Find out why Aldo Kane, Team Essence rower, says Skyeskyns sheepskin saved their transatlantic mainland to mainland world record setting in his guest blog for us….
As Team Essence, our mission was to be the first ever team of Rowers to row form Mainland Europe to Mainland South America. As complete novices, we set ourselves the goal of setting this new world record in less than 52 days.
On the 29th of March, 2016, we as a team landed our 8 meter rowing boat on a remote sandy beech on the North Eastern coast of Venezuela after 50 days, 10 hours and 36 minutes at sea.
A total journey of over 3600 nautical miles making it also one of the longest routes ever rowed across the Atlantic Ocean With all of these records combined, Team Essence accrued in total 3 separate world records as verified by Guinness.
At the start of the journey, we asked about for some sheep skin which we planned to use for a seat cover to make it a bit more pleasant on our behinds. When Skyeskyns got in touch our prayers were answered, we were offered a load of sheepskin which we could fashion into seat covers.
At this point we didn't not know how utterly valuable these would become over the next two harrowing months at sea.
To start with we all cut our own section which we brought out each time we took to the oars. It made a pleasant change to the hard seats of the rowing boat and stopped us developing sores.
After only 3 weeks at sea, we were catastrophically capsized. In the process, three of us lost our trainers. On the surface, this is no big deal. When you look at it more closely, this could have potentially been a show stopper.
Your feet are strapped into the boat by means of a plastic and nylon strap system, with shoes on, this isn't a problem. Without, this could ruin your feet in a very short space of time.
Skyeskyns to the rescue again, we fashioned feet covers for our bare feet and these too became prized possessions of each of the three rowers who had lost their footwear.
In the capsize our bedding was ruined and again, Skyeskyns came to the rescue as we had just enough skin left to cover our touch points of our body for when we slept. That is, we each had a small square left which meant we could use it as a pillow or to put under our hip bone which meant we could lie on our sides, a relative luxury.
Its safe to say that over the 50 days at sea, each one of us became incredibly attached to our own personal two or three sections of sheepskin in a very protective way.
Nothing would get between the rower and his sheepskin. Without Skyeskyns, I am positive, our world record breaking row would have been an utterly different experience!
Thank you for all your support and being part of the Team Essence World Record setting Mainland to Mainland record attempt.
Aldo Kane
