Solo women’s Atlantic rowing world record set by self reliant Briton facing ‘intense’ weather, losing toe nails to the damp
- Victoria Evans cuts nine days off previous world record, by putting performance at forefront of her decisions
- Evans rowed nearly 3,000 miles from the Canary Islands to Barbados. She crossed in 40 days and 19 hours
Briton Victoria Evans set the women’s world record for rowing across the Atlantic solo, with near constant focus and adrenaline in high winds.
“I’d done a lot of training and I’d taken the boat to Portugal for two months in the summer, so I was very well prepared. But the weather was so intense for the time I was out there. The wind basically didn’t let up the whole time,” Evans, 35, said.
“There was a time in week three and four, when I had 30 knots of wind. You cannot switch off when it’s like that. It’s constant. The focus and the adrenaline as a solo rower needed in those conditions is just so intense. I knew it was going to be hard by my word is was a real test.”
Evans rowed nearly 3,000 miles from the Canary Islands to Barbados. She crossed in 40 days and 19 hours, beating 49 days and seven hours set by fellow Briton Kiko Matthews in 2018.
Evans spent four years preparing for the row. The pandemic forced her to postpone from last year, to this year.
Initially, Evans had entered the annual Atlantic rowing race in December 2018. But as she became more familiar with the boat designs and her own ability, she thought perhaps the record was achievable.