Without anything onboard it weighs about 2,300 kilograms (just over 5,000 pounds) and has space for three people to be rowing at the same time using six oars. There are two cabins (bow and stern) which have enough space for one person to sleep at a time. Many of us are over six feet tall and therefore have to curl up in the space in order to sleep! Also in these cabins we have our rudder, batteries, motors and other important items.
Along the side of each hull we have ballast tanks to keep us buoyant. We use these tanks to store store our food, medical kit, liferaft and water tanks. We’ve already talked about our water maker, but we also have solar panels on the roof of the aft cabin to help us generate electricity to charge the batteries on our radios, satellite phone and music speakers!
As part of the rules of the race, we have to prove that we’re only moving via human rowing power, so we’re not allowed to take any flags with us that could be used as a sail. Therefore, we only move by rowing. For certain periods when we need to move through the water at top speed (about 5-6 miles an hour) we have three people rowing, but for much of the race we’re split into two watches, with two people rowing and the other two asleep, eating or washing. When the waves and wind are helping us, we might not need to do much rowing. Instead, we’ll be focusing on surfing the waves, as this can help us reach speeds of up to 10-12mph!
