahead of them.
There are 42 double-handed teams entered for the 2005 race, its largest-ever pool. Entrants come from eight countries, including South Africa and the Ukraine. The teams have be completely self-contained for the entire journey, carrying all their food, clothing, safety equipment — everything they’ll need for six weeks of hard rowing. The 41 boats they’ll be racing against are all identical 750kg, 24-foot plywood boats designed specifically for the race. Each one has two sliding rowing seats, but for the majority of the race, each will row solo in rotating 2-hour shifts. Kitted out with a solar panel to power GPS, sat-phone and water-maker systems, the team will rely on freeze-dried food, cooking on a gimballed stove on the deck.
Towey and Lewis have just begun their training in their ‘ocean boat’ which won the 2001 race with another team and was shipped over from New Zealand. There hasn’t been much work adapting their style to open sea conditions either. “In terms of stroke,” says Lewis, “there’s not really much of a difference. You have the sliding seat so it’s very like the sculls. Only with the small boats, it’s all about explosive power, you’re sprinting. This is just plodding.” On top of this, all crews in the race prepare with sea-survival courses and navigation skills training.
Today’s training run from Skerries to Howth is with a currach team, and some dark squalls blow through, giving a taster of what weather they might expect to face en route, albeit a little less tropical. But are they worried about following the path of the hurricanes from West Africa across to the Caribbean? “The race is in November, so we should be okay with weather.” The likelihood is that they’ll have a gentle tradewind blowing in their faces for the entire journey.
“The main worry is becoming ill. There’s nearly no chance of catching ‘flu or something like that,” says Lewis, “because you’re nowhere near other humans. The problem is if you have a latent bug or something.” One of last year’s competitors developed tendonitis in his shoulders and had to spend several days rowing without bending his arms, they tell me. That’s not a thought to dwell on.
For now the battle is with finances, though. Rowing is the easy part. Paying for it is difficult. The team have already got a documentary crew to capture their progress on film. The website is up and running. Red Bull has helped the pair with the costs of the boat, but Towey and Lewis are still searching for a headline sponsor to help cover the rest of the costs. Any doubts regarding their determination vanish when you hear Lewis say that “even if we don’t find a sponsor, we’ll still do it. We’ll find a way to afford it.”