Rachel Smillie – Courageous Foolhardy Salty

There are a number of other goals which are really important to us as a team - feeling like we’ve done our best and that we’ve had a ‘good’ crossing and given everything we can to it; making sure we cross the line still feeling like a team; and of course, raising as much money as possible for our two charities while doing what we can to raise the profile of women in endurance sport. On a personal level I’m really excited about the challenge itself and seeing what I’m capable of in such an extreme environment.

With two years to go, training is already well underway. At the moment our focus is on things like injury prevention - so a lot of mobility work and general endurance training to ensure that our bodies will stand up to the kind of treatment that we’ll have to deal with during the crossing. As rowers, we’re pretty used to committing to long and multiple training sessions but this is a very different state of affairs and requires a fairly drastic shift in focus.

In the new year, we’ll shift towards spending as much time in our boat (Dolly Parton) as possible, making sure we know exactly how she (and we!) performs in different conditions, how all our equipment works, drilling our routines on board and honing our dynamic as a crew. This will include meeting the minimum number of hours training we have to do in the boat to be able to undertake the crossing, including night rows and multiple days at sea. In February we’ll also be undertaking our essential RYA courses for the row, including Essential Navigation and Seamanship, First Aid at Sea, Sea Survival and VHF Radio.

While fully immersing ourselves in these physical preparations, it’s well-known among ocean rowers that the challenge is probably more mental than physical. Part of our physical training also really contributes to our mental prep. It’s incredibly boring to sit on a static bike or rowing machine for two or three hours at a stretch, but this mental prep is really useful training for the row. I’m recovering from surgery on my wrist at the moment and my coach has me doing things like 250 reps of lunges or 1,000 step ups onto a box in a weighted vest without a break. This kind of training contributes to mental resilience. As a crew, we’ll also be doing a lot of pre-mortems, thinking about what could go wrong on the crossing and how we might problem-solve in those situations. It’s also important to think about how we will work together as a crew, so that’s a big part of our mental preparation too.

All of this is necessary to help us appreciate and comprehend the scale of the challenge we are taking on – which isn’t just one of the toughest in the rowing world but one of the toughest in the entire sporting world. There’s a reason why more people climb Everest every year than have ever rowed the Atlantic! My mum didn’t speak to me for about a week when I signed up but she’s come around now!

We will be fully at the mercy of Mother Nature. It is likely that we will confront weather systems which cause strong head winds and Atlantic storms which can make for waves of up to 40ft high and, let’s say, ‘interesting’ conditions. It is not likely that we will see another boat and at times the nearest people to us will be in the International Space Station. All this while dealing with extreme temperatures, sea sicknesses, salt sores, dehydration, sleep deprivation and hallucinations.

Last year four boats were skewered by marlin, although thankfully no-one was hurt, and cleaning the underside of the boat is a regular requirement, so the fact that crews in the past have spotted Portuguese man-o'-war a and sharks is something of a concern!