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helipad www.daat.org At the start in La Gomera, Canary Islands
Oar-Inspiring... hile most of us hunker down in the winter months and prepare for cosy nights in by the fire, for four intrepid young ladies from ingsbridge, there was nothing cosy or comfortable about December and anuary .
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egular readers of Helipad may recall the story from our winter 2018 issue of these four remarkable young women. Louise Read, Helen Symons, Chloe Harvey and Emily Read, who, as the Astro to Atlantic team, were undertaking the Talisker Whisky Challenge of rowing from La Gomera in the Canary Isles to Antigua, in aid of Devon Air Ambulance. Their success and achievement were awe-inspiring and, after continued fundraising throughout the remainder of , they finally presented the massive sum of , . ntrigued to find out more about their challenge, DAA’s Debbie regory caught up with one of the team, elen ymons. elen e plained that, far from the perception of it being a mental and physical test of endurance, she described it as the best-ever -day sleepover with her very best friends . The team sang, laughed, told very silly okes, played games and shared stories. e mostly rowed in pairs, and it didn’t matter who was rowing with who, we all ust loved it. e were all in such a good place mentally. e mostly did -hour shifts, occasionally with a third rowing for longer for an e tra boost. t never mattered who we rowed alongside, we all ust loved it. oor ou suffered terrible seasickness in the early days but never missed a stroke. The funny thing was that we’d e pected ou to be the one to mother’ the rest of us, instead it was us mothering’ her and encouraging her to eat despite feeling rough. There were, inevitably, some frustrations along the way. ne was the realisation that despite all their training being around coping with rough seas, high waves and hurricane-force winds, none of them had thought they would hit a weather front that was coming from the completely opposite direction to that anticipated. For several days they were simply rowing A A T the wind and, conse uently, making far slower progress than they’d e pected. That was very demoralising and frustrating, said elen. There was much shouting at the time, but we were all shouting AT the wind. e would plead for it to turn so that we could row T it, not against it. ventually their pleas were heard ater, it was the s ually winds that helped the girls
The team proudly sporting their DAA t-shirts
and, other than the issues of donning and doffing wet weather gear, they loved the speed that these winds helped them achieve. Another frustration was when the boat’s autohelm started playing up. After much scratching of heads, the girls eventually took it to bits – when they discovered that the repair was actually uite simple – and a massive sense of relief was felt by the whole team. Food was a massive highlight of every day. Along with their