Crew forced to abandon Atlantic crossing attempt

AN attempt by five Irishmen to row across the Atlantic, as part of a 14-man crew, has had to be abandoned after their craft was struck by a mystery object, thought to be a whale.

The five, Peter Williams and Breffny Morgan from Co Cork, Robert Byrne and Ryan Corcoran from Bray, Co Wicklow, and Dubliner Ian McKeever, were rescued by a bulk cargo ship shortly after 8pm on Thursday night.

They were part of the 14-man international crew of La Mondiale, which set off on January 4 from Gran Canaria to Barbados, hoping to beat the record of 33 days for the southern route of the ocean crossing. This record was set in January 2008 by a different crew rowing the same boat.

They had travelled 1,850km — one-third of the journey.

“Obviously we are disappointed,” said McKeever last night, speaking from on board the Island Ranger, a 40,000-tonne Ukranian cargo Vessel bound from Brazil to Ravina in Italy.

“I wouldn’t mind if we weren’t good enough, but we were well ahead of target to make a new world record. However, if the boat can be salvaged, I hope to try the north Atlantic crossing in June.”

The incident occurred on Wednesday when the boat was making good ground.

“We were rowing away and making good speed,” said McKeever. “The wind was only 12 knots and we were on schedule to travel 183km that day, three days ahead of the existing record, when the incident occurred.

“We were in the valley of a wave and knew something was wrong immediately because when we put the oars through water we met tremendous resistance.” Crew leader Leven Brown, from Scotland, discovered the rudder had broken away and the crew assumed it had been struck by a whale.

“We still don’t know for sure,” said McKeever.

“We spotted some whales near the boat earlier in the morning and it is possible we hit one. The odd thing, though, is that we didn’t feel any impact so it is still a bit of a mystery.” At first, the crew attempted to make a temporary repair to the rudder and even hoisted a make-shift sail, but after 36 hours of manual steering, it became clear the race would have to be abandoned.

“We used a daggerboard (a retractable keel) to make a crude rudder so we could manually steer the boat and, at one point, we used a banner from my sponsor, Bord Iascaigh Mhara, to create a temporary sail. But then the winds picked up, a force six was blowing with nine metre waves and we decided... we should seek assistance.”

Their call was answered by the Island Ranger and all the crew of La Mondiale climbed on board the supertanker using cargo ladders.

“Everything went very smoothly. Our rescue training was put to good use and the Ukranian crew of the cargo vessel were amazing.

“Nobody was injured at any point. We had done sea survival and it was a great privilege to be part of such a professional crew,” said McKeever. It will take the tanker eight days to reach the Italian port and, meanwhile, an attempt will be made to salvage the 15-metre long La Mondiale.

“We put a tracker beacon on the boat and last year’s crew are going to try and salvage her,” he said.