A marlin poked a hole in the side of one of the boats rowing 3,000 nm across the Atlantic in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge.
None of the four Englishmen on the boat, who call themselves “The Wrekin Rowers,” was injured in the attack, but the marlin speared a hole in the deck and through the lockers where the crew stored their food.
The rowers left the Canary Islands on Dec. 12 as one of 36 teams in the race, and they were on target to reach the finish line in Antigua in 38 days before the marlin attack. But the weight of water that enters the boat through the hole left by the marlin is slowing them down. Still, they declined assistance from a race safety boat because that would disqualify them.
The men are Stuart Shepherd, 56, the skipper, Martin Shekan, 59, Stuart Richards, 51, and his brother, Gary Richards, 54, from Shropshire, a historic landlocked county in the West Midlands region. Stuart Shepherd is visually impaired. The crew hope to raise 100,000 British pounds for a hospice and an institute for the blind.
They are on a Rannoch R45 ocean racing boat that’s 28’ 3” long with a 5’ 7” beam. Because of the pandemic, they trained separately in local gyms and got together on Zoom calls every Saturday morning. Read more:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-shropshire-59937181
