GB Row Challenge - Guinness Book of World Records


51 days 16 hours 42 minutes New World Record set on 23 July in Virgin GB Row 2010

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Round Britain rowers on course for Yorkshire
28 June 2005

FOUR intrepid rowers attempting a world record for rowing non-stop 2,000 miles around the British mainland reached the Teesside coast today .(Tuesday June 28) – and stripped off! The GB Row Challenge team who have rowed more than 1,500 miles in 21 days – that’s a staggering half a million oar strokes – passed Hartlepool this morning and are expected at Whitby later today. It was so warm and the sea so calm that the rowers stripped naked as they made their way down the north east coast.

During their epic voyage, the crew have survived Force Eight gales and 50 foot-high waves, whirlpools, rip-tides and even a water shortage caused by a lack of sunshine to power solar panels onboard their tiny 23-feet-lon boat, named Outward Bound.

Non-stop circumnavigation of Great Britain in a rowing boat has never been attempted before. Because of Britain's treacherous tides and crowded shipping lanes, this is one of the most dangerous journeys ever to be made in a rowing boat.

According to the Ocean Rowing Society, rowing round Britain is harder than crossing the Atlantic.

As well as setting a new world record, the crew - Grenadier guardsmen Lt William de Laszlo, Lt Ben Jesty, Sgt James Bastin and company director Will Turnage – hope to raise £1million for charity. They are supporting The Outward Bound Trust and the Bud Flanagan Fund for leukaemia research.

Amazingly, Sgt Jim Bastin had never rowed a boat before until he volunteered to join the crew on the last great challenge in the UK.

Skipper Will de Laszlo, 26, revealed that for the first time on their journey that it is warm enough and the sea calm enough to take all their clothes off.

	Navigator Will Turnage said: “Atlantic rowers strip naked all the time, it’s cooler and easier to row. But the chances of being seen anywhere in the Atlantic are rare. Around the shores of Britain we’ll have to be careful to spare people’s blushes!” The team – Lt de Laszlo, 26, Lt Ben Jesty, 25, both from London, Sgt James Bastin, 35, from Dursely, Gloucestershire and Will Turnage, 25, from Lymington, Hants, – are rowing in pairs in three hour shifts 24-hours a day.

Their position is being up-dated very few hours on the expedition website, click here so anyone wanting to follow them can see there they are. If you have a boat on the North East coast, why not go out and cheer them on.

You can also make a donation to their two chosen charities, The Outward Bound Trust and the Bud Flanagan Fund for leukaemia research by clicking here, or call 01732 520 111

If the crew manage to complete the 2,110-mile non-stop unassisted journey they will earn a Guinness World Record.

They crew are living off Army rations and took over one ton of food with them. They are only drinking cold water, provided by a desalination unit, which turns sea water into drinking water.

The desalination unit is powered by solar panels. But for nearly a fortnight after passing Land’s End the skies were overcast which meant the solar units were not able to provide enough power so the crew were rationed to just one litre of water each a day.

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