Today has been a bit of a frustrating day, but we are learning more about the sea and Doris and the way she moves all the time.
We were in the cabins overnight with a 70m rope looped off the stern to keep Doris steady in the rollers as the weather pushes us South. Em and I were in the fore cabin, which is very snug for 2 people. Laura and Nat were in the aft cabin with marginally more space but keeping an eye through the the night on our position and on the AIS for nearby boats.
We rowed throughout the day although needed one person to steer to keep our position. We are trying not to be pushed too far East back towards land. No whales today but there are some beautiful birds. I wish I knew what they all are. Some look like little penguins and fly by in a hurry. Others are larger and brown and circle the boat. Surfing the waves is fun and we have been singing a bit to pass the time. Laura and Ems are still feeling sea sick but are holding up really well. Looking forwards to Ems’ 30th birthday tomorrow!
Today was an exciting day. It started with a real pick-me-up as we received a fantastic video message of support from the team at Breast Cancer Care, who were all merrily rowing in their office! We then headed off early down to Svendsen’s boatyard to continue the final bits of work on Doris. It was a busy morning, with some DIY, last minute shopping, and lots of packing things into small spaces. Sarah Moshman, who will be making a documentary of our row, was there with her amazing team filming the final preparations. Laura’s parents, Babs and Ray, and aunt Wendy joined us mid-morning and were immediately set to work packing up the sheepskin to cover our rowing seats and labelling our team mugs.
At lunchtime Doris was lifted into the water, where she will now remain until she reaches Australia in around 6 months time! It was great to see her back on the sea and to feel what it is like to row her fully loaded. After saying goodbye to the lovely team at Svendsen’s boatyard who have hosted us so generously, we rowed Doris across the Bay to Pier 39. The row took us just over 4 hours. We went with the outgoing tide, but there was a stiff onshore breeze to contend with and plenty of passing craft, ranging from stand up paddle boarders to 200m+ tankers! We rowed 1 hour shifts, rather than the 2 hour shifts that we will be rowing once we are out on the ocean. It was great to be back out rowing Doris. Despite a little sea sickness, we made it across smoothly and even spotted some of the local sea lions on route.
Doris is now moored at Pier 39 where she will be until we depart for Presidio Yacht club on Sunday morning. Our arrival was followed by a dinner for the team with Tony and his partner Claire, Sarah, Emma’s parents, Laura’s parents and aunt, my parents and a friend of mine Will who is in San Francisco. It was lovely to get everyone together and have a relaxing end to a busy day. Tomorrow we are looking forward to interviews with Sarah for the documentary and final bits and pieces to get Doris ready for the big departure late on Sunday night.
As is starting to become a bit of a habit, the day started with a team yoga and core session in the park at the bottom of Filbert Street, followed by picking up coffees, chai lattes and mini pickled gherkins (yes – Natalia eats these for breakfast!) from La Boulange.
After breakfast, Tony headed off to check in with the San Francisco coastguard to let them know our movements in the Bay over the coming days and the plan for our departure under the Golden Gate Bridge. We stayed behind at the apartment to catch up on emails, finalise some outstanding logistics and start setting up our satellite phones.
We spoke with the awesome Ella Hewton, who will be updating our social media while we are out at sea and making sure that our blogs are posted to our website. Ella has been involved in the row for more than 2 years and is an incredible support. We feel so lucky to know that she our website, Facebook, Twitter etc are in such safe hands while we are out on the ocean.
After a quick sandwich lunch with Tony, Nat and Laura headed off to get us sorted with a local mobile phone. Emma and I wandered down past the famous Powell-Hyde cable cars to the marina at Pier 39 to pick up some deliveries they had for us and to pop into the supermarket to keep us well fed.
The late afternoon was filled with a couple of hours of team admin. We discovered late on that it will be another day before Doris is released from customs and we are able to get on with packing her up and starting our sea trials. It’s frustrating to have yet another day’s delay, but it is what it is, so we contented ourselves with a well-earned dinner and a movie night. We’ll crack on tomorrow with any of the outstanding tasks that don’t require Doris and we look forward to a jam-packed Wednesday and Thursday once we are reunited with her.
As we head into the final couple of weeks before we leave the UK for San Francisco and the start of our row, it is full steam ahead on all fronts. Our friends and family witness us rushing around like headless chickens day in day out. But what is it that we are actually doing? Well, I thought I’d shed some light on it all by listing just a few of the things that we are getting on with every day.
Media – we want to raise as much awareness for our charities as possible, so we are busy sending out press releases and arranging and attending radio and TV interviews. We were on BBC London the week before last. If you missed it, you can see it here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OzpmXB9pH1Y
Presentations – we are speaking at conferences, schools and corporates to share the story behind our row and hopefully inspire others to follow our progress on the water, fundraise for us, or to take on their own challenges.
