Bill Rix is one of our growers from Essex who we’ve done business with on almost daily basis for around 30 years. Bill’s daughter, Jemma, is about to take on the mother of all challenges – to cross the Atlantic in a rowing boat. She’s attempting this gargantuan task with her good friend Lauren Woodwiss. They set off on 12 December 2018. A few scary facts for you about this challenge:

• ·  3,000 miles and over 1 million strokes
• ·  Only 7 female pairs have made this crossing to date!
• ·  Equivalent to 115 marathons back to back rowing 3 hours on, 2 off, day & night!
• ·  They’ll be burning 7000 calories each per day!

And they’re aiming to break the World Record for a female-pair crossing of 50 days and 7 hours. My son Cameron is on the last year of his degree in Sports Coaching and is a keen rower and rowing coach. So, we organised a day’s coaching by Cameron for Jemma and Lauren in Cambridge. I joined them for lunch afterwards and we discussed the crossing.

What a challenge! We all wish them all the very best and above all hope they come back safe and sound in a couple of months of time.

Good luck ladies!