Training Week

Things progress rapidly with Row for Heroes. Having a week dedicated to row training and preparation has paid dividends. It is so hard keeping the project moving when working and training full time.

We spent the week in the solent, rowing for between 2 and 3 hours a day with the rest of the time spent harassing all and sundry to help with kit, boat prep and the many other things we

need. Many people have been extremely supportive and generous with their advice and help, for which we are extremely grateful; without their help our progress would certainly be floundering. Our longest distance trip took us over to Cowes for a night where Komale snuggled in the luxurious Royal Yacht Squadron marina for a sleepover.

We found the time for some technical and safety training with Adam Wilson of Aquasafe powerboat school. Practising man overboard drills made Hamish realise that the water is still very cold (7 degrees!) and Nick that pulling a body from the sea is no easy feat. The session ended with Nick sweating and Hamish shivering and delivered us a salient lesson.

London Excel Boat Show

Following a particularly emotional journey through the snow with Nick to the Big Smoke, Komale nestled alongside the mainstage at this year’s Excel London Boat Show. Reports are that she came a close second in terms of raw crowd appeal to the daily appearance of bikini- clad dancers.

During her time in the capital, she led from the front as we raised £375.58 for the Army Benevolent Fund and £712.31 for Help For Heroes. Fundraising was done by a team of dedicated supporters to whom we are extremely grateful: Cherry (Nick’s Mum), Jono and Henry (fellow Army Docs), Rosie (Oar Fund bigwig), Angela and Nigel (Hamish’s parents) as well as Charlie, Rach and Fran (heroic friends).

We took the opportunity to launch the ‘Oar Fund’ in an attempt to gain more company on the row. The fund enables people’s names to be written on the boat in order to accompany us on our trip around the country. Please contact us if you would like to join the Oar Fund.

Komale, Hamish and Nick also made some great links with companies keen on supporting the project. Amongst other things Komale is very excited about having her new Forgen wind generator fitted, having her Comar AIS system installed, but like all members of the fairer sex is particularly pleased about International Paint’s kind offer of to provide new and rich colour to her top- and bottomsides.

Other news was the discovery of a reverse compass and an attempt at conquering the art of video interview by Nick when he managed to get the word ‘tides’ into a 1 minute interview with BFBS 7 times.

Nick with Sally Kettle (two successful crossings of the Atlantic, one of which with her mum).

Testing the brain power

We have had our heads buried in books for the last two weeks.

Jim Crick (RYA Yachtmaster instructor extraordinaire) has coached us expertly through the Yachtmaster Theory course and demonstrated almost limitless patience as we grappled withessential skills needed for the row such as navigation, pilotage, tides, weather and safety.

Nick began the course with little idea about marine navigation, and wrestled with new concepts such as why there are two tides each day. Fortunately with Jim's expert tuition he had an epiphany when it all fell into place. Sadly Hamish did not manage to completely overcome his chief nemesis; the tidal diamond.

We are extremely grateful to Jim, who kindly offered his services last year at the Excel boat show in support of the row. He has 35 years of experience of sailing the British waters, and many of those have been as a yachtmaster instructor. We have also discovered him to be a man of many talents playing a variety of instruments including the melodium and he is currently learning to douse. We are also grateful to his wonderful wife Sue, who kept us fed with mountains of sandwiches and introduced us to vegetable crisps.

By way of a grand finale to our course, Jim mentioned the possibility of demonstrating the action of old flares. We enthusiastically reminded him of this suggestion and soon had him rigging up a flare arena in an old dustbin. The results were staggering as we almost blew the lid off the bin. A spectacular, if slightly irregular, end to the course.

Rolling up the Sleeves

The last week has been spent with Komale at her home in Lymington Yacht Haven.

Last Saturday night she made an appearance at the Yacht Haven berth holders' party. She displayed excellent social skills and generated a lot of interest for the project. Our efforts at the moment are on getting the project going and raising money to cover project costs, so it is great to have opportunities like this to keep the charitable fundraising going; so far we have raised over £1,000.

C&J Marine have very kindly fitted Komale out with a fantastic new mattress. It is so clean at the moment that we are nervous of sleeping on it. We are very grateful to them for it.

Ben Fox from the marina escorted us into the Solent Hamish's Mum Angela, our chief snapper, to get some good quality photos of the boat from the water. It turns out that Ben is a computing ninja and has kindly offered to cast an eye over our rowforheroes.com website.

We also met up with Mike Devine, one of Lymington's finest marine electricians, and he gave Komale's electrics a once over. After much discussion and head scratching (at least on our behalf) Mike advised us to swap our GPS for a GPS plotter and also to get our hands on an AIS transponder system, which is a way of monitoring other boats and sending information to them without radar. Finally, of course, we discussed Hamish's daily requirement of audiological stimulation from Radio 4 and Nick's essential relaxation courtesy of Classic FM, plus an aggressive D.I.S.C.O rig set up.

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All things considered, things are progressing well.

Conquering the Solent

We have had some holiday this week and consequently some time to get to know Komale better.

We decided that the time had come for Komale to get back on the high seas and we set ourselves the modest challenge of escaping her berth at the Lymington Yacht haven with a goal of reaching nightfall in Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight.

Having brazenly paddled out of the security of Lymington River we were at the mercy of the wind and tides. Fortunately we had planned the tides well and the weather Gods were truly shining down on us. The sea was calm and we bathed in glorious sunshine, so the crossing was remarkably easy.

Stronger winds greeted us over the next couple of days, but our first two nights on board were a resounding success. We even managed a cup of tea anchored off the needles and were pleased with the opportunity to show off our T-shirt tan-lines.

Four man team attempt to break record

Today saw us take a trip up to London to visit team GB Row.

They are a team of four who shall set out to become the second boat ever to row around Great Britain. They leave on friday, and we took the opportunity to meet up with them prior to their departure.

A very young team, Will, Rob, Nick and Dave hope also to break the speed record. We were impressed by their enthusiasm and interested to hear of their build up and decisions they have taken regarding their kit.

Following their trip shall be invaluable to us as we shall learn so much about what lies in store for us this time next year.

They are raising money for Orchid, a charity fighting male cancers. To support them and check up on their progress, please visit:

www.gbrow.com

We wish them the very best of luck with their trip and have our fingers crossed for the weather Gods.

Graceful launch of Komale

The now sticker-less Komale has been generously granted residence in the Lymington Yacht Haven, where she has been expertly looked after. Damage done during her return from Antigua has been repaired by Graham Thomson, whilst Matt Mew has done a superb job of polishing and antifouling her bottom.

Komale spent a cosy night in the crane slings before splash down early Tuesday morning. We are pleased to report that she floats admirably, sitting very high in the water without her ballast

Determined not to be defeated by the ferocious wind tearing it's way through the marina we took Komale out for her first voyage (with us). It soon became apparent that although a speedy and nimble vessel downwind, any wind across her bows plays havoc with navigation, particularly in the narrow lanes of a marina.

n search of larger expanses of water, which we thought she would feel more comfortable in, we nosed out into the Lymington River. Sure enough she steamed her way to the windward bank, but to our dismay politefully declined to do an about-turn in the face of the wind once getting there. Action stations were required to avoid some beautifully varnished X-boats and not without the help of a lonely buoy did we manage to settle the situation and swing her bows around into the wind ready for a race back across the river and avoid the need for rescue on her maiden voyage.

Maybe this rowing malarky isn't so straightforward after all...