It’s that time of year in the northern hemisphere maritime climate areas, where many sailors put their boats to bed for winter and dream of next year’s adventures. Or maybe your sailing days are just youthful dreams or conversely all but over and you simply delight in the exploits of others, safely from your armchair!

I fall into the latter category these days and thanks to Johannes Boonstra he reminded me of the blog series I did about Doris and her adventures – plus the fact there’s also a film about her and the Coxless Crew available on Netflix, Amazon and iTunes.

Got an armchair or just need to be awed – do watch LOSING SIGHT OF SHORE!

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Conceiving to row the Pacific Ocean is remarkable enough but to actually do it is simply stunning. And the Coxless Crew have! They and their boat called Doris arrived in Cairns, Australia late last night (UTC) after having travelled 8,446 miles.Continue reading

It seems ocean rowing and Victron Energy are meant for each other. Presently there are two Victron Energy equipped boats that we know of rowing the oceans of the world. There might be more – but these are exciting times as these two in particular are set to achieve their separate and incredibly challenging goals in the coming days.

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As the Coxless crew approached Samoa they had to dig even deeper than usual to reach this next ocean rowing goal, due to the prevailing conditions. Samoa is the second of their milestone stopovers, since leaving San Francisco in mid April this year. How nice then that their patron Kylie Minogue sent them a message of encouragement during those tough conditions.

Arrival in Samoa

Kylie’s message must have worked though – as the team arrived safely in Apia, Samoa at 8.40pm UK time on Sunday 1st November. After 96 days at sea since departing Hawaii, Laura, Emma, Natalia and Lizanne stepped ashore as you can see in the image below. Apologies for the image quality of this important moment, but in this instance it is the quality of the moment that counts.

Congratulations to the Coxless Crew and team from all at Victron Energy!Continue reading