Logistics and equipment – sourcing last minute bits of equipment, arranging for the boat to be wrapped with our sponsors’ logos, applying the graphics for our Buy A Mile inspiration wall in our cabin, arranging shipment of food out to Hawaii and Samoa….There is a lot going on!!
Fundraising – we are working with our amazing charities, Breast Cancer Care and Walking With The Wounded to set everything up so that we can raise as much money as we can for them while we are out at sea.
Accounting, legaland project management – a project of this scale needs to be run properly and the fantastic teams at Accord Accountants and Redd solicitors are very generously offering us invaluable accountancy and legal support. We have been working with Andrew Duncan from New Level Results to ensure that we are setting clear goals, running our project efficiently and making 2015 our Best Year Yet.
Support team plan – the outstanding Tony Humphreys will be providing us with 24-7 shore support during our row. We are meeting with Tony in the run-up to launch to finalise our communications and operations plan. We are also working with our team of supporters in the UK to make sure that our website, Facebook and Twitter will be regularly updated with the messages that we send back from the Pacific so that people will be able to follow our progress.
Psychpreparation – we are continuing to work with the amazing performance psychologist Keith Goddard to make sure that individually and as a team we are in the best possible mental shape when we are on the start line in April.
Training – over the course of this week and next week we are doing medical training with MSOS, training on our navigation equipment with the fantastic team at Raymarine and training on our ocean safety equipment with the amazing Crewsaver. We will also be running over our ‘what if’ scenarios one more time to make sure that we are prepared as we can be for the different scenarios that we might face while at sea.
Physiological testing – we have just had health checks with Cardiac Risk in the Young and just before we depart will be returning to GSK Human Performance Lab, who are helping us to prepare as best we can for the physical challenges we will face.
Physical training – we’re fitting in a heavy program of weights prescribed by Alex Wolf from the English Institute of Sport, pilates with support from Josie at Urban Cave and, of course, a little bit of time on the rowing machine.
Eating – we’re likely to be calorie deficient when we are out on the water, so we are busy piling on the pounds!
Sponsorship – we have some incredible sponsors supporting us and we need to keep them updated with how preparations are going. We are also still looking for additional corporate sponsorship, so we spend lots of time researching, emailing and meeting with potential sponsors. If you are interested in sponsoring our row, please get in touch.
Farewell drinks – we’re making the arrangements for the drinks reception that we are hosting on Thursday 26th March at 7pm at London Rowing Club to say a big thank you and farewell to our friends, family, supporters and sponsors. We would love to see as many people there as possible! Email info@coxlesscrew.com if you want to join us.
Doris is our boat and arguably the most important member of our team. She is a beautiful, pink 4-person rowing boat made especially for the Coxless Crew by Rossiters in Christchurch.
How is she made?
Doris is made from fibreglass, carbon fibre and other composite materials. Ocean rowing boats are designed to withstand the worst weather that the ocean can throw at them and to keep their crew safe. Doris is designed to self-right if she capsizes. She has a watertight cabin at each end with the rowing deck in the middle.
How big is she?
Doris is 29ft long (8.84m) and 7ft (2.13m) wide. That’s about the length of a medium sized caravan. She’s really not very big. In fact, the current men’s world long jump record is 29ft 4 inches (8.95m), so Mike Powell could jump over her! Doris weighs approximately 800kg and once fully packed with our supplies she will weigh in at around 1 ton.
The deck
On deck there are two rowing positions. The set up is similar to that in a sculling boat, with each rower having two oars and a sliding seat. Under the deck there is storage space which is accessed through hatches on deck. We will store our food, ropes, tools, spare parts and other equipment in these hatches, along with fresh water ballast to keep Doris stable in the water and as a back up should our desalinator break.
The cabins
Two of the crew will be rowing at any one time while the other two will be in the cabins eating, sleeping, relaxing or carrying out navigation, communications or maintenance tasks.
The aft cabin is where we will spend most of our time. It is the bigger of the two cabins and contains our desalinator, navigation systems and communication systems. It is approximately the size of a small-to-medium two-man tent. The forward cabin is smaller and will mainly be used for storage, unless bad weather conditions require that we cease rowing, in which case two members of the crew will need to be in each cabin.
Our cabin walls will be decorated with the names of all the people who have bought a mile of our row (https://coxlesscrew.com/buy-a-mile/). When we are having a difficult day it will be great to be able to look at our inspiration walls to remind us of all the people that are supporting us.
Why the name Doris?
