Well, the last seven days have been very eventful but thankfully, both boats are now rowing in the right direction and making meaningful progress towards Barbados!
Both boats battled (literally!) some incredible headwinds in stormy conditions, in a weather system which was strong and lasted longer than anyone had anticipated – which came as the crew were getting their sea legs and dealing with their sea sickness after leaving port. They managed to hold position by replying their para-anchors and drogues, although OysterShack faired slightly worse as their wind generator blew away and Kevin broke an oar!!
Another interesting thing with OysterShack is that Mads onboard had an unavoidable 3 hour exam for his Psychology studies last Wednesday 26th – the other crew rallied round and rowed a bit extra so Mads could take the time off to write his paper and then submit it! Pretty incredible environment to do an exam – fingers crossed for a good result for him.
Toby Wallace had a tough weekend, which resulted in Oliver being airlifted by helicopter back to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria on Sunday 30th. He was given a check up at hospital and is now safely back in the UK with his family and feeling well. We have been reliably informed that John onboard managed to get footage of the helicopter rescue on his GoPro so that will be good for the film he is doing about the trip!! But now Toby Wallace are a crew of six.
OysterShack crew member Kevin had a bad day today….he’s already broken an oar (don’t worry they have spares!) but this afternoon he lost one of the toilet buckets over the side!!! They have three per boat so there are still two left, but there has been lots of ribbing from the rest of the crew!
So day 7 has seen a turn in progress with the wind turning back in the right direction for them, albeit light conditions. But the weather forecast is looking good for the upcoming week so let’s hope that both boats can make some great progress…..
Toby Wallace at the end of day 7 has 2,309nm to go and OysterShack has 2,408nm to go – so Toby Wallace are 99nm ahead of OysterShack but it’s all still to play for and as we’ve seen, a lot can happen in just a week!!
All the messages on the website and facebook have been fantastic for the crew, particularly when they were having some long and tough days, and it always lifts spirits so thanks to all the support and encouragement so far – week one done!
