Nearly 53 days after Anne-Marie, Camilla, and Marie set sail from the Canary Islands in their ocean rowboat, they landed on Antigua on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. A journey of over 5,000 km and more than 1.5 million oar strokes.
It is the first time that an all-women's Danish boat has ever crossed the Atlantic. Despite countless blisters on their hands, lack of sleep, seasickness, and missing their families, the trip was a great success.
The Rowmodels, as the three women call their team, participated in The Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge in December 2022. It is one of the most extreme competitions in the world, and fewer people have rowed across the Atlantic than those who have climbed Mount Everest.
In the podcast "Three Women Row 5,000 km Across the Atlantic," produced in collaboration with Tastetheworld.dk, you can hear the three women talk about both the challenges and highlights of their journey.
In the podcast, you can hear about the following episodes from the trip:
No arguments during the trip
When you are under both physical and mental pressure, it doesn't take much to get on each other's nerves. In fact, there are many previous teams that have taken the same trip where the participants don't talk to each other after landing.
Anne-Marie, Camilla, and Marie agreed that the trip should be a good experience - not about winning. They stuck to that throughout despite a lot of pressure.
Before the trip, the team trained intensely both physically and mentally. Along with a coach and many conversations, they learned each other's strengths and weaknesses. This was a contributing factor to the trip being free of arguments and the team still being friends and seeing each other to this day.
Crisis when the steering oar breaks
It's almost impossible to get help when you're in a rowboat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There are no follow boats you can call. There were times when the boat was so far from land that it was closer to satellites in space.
When the steering oar broke in the middle of the open ocean, the situation became critical for Anne-Marie, Camilla, and Marie. It has never happened before that a steering oar has broken for other teams that have rowed across the Atlantic in an ocean rowboat.
Therefore, the team had not brought a replacement steering oar or tools that could be used to repair it. But with a Georg Gearløs solution, a lot of patience, and help from land via satellite phone, Camilla managed to fix the broken steering oar. If they had not found a solution, they would have had to withdraw from the competition.
What can we learn from an extreme challenge like rowing across the Atlantic?
Anne-Marie, Camilla, and Marie had a wild dream that they fulfilled on the Atlantic Ocean. It was a dream to test their own limits by completing an extremely physically and mentally demanding challenge.
But the goal of their trip was also to inspire the rest of us who have dreams that seem impossible to fulfill. It doesn't have to be as wild as rowing across the Atlantic. It can also be a family dreaming of taking a year off the calendar and traveling around the world. Or it can be walking from Skagen to Gibraltar.
Regardless of what you dream of, the three women's journey across the Atlantic shows that even the wildest dreams are possible to fulfill. The Rowmodels' advice is that you should believe in it - and be persistent. No matter what unforeseen problems you encounter along the way, they usually work themselves out. Be patient and don't be afraid to ask for help. If your dream involves others (e.g. a trip with your best friend), be clear about the goal before you set off.
Watch the video where Rowmodels come ashore on Antigua and meet their families here.
You can listen to the podcast about the journey across the Atlantic here - Audio in Danish:
