Hot on the heels of our previous blogpost, albeit completed before, we’d like to offer our admiration and congratulations to the not-so Oardinary Boys, Oli Glanville and George Randell, for successfully Rowing the Atlantic - 3,000 miles in a very small boat.
And they didn’t just row it, they smashed it: they are now the second fastest pair in history to row the Atlantic.
Oli and George took part in the 2017 Talisker Atlantic Challenge, setting off from San Sebastian in the Canary Islands at 6am UTC on 14 December 2017. They made land in English Harbour, Antigua and Barbuda at 22:01 UTC on 20 January 2018, just 37 days, 16 hours and 1 minute later.
This is an extraordinary challenge: 2 hours rowing, 2 hours rest, for a period of up to 60 days. Relentless. Non-stop. Burning 10,000 calories a day, consuming 6,000. You lose 20% of your body weight. 1.5 million oar strokes. It would require paragraphs here to give even a flavour of the dedication, training, strength – both physical and mental – discomfort and pain that goes into completing a successful Atlantic Challenge. We'll leave you to imagine it, if you can.
Oli and George chose to have two charities benefit from their pain and efforts, Alzheimer's Research UK and AMF.
We are delighted to report they raised an extraOARdinary £26,419 for AMF, 100% of which has been used to buy 18,606 long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) to protect 33,500 people when they sleep at night from the bites of malaria-carrying mosquitoes - that would otherwise cause severe illness, or worse. That's the equivalent of 67 entire villages covered. These nets can be expected to save the lives of 10 to 15 people and prevent 13,000 cases of malaria.
Oarsome. HUGE congratulations Oli and George – and thank you.