Lands End to Scotland!!

ROW FOR HEROES HAS REACHED SCOTLAND!!

Hello All, Jess here again. Hamish and Nick asked me to update the website blog to give you all a general overview of their first 3 weeks at sea. Many of you have been following their tracker and the Twitter or Phlog update so apologies if this is all old news to you!

Wind has been the hot topic since departure with the boys facing Southerlys for most of their journey down the south coast which then turned predominately into Northerlys once they got around lands end. Although it seems the wind really hasn't been on their side Hamish and Nick have done all they can to make progress during the windows of fine weather and then anchor up in a sheltered bay when battling against tides and winds became impossible.

It has to be said that the boys didnt look in the best of shape when we cheered them around Lands End on Thursday May 20th. Hamish had been suffering quite badly from Seasickness and from speaking to other Ocean Rowers the first couple of weeks are supposed to be pretty grim while you body and mind adapts to its current 'lifestyle'. Four days anchored up in Wexford, Ireland offered a perfect opportunity for the guys to catch up on sleep, eat and 'air their bottoms' and in recent conversations with them - and as you can hear via their Phlog) morale and energy levels seem to be much higher again.

Overnight, with favorable winds the guys finally made it to Scotland, the forecast seems to be in their favor with Southerly's for a few days, what a change! The guys are hoping to make strong progress up around Islay and Jura and at this stage plan to come in and Shelter between the mainland and the Isle of Mull. Anyone in the area is invited to come wave to them as they go under Skye Bridge (probably near the end of the week) I will keep you posted on dates.

We have been fortunate that the boys have had pretty good mobile reception for most of their journey so far so communications have been easy, this may become a little more difficult as they go around the Scotish Isles but as they said recently "morale is proportionate to speed" so keep an eye on the tracker - if that's moving then all is well aboard Komale.

Hamish and Nick have been overwhelmed with the support they are receiving. Your little messages of support and encouragement take them along way when they are drenched to the bone rowing through the night while we are all snuggled up in bed so please keep them coming. Please also continue to spread the word and donate generously to the two great Charitys that Row For Heroes are raising money for ; Help For Heroes and the Army Benevolent Fund.

Until next time remember you can follow the boys progress on Facebook and Twitter at Row For Heroes. For those who are interested here is the link to a short news clip about ROW FOR HEROES from departure day; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZCedEc7oH8

The Start

Hi All,

The boys set off in the sunshine from Lymington yesterday (Wednesday May 12th, 2011) at 1015 to a farewell party of friends, family, media and a flotilla of Army Yachts. Progress in the first 24 hours has been amazing, if this continues and the weather remains favorable 45 days is a realistic target for completion.

As the boys will only have sparodic internet access (from an i-phone) there will be no chance for a formal blog. They will however be updating their Twitter and Facebook. The Twitter feed links into this website (on the right hand side of the homepage) meaning you dont need to be a member of twitter to recieve these feeds, the tracker updates continuously -allowing you to keep a closer eye on them than your significant other ;)

I will try and update this blog as often as I can with any information I receive. In the meantime please see attached images from Day One of the row.

Please keep following the guys progress and showing your support by spreading the word and donating to these two great charities.

Jess

Toughening Up

The time has come to convert hard gym work to hard hands. Komale is out of the water at the moment and in Jeremy Rodgers yard for a refit so we have been rowing the Lymington Rowing Club boats all weekend and building up some callus.

Hamish's technique is coming along under Nick's tuition, but Nick denies him as a credible rower due to his lack of bib spandex.

Learning the ways of the Sea

Getting to grips with navigation and general seamanship holds the key to the successful completion of this challenge. We spent the Easter weekend under the watchful eye of our mentor Jim Crick and Hamish's Dad Nigel on board the yacht Coriander. This culminated in Nick becoming a qualified Day Skipper and Hamish a Yachtmaster.

Jim has shown enormous patience since starting to teach us the ways of the sea and we are extremely grateful for his help. Despite giving us insight into the doubts of many experienced sailors, we are now approaching the row from a much more knowledgeable platform.

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.