Doris (/ˈdɔərɨs/; Δωρίς), is a Greek name meaning ‘gift’ and in Greek mythology was an Oceanid, or a sea nymph, whose name represented the bounty of the sea. She was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys and the wife of Nereus. She was also aunt to Atlas, the titan who was made to carry the sky upon his shoulders. We also just really liked the name.
Thursday was a big day for the Coxless Crew. I went down to Southampton docks to oversee putting Doris into a container to be shipped to San Francisco. She will travel across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal and up the West Coast of America before we see her again!
The drive down from London was under blue skies and it looked like it would be a beautiful day to see Doris off on her journey. Sadly, by the time we arrived at Rossiters boat yard in Christchurch some good old English rain had set in and was to last for the rest of the day. I met with the Cris and the team at Rossiters to make a few last minute adjustments to Doris. Our final Solbian solar panel was installed and some adjustments made to our Lewmar hatches and to the area on deck where we will be stowing our Crewsaver life raft.
Tony Humphreys, who will be our on-shore support during our row, was on hand to oversea the final packing of the hatches and cabins and to tow Doris on the trailer through the New Forest across to Southampton docks.
On arrival in a very very wet Southampton we had a warm welcome from the team at J&A Marshall Ltd and from Brian from PSP Logistics. Then the real fun started. I must admit, I had no idea how to go about getting a 29ft ocean rowing boat weighing nearly a tonne off a trailer and into a 40ft container! But, as ever, Tony had all the answers.
Step no.1: lift Doris off trailer using huge yellow container handler and long slings
Step no.2: lower Doris down until she is resting at one end on a small set of wheels (a dolly trolly)
Step no.3: with the stern end supported on the dolly, support the bow end by suspending it from a forklift truck and then remove the support of the slings
Step no.4: keeping Doris level, drive the forklift forward to slide her on the dolly into the container
Step no. 5: lower Doris using the forklift until she is resting on a row of tyres along the bottom of the container and then and strap her in
And it was easy as that! Thank you to everyone who helped out yesterday and along the way to get Doris ready for her journey.
Saying goodbye to Doris has made our departure suddenly feel just around the corner. It is exciting, but also a reminder of how much there is still to do before we head off to San Francisco ourselves. The next few weeks will be filled with training, press events, sponsorship meetings, fundraising and much much more, so watch this space!
On Sunday 23rd November the Coxless Crew spent the day with Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club (CUWBC). Rob Baker, CUWBC’s head coach, had kindly invited us up to meet the girls and watch them training and to get some expert advice on rowing technique and boat set up.
We arrived in at 7.15am in a very miserable and wet Ely to see the girls getting the boats out onto the water just after first light. The squad were rowing in 2 eights, 5 pairs and a single for the first outing of the day, which was a 24km row. The Coxless Crew team jumped onto the coaching launches with Rob and the other coaches Paddy and Nick and accompanied the girls down the river, observing them in action and getting tips on technique from the coaches. After the outing we had the chance to chat to the girls and gave them a short talk to introduce them to our row. We then left them heading back out onto the water for a second outing.
Emma and Izzy both rowed with CUWBC during their time in Cambridge and Emma rowed in the Cambridge v Oxford boat race in 2005, so it was great fun for them to reminisce and be back with CUWBC for the day. Watching the squad train and listening to the coaching team in action was a great opportunity for the whole crew to improve our understanding of how best to move a rowing boat. We were also truly inspired by the squad’s commitment and enthusiasm for their training and focus on the task in hand. We wish them enormous luck for the rest of the season and for their boat race against Oxford in April, which will be the first time that the women’s boat race takes place in London over the same course as the men’s race. We’ll be following their progress and supporting them from Doris out on the Pacific on boat race day!
After leaving Ely we headed to Goldie gym in central Cambridge where the girls do their strength and conditioning work and train on the rowing machines or ‘ergs’. We were joined by Dean from Time Code Pro who had kindly given up his Sunday to come along to film us. We did some training and then were joined by Rob, who gave us each some one on one coaching on the ergs. We will be doing a lot of our training in the run up to the row on the ergs so it is important that our technique is rock solid.
At the end of the afternoon we had a really helpful brainstorming session with Rob about boat set up. It is absolutely critical that we make sure that our rowing positions on Doris are set up correctly. Rigger position, blade length, seat heat, position of the foot stretchers etc. all have to be finely tuned to ensure that we are moving the boat as efficiently as we can and that we are in strong rowing positions to help us stay comfortable and avoid injury.
Big thanks to Rob, Paddy, Nick, the CUWBC squad and Dean Alexander (photo credit above) for another great training day.
By 
