Issue 103 - November 1997

Atlantic crossing with babywipes

In August Andrew Halsey, 15 years an epileptic, completed a 116-day solo row across the Atlantic, the fulfilment of a lifelong dream. Now he watches anxiously for news of the twenty-seven crews covering the same course in Sir Chay Blyth's Atlantic Rowing Race, and remembers every mile of his own journey.

Halsey first decided to row the Atlantic when he was nine, but didn't raise enough funding until a thirty-foot fall shattered his left ankle, but gave him capital in the form of compensation money. This, when added to the sale of his golf clubs, allowed him to have his own ocean-going rowing boat designed and built in the autumn of 1996. The metal-pinned ankle means that he can't row properly in a racing boat, but he took a one-hour sculling lesson, practised for one hour on an ergometer, and then, without further ado, tried out his new boat on the Mersey.

'I talked to previous ocean rowers. Most of them hadn't rowed before. It doesn't matter - the mental toughness is much more important. You can be in the middle of a cross-sea, waves coming at you from both angles, and you have to get the oars in the water at different times to keep the boat straight.' He found that little problems got under his skin - the noise of trigger fish scraping barnacles off the boat, bits of equipment rolling around, waves slopping into his long-awaited cup of tea when he paused for a rest.

Even the most mundane aspects of life on board became important: 'You have to take Babywipes instead of toilet rolls, as everything gets wet through.' The weather was fiercely hot. 'I wore nothing most of the time, except a hat and my harness. You have to clip it on every time you leave the cabin, even if the sea is dead calm, just in case. Clunk, click, every trip.' The only time he came close to falling overboard was when he slipped on a tiny drop of suntan lotion. And although he saw sharks, the only time they bothered him was when he was hanging over the side 'doing a regular' and one became inquisitive. 'That gave me a shock - it was bucket only from then on. I wrote in my journal "Almost lost my meat and two veg today"'.

He fished by trailing a line overboard, baited with a morsel, salted some and tried to dry the rest by laying thin slices in the sun, turning every half day. Left for two days, they were really tasty, but he usually gave in to temptation and ate them straight away, still chewy.

One morning he found a four-and-a-half foot squid lying on the deck when he woke up. 'That was my best meal. I cooked it with pasta soaked in lemon juice. Next time I'm taking garlic, lots of it.' The triggerfish and 'grunters' were the best eating - 'I called them Hannibal Lecter fish after one took a chunk out of my knuckle. I cut the teeth off that one and gave them to my nephew.'

What kept him going was his own imagination. 'The radio broke during the quarter-finals of Wimbledon, but from then on, I wasn't being reminded of everything else going on, and I unlocked the doors of my memory.' He had a picture of his daughter smiling to look at, played the harmonica (badly), and gave himself different characters to talk to. 'I did Tony Montana from Scarface when I was gutting fish, and I had a German character who used to say "You English, you no good", but when I finished, he said "I've enjoyed sailing with you, maybe again sometime". When he ran out of food with seven weeks to go, he started telling himself cooking tips and menus, writing them in his diary.

Halsey thought on August 21 he was going to die. He had seen boats and seabirds, and knew he was near his target of Barbados, but out of rations. One motor-boat came within a quarter of a mile. 'I wasted four flares trying to get their attention so I could get water. They were a bunch of drunks - called me dude, and played music at me down the emergency channel. I was so mad and fired up, I rowed hard for the next two days. That boat had a yellow awning. If I ever see it again, there'll be trouble'.

He carried on, in fact moving southwest of his planned landfall, without food or water for two more days. 'There was one large bird near the end used to come and sit on the boat, didn't like water, it was scared whenever the sea splashed up. I nearly ate it. Then I got a radio message from a Dutch ship to take a 240 degree heading. I was so happy when I saw land I was crying, wiping the tears off with my finger and licking it. I didn't think I had that much water in my body.'

Halsey thinks it must be much harder with two people in the boat, and reckons it is no coincidence that many of the previous two-person crews were barely on speaking terms by the end of their crossing. When Duncan Nicoll called him for advice and asked 'have I forgotten anything', he replied 'Yes, earplugs and a blindfold'. He would have rowed Blyth's challenge if he could have gone alone. His trip averaged 30 miles a day, and he is sceptical about the racing crews rowing through the night. 'Rowing in the dark is very dangerous. You can't see the freak waves.' In good conditions he rowed 2 hours on, 15 minutes off - 'and then a good cup of tea, Earl Grey.' The Challenge crews need to average 40 miles a day to finish as planned.

Andrew Halsey's epilepsy started, apparently by chance, during the Christmas of 1982. He doesn't let it scare him, and is eager to change the way people see the disease. 'I see parents stopping their kids from doing sport, stopping them from doing anything, but you mustn't let it get to you.' His Atlantic stories littered with phrases about 'next time'. He wants to be the first person to re-cross in the opposite direction within 12 months of his first landing, and is aiming to set off from New York next May, crossing to France. This time his family and friends know what is involved: 'Last time my mum went very quiet, but now she isn't so scared. They are pleased for me'. And he has found a motivation besides his childhood dream, to spread the message that epileptics can achieve incredible goals.

After the west-east Atlantic, he wants to be the first to row across the Pacific, probably San Francisco to Australia. Would he change anything, now that he's talked to the crews preparing for the Challenge? 'Not much. I didn't have a pump - I'll take one next time, but manual, not electric. Salt water has a habit of destroying everything.' He thinks the major problem with the Atlantic Challenge boats is their lack of a daggerboard (centreboard). 'You need it to stop the bow rounding up when you ride down to the bottom of a thirty-foot swell.' And next time he's taking some coffee. 'I used to wake up smelling it, and think there was a ship nearby. I really missed the taste.'

Would he like to learn to row? 'Yes, I'd like to, but my foot's bolted together. I don't think I'd be very good at it.' For now he itches to be on the ocean again, and remembers what it's like. 'Sitting out at night on the sea, watching a sailfish jump in the air, and the moon catch its fin. It don't get much better than this.'

© Copyright Rachel Quarrell, 1997.