LONG ROW TEAM ON FINAL LEG OF ROWING CHALLENGE AS THEY RETURN TO SCOTTISH WATERS
Scottish couple Allan Lipp and Mhairi Ross are back in Scottish waters on the final leg of their world-record rowing attempt. Their expedition, aimed at
raising funds for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance (SCAA), has gained support from across all four nations as they have now rowed the east of Scotland, the coast of England, the south of Wales, east of Ireland,
and finally returning to the west of Scotland today (11th
of August).
Since departing from Wick on 1 June, Allan and Mhairi have rowed unassisted around Britain, on their mission to become the first mixed-pairs team to complete
the 2,000+ nautical mile expedition without touching land or accepting provisions. For nine weeks, they have relied solely on supplies packed onboard their seven-metre rowing boat, Boudicea, often battling high winds and challenging tidal conditions, and never
setting foot on solid ground.
Allan, a full-time coxswain on the Wick lifeboat and Mhairi, a paramedic with the Scottish Ambulance Service, and volunteer RNLI navigator, have demonstrated
extraordinary determination and perseverance given the physical and mental demands of such an intense journey.
Scottish couple Allan Lipp and Mhairi Ross are back in Scottish waters on the final leg of their world-record rowing attempt. Their expedition, aimed at
raising funds for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance (SCAA), has gained support from across all four nations as they have now rowed the east of Scotland, the coast of England, the south of Wales, east of Ireland,
and finally returning to the west of Scotland today (11th
of August).
Since departing from Wick on 1 June, Allan and Mhairi have rowed unassisted around Britain, on their mission to become the first mixed-pairs team to complete
the 2,000+ nautical mile expedition without touching land or accepting provisions. For nine weeks, they have relied solely on supplies packed onboard their seven-metre rowing boat, Boudicea, often battling high winds and challenging tidal conditions, and never
setting foot on solid ground.
Allan, a full-time coxswain on the Wick lifeboat and Mhairi, a paramedic with the Scottish Ambulance Service, and volunteer RNLI navigator, have demonstrated
extraordinary determination and perseverance given the physical and mental demands of such an intense journey.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Hello I'm Alan and I'm Mary and we are Stormy and Stay. We're currently on a
00:06journey on our seven meter rowing boat to circumnavigate the UK. We're on day
00:1271 and we're aiming to achieve this as an unsupported row, which means we can't
00:19go ashore, we can't get any assistance from anybody, even a passing boat or
00:23somebody coming out to us throwing a sweet at us as seen as support. So, so far
00:29so good and we hope to achieve success in this. The reason we're doing this row
00:36is to raise money for charity. Our chosen charities are the Royal National Lifeboat
00:40Institute, the RNI and Scotland's charity Air Ambulance. We set our
00:45fundraising target at £30,000. We're currently sitting at £27,000
00:50on online donations and it would be amazing if we could hit that £30,000
00:55before we return home. We're really grateful if you could find it, find it in
01:01your hearts to dig deep in your pockets and make a contribution, it would be
01:05thoroughly appreciated by our charities and through us. Thank you. Thank you.
01:11Hello, welcome aboard Bordersia. We'll give you a quick guided tour and
01:16describe life on board. We're now day 71, so things are a little bit grubby, but
01:25hopefully not too much longer. So behind me is a storage pod, we've got lots of
01:29kit stored up there. Below me is the toilet, doesn't always live there. We've
01:35got our using oars, these are the ones that we use when we're rowing. We've also got a
01:40spare pair just in case breakage or we lose one overboard. This bag here
01:46doesn't normally sit there, that's anchor rope and chain. We've got an
01:51anchor, well actually two anchors out at the moment. We have drinking water
01:55storage right down the side of the boat. We produce fresh water on board using a
02:02desalination unit, which is located in this locker here. Our rowing seats, they
02:08slide back and forth while we're rowing and you'll notice I'm clipped onto the
02:15boat just now, so safety is very important to us. Anytime we're out of the
02:19cabin we clip on using a belt and we've got a personal locator beacon fitted to
02:25the belt should we go overboard. Underneath my feet right now we've got
02:30storage for a life raft, we've got a life raft in there. We've got another blue
02:37bucket here, this one's for cleaning, currently doing some washing, well have
02:41been for the last few days, we've just not had weather to finish that ordeal.
02:45And this is our all-important cooking facilities. So on board Bodicea,
02:51cooking consists of boiling water, boiling fresh water and rehydrating
02:56freeze-dried meals, even I can manage that. Okay so this is us in the inside
03:04part of Bodicea now. As you can see she's pretty small and compact, so this is
03:08where we take our rest periods and get a bit of sleep. There's not an awful lot of
03:13space for two people and it's not the most comfortable of beds. So from in
03:19here we have a number of things that help us with our journey. We've got our
03:23all-important radio which means we can contact other boats and the Coast Guard
03:28or anyone with a VHF radio. We've got our chart, so it's charts that we use for
03:35navigation. Here we've got our bank of switches for all our electronics. Our
03:40electronics are powered by two solar panels on the aft of the
03:47boat and the bow of the boat. Now we can see how much charge each battery is
03:51taking from these screens here. That's pretty much it for the inside of Bodicea.
03:57Right, so life on board Bodicea for the last 71 days. It's been a bit of a
04:07mixed bag really in terms of how we tackle the rowing. Sometimes we've been
04:11tackling tides and then anchoring and resting for the next tide. So for those
04:18periods we'll generally row two up for six or seven hours and other
04:25times we've been able to do longer passages where there's less tide
04:29effect or we have to just keep going. We've rowed one up generally two
04:35hours on, two hours off, that sort of rota. There have been times where it's been
04:41different to that and we've had no option but to keep rowing. I think the
04:45most we did was about 12 hours we rowed non-stop, which is quite
04:51exhausting. So that's the rowing. What else? Food wise, so most of our
04:59food comes from dehydrated rations that we just have to add some boiling water
05:03to. We also have some snack packs which are full of energy bars and the
05:10all-important chocolate. The good stuff. And we have some high-protein snacks
05:15like billetongue in there as well, which was supplied by Up North Billetongue.
05:22Our water, we make it using a desalinator unit, which is great when the sun shines
05:26because the batteries are powered by solar and also great when we don't have
05:31sunshine, which has been an issue a couple of times on this journey, with
05:35slow charging batteries. Other high spots of the trip, we've seen some utterly
05:44amazing things. We've seen whales, we've seen dolphins. Dolphins that have been so
05:49close you could literally put your hand over the side of the boat and touch
05:52them. Port places, sunfish, loads of birds. What else? The people we've
06:03met. We've met some absolutely amazing people. Everyone's interested in what
06:06we're doing and a lot of people have dropped by to say hello and ask a few
06:10questions, which is great because it helps us raise money for our charities,
06:13which is what this is all about. Yeah, and the positivity that we've received,
06:19that's one of the things that keeps us going. Messages, comments, people
06:24coming and speaking to us, it's all positive. And you know, when you're
06:29battling weather, tides, things that aren't in your favour, these are the
06:34things that keep you going. So thank you to everybody for supporting us.