On Friday Ian spoke to Stuart and Natalie on the Heart breakfast show with the tune We are Sailing playing in the background.  Ian explained that the winds had picked up a little then died away again however; the crew continue to lift their spirits with all the setbacks. He went onto say “the world record is the cream on the cake but the main thing is getting across the ocean and if we can do some good on the way, raise some money and inspire other people to do stuff, then that will be a massive result”! Listen to the full interview here. 

Please pledge your support via https://twitter.com/#!/AtlanticOdyssey and via donations.

by Matt Craughwell – Skipper

With the calm of the Atlantic Sara G has not only had her toughest week of the expedition, but her toughest week under my watch.  Yesterday saw us post only sixty nautical miles with a mixed bag of no wind and swells from every direction.  Despite all of this the crew have battled on to make this small total. It has now made our world record attempt become the most difficult ten days we will spend at sea this year.  Morale is high and we hope for good weather soon, but it seems everything is against us at the moment!  The latest technical difficulty has been the loss of our electrical power due to the lack of winds and no sun for the past few days, this has meant we are now navigating the old fashion way like the old mariners used to.  We hope to have better news soon and would like to thank everyone for all the messages of support we have received, on days like this they mean everything to us.  We will continue to give it our all till we reach Barbados and hope to see a change of fortune in the coming ten days.

by UK team on behalf of Mark Beaumont for the Independent

Due to lack of power supplying his laptop, Mark asked the UK team to give an account of what’s been happening on the Atlantic Odyssey.

With little help from the wind and increasing temperatures, it’s been another tough week for the crew who have until now still kept neck and neck with the WR. However, the last couple of days have been some of the slowest yet with heavy seas, poor swell and hardly any wind which has meant loosing 10 – 15 knots a day on the record. In addition to this, they came into cloud cover which along with the lack of wind meant they were taking in very little power on the boat. Their two 12 volt batteries similar to car batteries, were almost completely drained and so all electronics were turned off. The most important equipment the batteries power are the auto helm which controls Sara G’s direction and the water-maker. They are both big drains on energy but with no sun and little wind to feed the batteries, the crew had to start water rationing and for 24 hours were on one and a half litres of water each for drinking and re hydrating food. Water rationing also meant food rationing as a lot of the food is re hydrated, and when rowing 12 hours a day at this stage after three weeks of hard pulling on the oars, there was a noticeable physical affect on the pulling power of the team from dehydration and lack of food. Thankfully by later yesterday there was enough power supply to make some more water so the crew could start replenishing and this remains a priority along with the auto helm.

…READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE…

Whilst the speed has not been as good as the team had wished for overnight, it was great to hear Simon in good form on this morning’s Heart breakfast show with Stuart and Natalie. To hear the reason why he was tied up and chucked over the boat and who he thinks he is in competition with for  Rear of the Year  listen to the full interview here.

The team are supporting the Heart charity – Have a Heart supporting ChildLine – and donations can be made via their Donation website which can be accessed here…The team are hoping to raise above £3000 by the journey’s end.

Mark was sat in the stern cabin as he chatted to Fred on the MacAuley & Co show late this morning. He spoke about giving up on the dream of the sub 30 day but still hopes for a new world record, the magic carpet trade winds not materialising and the physical changes to their bodies.  Mark said “we actually stopped there for ten minutes as one of the guys jumped overboard on a length of rope to check there wasn’t anything dragging on the underside of the boat as we was still worried about our speed and thought something might be either growing on the hull or something caught in the rudder, but there was nothing at all, the drag is just coming from the fact we just don’t have the conditions”.

Listen to the full interview here at 1 hour into the programme.

“The crew are bearing up, we are still fighting for every mile and at the moment we are dropping a little bit behind world record pace every day which is difficult to take on board mentally” said Ian when speaking with Stuart and Natalie on the Heart breakfast show this morning. On a lighter note Natalie asked about the revealing picture on twitter yesterday to which Ian explained “mark is regularly wanting to take photo’s, I think Simon had been out in the sun a bit too long and decided he would go into his male modelling poses”. Natalie hinted that a calendar should be in the making! Listen to the full interview here. 

Ian thought a large proportion of the crew would be up for making a calendar if it helps raise money for the Have a Heart appeal supporting Childline.  You can also help now and donate here.