Woodvale Atlantic Row Update–Holiday Shoppe Home for the Holidays: A Kiwi team paddled their way across the finish line in Barbados over the weekend, to set a new record for the race of 40 days, 5 hours and 31 minutes (and beating the old record by about 21 hours). It almost didn’t happen. As Kevin Biggar and James Fitzgerald closed on Barbados, after rowing all the way from the Canary Islands, Holiday Shoppe Challenge was capsized by a wave when their steering rudder jammed and they got rolled by a wave. The capsize tossed the two rowers into the sea, and neither was wearing a harness. Luckily, they were not separated from the boat, which rolled back upright as it was designed to do. A second Kiwi team also crossed the finish ahead of the previous race record (what do they feed those guys Down Under?), and the rest of the rowing teams will dribble in on the coming week. This is the first transatlantic rowing race I have ever paid any attention to and I have to say it was pretty damn boring. There’s just not that much to recommend the sport: no great speeds, no horrific weather (at least in the tropical Atlantic in November), and no real drama. That’s not to say that it’s not a great achievement for the rowers, and it’s certainly gripping for the families and close supporters of the people out there. But it’s all about endurance, determination, suffering, blah, blah, blah. It’s much more interesting to follow a guy like Jim Shekhdar, who in attempting to row the Southern Ocean was thinking big and thinking crazy…..



Nice job, guys. Can I get back to my nap now?

(Photo: Challenge Business)