An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir July/August 2018 www.dfmagazine.ie 38 | By ARMn DAnny o'BRIEn, 401 SQn, no 4 SP WIng I n november 2017 a team of five set off from Portimao, Portugal with a goal to row to French guiana South America covering over 6,000km in less than 48 days. I grew up kayaking the rivers and climbing the mountains of Ireland, pushing my body and mind to their limits was always something I pursued. I continued these pursuits with the DF kayaking club in remote areas of the world, from Nepal to Nor- way. I also run ultra marathons, sometimes suffering injuries like kidney failure to long-term injuries to my shoulder and knees. Several years ago I read a book about a transatlantic row from North America to Ireland, and that it was the hardest and most dangerous route in ocean rowing. After putting the idea of ocean rowing to the back of mind, a random newspaper advert in January 2017 sparked my interest again. I searched for teams to join and it wasn't until July that I found a suitable team, con- sisting of three British (two ex-military), and the skipper was a Dutch adventurer, who had previously rowed several oceans. I had suffered a severe shoulder injury damaging three rota- tor cuffs and my bicep in June, with the row five months away my participation in the expedition was extremely in doubt, including being able to kayak ever again. At a training weekend in October the skipper broke his hand, leaving us with two ma- jor injuries and putting the entire expedition at risk. Following months of extensive rehab with the DF physio team and MRI scans my shoulder was functional but not ideal, and Ralph's hand had recovered partially. In November we set off from Portugal following a six-day delay due to weather, setting off into perfect flat calm condi- tions, rowing in shifts for 2hrs on and resting for 2hrs. My main concern was my shoulder holding up to 12hrs rowing a day, and short resting periods. On the second night seasickness set in, normally this would be ok on a boat, but when expending 6,000 calories a day it's a big problem. At the start of the row I weighed in at 89kg, the heaviest I have ever been. The first few nights were calm with the lights of land lighting up the distant night sky, and the busy shipping lanes keeping us busy at night with large tankers passing very close by, the day time saw large pods of visiting dolphins. On the fifth day a bad weather system pushed large waves at us side on, so at night we deployed the sea anchor to increase stability. This meant all five of us squeezing into the two tight cabins. We would soon realise this was the most uncomfortable time on the boat. A day later with the waves still pushing us, we got back into shift work, only to realise that our rudder system had broken during the night. This left us dead in the water 500km from Portugal and 200km off the coast of Morocco. The rudder pin had snapped and the only thing that kept the rudder in place was the buoy- ancy of the rudder itself. Our options were to call for help, use the waves to row to Morocco, or try to keep going with the broken steering system. We managed to jam the rudder to one side, meaning we were only rowing on one side to keep going straight. To make things worse our electrical system was not operating correctly and the batteries were not charging via the solar panels. This meant we could not produce fresh water and this was a major set back. The day following the bad weather was amazingly flat calm with clear skies and this continued into the night. As we limped slowly towards the Canaries to attempt repairs, another weather system approached pushing waves hard against the shore. Battling hard against the waves we had to navigate a narrow harbour at night and a new sea wall that had been built and wasn't on our charts. We narrowly avoided the wall having battled a wave just 50m away from the wall for over an hour. Once on land we set about identifying that our rudder needed a major repair and purely by chance we met a carbon fibre boat specialist who happened to be on holidays with his family. He kindly agreed to rebuild the broken rudder. Next we replaced the batteries and fuses and tested that we had sufficient electricity to operate the water maker. After several days we set off again in flat calm conditions, having appreciated the time on land to heal the body, mind, and chat to family, friends and to just get away from the boat. With the rudder operating perfectly and the electrical system fully charging, New Year's Day came and went with new high speeds recorded of 11kts while surfing large waves. Night-time shifts under the full moon and stars are amazing compared to no moon and clouds. You can hear the rumble of waves but you can't tell their direction until you feel the boat begin to tilt to one side and instantly get hit by a wave that sweeps you off your seat. The wet windy cold nightshifts are hard to stomach. Crawling out of the cabin at 4am to bad weather wearing just shorts and shoes and then getting back into the cabin after struggling to eat food. 10 days after leaving the islands bad weather struck again, more rudder prob- lems and the electri- cal issues were back again. There were on-board issues with one crewmember wanting off, so we aimed for Cape Verde, another

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