Atlantic report

Rough Seas and Toast
Jonathan Gornall
At 500 miles from their target, our correspondent and the crew dream of food treats and home

We’ve had trouble with the power steering, which is usually foot-operated, so in rough seas one of the non-rowers has to sit for the two-hour watch, a string in each hand, operating the rudder. The boat must take the waves absolutely square. One wrong pull and it could roll.

This week is also the coldest it has been on the trip. With the wind chill, the temperature is down to minus 10C (14F). It seems incredible that by the time you read this, Pink Lady could be one week from crossing the line at Bishop’s Rock and setting a record for a west-east crossing of the Atlantic. Could being the operative word. It’s 486 miles (782km) to the Bishop’s Rock lighthouse. That could be a week away, if we do 50 miles a day — but then we may not even be moving. On Sunday we had crushing news from our weather router: by lunchtime on Tuesday this week we could expect to be in the grip of a fierce southeast wind which, if it blew at the predicted force 6-7, would prevent any headway in the direction of home and probably see us at anchor for 24 hours.

As the distance recedes, time seems to be slowing. The night watches (12-2am; 4-6am) are the longest. Two hours on the oars seem to take for ever and there is a running gag between me and John, my rowing partner, where he asks what time it is and I say that it’s 70 minutes in. That seems to be as long as your mind can spend wondering how long you have been sitting there.

Our iPod seems to developing a sense of humour. The other night, with the wind howling and the rain pouring in, it started playing Mr Blue Sky by ELO. Then came Magic Moments. But then it plays Nimrod, by Elgar, which typifies pastoral England, and it is at once glorious and unbearable.

The only solution is to retreat into the minutiae of each day and focus the mind from the infinite to the finite. I study my hands on the oar handles, take care that my seat travels up and down the rails fast enough, and watch the blades enter the water. This Zen-like approach is fine in steady water, but in the wave-breaking seas of the past few days, all such artistry is set aside for the brutal combat which has had to pass for rowing. Only when the voyage is over will we appreciate how grim some of it has been.

We do, of course, look forward to many things — homes and loved ones foremost — but trivial yearnings also play a part. For Mark Stubbs and myself nothing now seems closer to Heaven than a plate of hot buttered toast. For John Wills, perfection is represented by Jelberts ice cream, made in Newlyn, Cornwall, while his fellow Cornishman Pete Gray dreams only of pasties.

As we get closer to England we have begun to run out of things. Snacks that see us through long nights — fruit pastilles, chocolate, flour tortillas, pots of tuna mayonnaise — will last only another three days and, thanks to battery problems, it’s touch and go whether we have enough fuel for the generator to make water.

Perhaps worse, we are nearly out of Sudocrem, the lotion that is helping us to cope with the terrible rashes and boils we are all suffering on our nether regions. We are also losing weight, which creates other problems such as my skin splitting where the coccyx pokes down from my spine.

We all agree that this week is as close to the edge as we have come during the row. Mark Stubbs, our skipper, remains unnervingly cheerful and energetic, but even he conceded on Saturday that we are all now in survival mode, going through the motions. But his enthusiasm remains undefeated: he is planning his next trip already. I, it is safe to say, am not.