Olympic Atlantic Row Scheduled To Begin Sunday

The Olympic Atlantic Row (OAR) project was scheduled to get underway this weekend, but the departure date is a bit up in the air at the moment thanks to dodgy weather. As you may recall from a previous post in March, OAR will send ocean rowers Roz Savage and Andrew Morris on a 60 day, 2587 mile (4163km) odyssey across the North Atlantic and is scheduled to culminate in London in time for the start of the Summer Olympic Games.

Roz and Andrew are currently in Newfoundland preparing for the start of their journey and keeping a close eye on the weather. It currently appears unlikely that they'll be able to start this weekend but they are hopeful for a departure sometime early next week. When they do set out they'll be in the newly overhauled boat the Bojangles, which was previously used on a 4350 mile (7000km) Pacific Ocean crossing.

Neither Roz nor Andrew are strangers to ocean rowing. Andrew rowed across the Atlantic with his friend Mick Dawson a few years back and readers of this blog are well aware of Roz's resume, which includes solo crossings of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. They'll both need to draw on that extensive experience in the North Atlantic as it will present some unique challenges of its own, not the least of which is the unpredictable, and sometimes ferocious, weather.

I'll keep an eye on the team's progress. Hopefully they'll be able to launch soon and start their voyage to London. Good luck to both Andrew and Roz. Enjoy the journey!