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On Saturday we finally got to meet with the girls who have applied to join our Coxless Crew team. It was exciting and inspiring to find 14 girls who get what our row is about and who took the time to fill in the application. It’s also good to know that there are people out there who think that rowing the Pacific is a good idea!
Laura briefs everyone on the day ahead
We held the day’s activities at Bisham Abbey with Laura masterminding a full day of activities and managing to include girls in three different continents. The 11 girls who came along to Bisham were taken on a whistle-stop tour of activities with myself, Laura, Keith (sports psych), Alex (strength and conditioning) and Dale (cameraman).
Keith does his thing!
Exercise to identify the ways to get the best out of each other – very important for 6 months on a boat the size of Doris!
We were also treated to a first person account of what it is like to row an ocean from Fergus of the Atlantic Polo team who is just back from his own ocean adventure.
Fergus tells us what ocean life is really like
Three girls also joined us over skype from abroad and were taken on their own journey around the different activities via iPad – the wonders of technology!
The wonders of modern technology!
The day ended with a summary of the row from our fab applicants themselves. All of the fantastic and it’s funny to think that we’ve now probably met the rest of the team who will be joining us on Doris for 6 months out at sea.
The next stage of team selection will involve a weekend of army training in the Brecons to test out our resilience under pressure, a bit of sleep deprivation and help us to figure out how to get the best team dynamic. Massive thanks have to go to our awesome support team Keith, Alex, Dale and Fergus who all gave up their Saturday to help us out and share their wealth of experience. Left to ourselves I think we might end up with a Coxless Crew team too big to fit on the boat!
The end of a good day
Watch this space to see the final Coxless Crew team take shape!
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