An OARsome
Challenge!
Rowing 3,000 miles
for Charity
WTR 2026 - Worlds Toughest Row Atlantic Ocean
The Premier event in ocean rowing – a challenge that will take us more than 3000 miles west from San Sebastian in La Gomera, Canary Islands to Nelson’s Dockyard English Harbour, Antigua & Barbuda.
​
Sleep deprivation, hallucinations, hunger and the ultimate test of body and mind will be balanced by sighting incredible marine life, witnessing the breaking of a new day and sunsets that cannot be viewed from land, Camaraderie, achievement, self-discovery and pride will be among the many experiences delivered by rowing across an ocean.
4 friends
3,000 miles
2 Charities
1 Challenge
Our OARsome Team
Having only really met each other in 2023, we instantly hit it off and have made a great relationship and friendship with each other. With all the team located in the wonderful county of Shropshire, it is a great advantage for meet ups, organization and perhaps most importantly our training sessions.
We all come from different walks of life and careers, but we have one combined goal, to row across the Atlantic Ocean as fast as possible. We will support each other both mentally and physically in the build-up to, and during this once in a lifetime experience and epic challenge.
Rowing for
Why?
This isn’t just about personal ambition. We want to use this as an opportunity to raise money for two charities that mean a lot to all of us personally.
Severn Hospice
This local charity has played a part in each of our lives, caring for people across Shropshire and Powys, looking after 3,000 families last year alone. Their work is fully dependent on charitable funds, with 87p in every £1 donated spent on caring in the Hospices, with Community Nurses, and additional services including Complementary Therapies and Lymphoedema management.
Choosing this charity is especially poignant in view of the loss of two of our rowing friends last year to cancer - Marc Christian and Gary Richards with Gary having taken part in the same challenge in 2021. Both of whom were cared for by Severn Hospice and their team. Phil also talks of how in 2015 his family received the news that his mum (Helen) had been diagnosed with MND (motor neurone disease), and In late 2017, was given a bed in the Shrewsbury Severn Hospice. The Hospice team worked around the clock to care for his mum and also for his family, with Helen sadly passing away on the 19th December 2017.
British Heart Foundation
Our second charity is the British Heart Foundation, who work to make “a world free of heart and circulatory diseases”. With two of us in healthcare, we have obviously encountered these conditions professionally, and seen the benefit of research into cures and treatments in our careers.
There are however more personal reasons as Deb talks about the tragic death of her husband Steve age 43, despite being extremely fit, dying suddenly of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy - a congenital condition he was completely unaware of. “It has been a dream to compete in the world’s toughest row, stretching myself beyond anything I would have ever thought possible prior to Steve’s death, and an opportunity to help promote a charity obviously now close to my heart (pun intended)”.
