How to be a Sea Donkey
30th October, 2024
Sea Donkey (noun) Atlantic fish known for its stubborn nature and strength. Also, the name of a brave and hearty team of chaps rowing across the Atlantic who invited us aboard recently for a very different kind of sculling experience!
Having put our World Masters dreams on hold for a year, Nichole and I wanted to ensure that our many months of hard training wasn’t going to waste. So we threw our Lycra into the boot of the car and headed down to Plymouth during the perfectly timed mini-heat wave in mid-September. Before boarding our Atlantic boat, we thought we’d sneak in a sculling session with the lovely folks from Plymouth Amateur Rowing Club. Setting out from their slipway in our double, we joined six other boats containing a collection of Masters and Juniors, sculling up a mirror-like river into a glorious sunset, coming back in under the full Harvest Moon with beaming smiles after a sublime outing. PARC have such a narrow boathouse that all boats have to be rigged and de-rigged around outings, but the pain of dropping washers and nuts into the sand and seaweed in the dark was quickly offset by the appearance of a couple of warm, freshly baked post-outing cakes. A lovely club, with a really friendly culture and (we couldn’t help but notice) a bar that is literally falling distance from the erg deck (or perhaps it’s the other way round).
The following day it was time to join the Sea Donkeys on their Rannoch R45 boat Astrid. Ben (Captain) is a friend (and occasional long-distance pre-work erg partner) and he kindly rustled up a couple of the other Donkeys for a mid-week outing. In glorious 24 degrees, we set off from Mount Batten Slipway into, and beyond Plymouth Harbour. Over the next few hours we got a taste of what the chaps will be spending 6+ weeks doing over December and January. With three people sculling at any one time (and two resting or steering), rowers do two hours on, two hours off. On raised sliding seats and tethered to the boat at all times, the crew faces the perils of huge Atlantic waves, being constantly hit in the head by flying fish, the constant fear of their water-maker breaking and the chaffing effects of rowing for weeks on end in harsh and salty conditions.
Despite being a collection of mountaineers, cyclists and kayakers none of the Sea Donkeys had rowed before, so officially Nichole and I were there to provide some coaching on the technicalities of sculling! Unofficially we were there to don some bright pink sponsorship shirts and see how fast we could get the 8.64m-long boat to go! Given you’re sitting a bit higher off the water than normal, and sculling with much longer blades you have to adjust your technique accordingly, particularly when the waves build up. At a stroke rate of just 18, it makes you more of a marathon rower than a sprinter. As we found out, this kind of rowing definitely requires the brawny nature of a donkey than that of a highly-strung racehorse and you certainly need the strength and determination of a high-altitude Andean packhorse.
It was such a privilege to join the Sea Donkeys on almost their last outing before the boat is shipped over to the Azores this week for the race start. They are a brave, eccentric and colourful bunch of guys who are doing this not only as a personal challenge but also to raise money and awareness for the amazing charity GiveDirectly.
Every experience on water is a great experience for both of us, however this one had the dangerous after-effect of us working how we could raise the funds to buy an 8.64m boat when it comes back from Antigua at the end of the race next year and asking ourselves if we’re stubborn and strong enough to give a six-week row across an ocean a go sometime…Thank you so much you amazing rowers. Good luck!
Article by Liz Gray
