"We're aiming to break two world records"

Cruising Free are doing the Atlantic Dash and aiming to get the record for the first person to row an ocean with Cystic Fibrosis - and the oldest woman to row an ocean, ever!

This week’s newsletter takes a break from the World’s Toughest Row. On 3 January, the all-female crew of Cruising Free – that’s Sophie Pierce, 32, Miyah Periam, 24, Janine Williams, 70, and Polly Zipperlen, 50 - fly out to Lanzarote from Pembrokeshire to prepare for the start of the Atlantic Dash on 23 January.

And I’ll be honest - when I saw the email from their PR asking if I’d like to interview them it stopped me in my tracks. If they manage the crossing successfully, not only will they have the record of oldest woman to row any ocean, but also the first person to row with Cystic fibrosis.

Sophie, Janine, Polly and Miyah make up Cruising Free ©Cara Gaskell Photography

The race goes from the Canary Island to Jolly Harbour in Antigua, a distance of 3200 miles (making it a tad longer than the WTR). This year, four crews are taking part, including Cruising Free, solo rower Gary Hutchings in Pollyanne, Antiguans Ruby Coates and Steffan in Waves to Awareness (in the enviable position of being able to row home) and Neil Glover, Peter Ross, Darren Smith and Nick Southwood in Row For It.

I’ve always wondered why this race is called the Atlantic Dash, and I’ve discovered it’s taken from a poem by Linda Ellis called The Dash, about the time we spend on earth, and which features the lines,

“For it matters not, how much we own, the cars, the house, the cash
What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash.”

If that’s not motivation to get off your bottom and row an ocean I don’t know what is.

When I catch up with social worker Sophie, watersports instructor Miyah and former NHS worker Janine, I discover more about their powerful reasons for rowing across the Atlantic. Polly, meanwhile, can’t make the call – but her crew mates tell me the “sexual health nurse who’s married to a vicar” is rushed off her feet in the run up to Christmas.

Here, Sophie, Janine and Miyah tell me their inspiring stories…