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Woes not over for Row2Recovery team

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The supply boat Aurora has finally reached the Row2Recovery team in the Atlantic with fresh water supplies but now a new challenge is frustrating their efforts.

Having survived for 16 days on emergency water rations it is now their vessel’s rudder that is posing a problem.

In his latest blog team member Lance Corporal Carl Anstey, one of the injured servicemen taking part in the challenge and a former member of 1 RIFLES, says: “It’s currently on board Aurora and they’re trying to come up with a solution. If Graham Walters, who is part of the Aurora’s crew, doesn’t know how to fix it then no-one will.

“The worry is that there are fine cracks running along the length of the rudder which could, in the worst case scenario, result in it snapping in two.

“The Aurora crew are working on a way of splinting it and we’ll know more on Monday morning as to whether they’ve found a solution.”

He adds: “It would be incredibly frustrating if it came down to yet another technical issue ending our row.”

Since beginning the challenge to row across the Atlantic the team have wrestled with faults in the auto helm, the de-salinator and now the rudder.

If the rudder can’t be fixed, two options remain: Steering with an oar and putting out the drogue to slow them down or usnig the centreboard as a makeshift rudder. Both options have risks.

The blog continues: “We should have known the high of finding out that we were definitely going to be re-supplied would not last long the way our luck has gone on this trip!

“What’s really important now is that we stay tight as a team and keep on looking for solutions. That’s what we’re all about as a crew. We’ve come this far and we are determined to finish off the job. But at this point we’d be kidding ourselves if we said things were totally in our control.

“Whatever happens between now and the end of the row we are determined to achieve our objective which is to raise £1million for our fellow wounded soldiers and their families.”

Follow progress at www.row2recovery.com

THE TEAM:

Lieutenant Will Dixon

Will, 27, was badly injured when an IED detonated under his vehicle 10 days before Christmas in 2009.
He was a platoon commander with Third Battalion, The Rifles when surgeons at Camp Bastion performed a below knee amputation on his left leg. He phoned home and explained to his parents he had “picked up a bit of an injury”.

Corporal Neil Heritage

Neil was a member of the Royal Signals bomb disposal team in Iraq when a suicide bomber detonated a device a few feet away. It was November 2004 and his wife was six weeks pregnant with the couple’s second child.
He required a double above-knee amputation and doctors initially predicted he would never walk again. Neil, 30, is now a school athletics coach and keen endurance athlete.

Corporal Rory Mackenzie

Rory was a company medic attached to the 1st Battalion Staffordshire Reg.
While on a routine patrol in Basra City in Jan 2007 he was blown up by a Road Side Bomb. The blast traumatically amputated his right leg.
After an extensive rehabilitation period he is now back at work as an instructor at Keogh Barracks, teaching fellow medics.

Lance Corporal Carl Anstey

Carl was hit by the blast from a rocket-propelled grenade in Musa Qala, Afghanistan, in January 2009 the after his 24th birthday.
Carl, now 26, was a member of First Battalion, the Rifles. The damage from shrapnel shattered his femur and severed his sciatic nerve. Surgery left him with a right leg almost two inches shorter than the left and he needs a leg brace to walk.

Ed Janvrin, Co-Founder

Ed spent eight years in the Gurkhas, serving once in Iraq and twice in Afghanistan.
He left the army in 2008 deeply impacted by his experiences and compelled to help the men and women who had served alongside him.
Ed joined PricewaterhouseCoopers as a business consultant in 2008.

Alex Mackenzie, Co-Founder

Alex served in the Parachute Regiment for six years, completing tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he was Mentioned in Despatches for leadership.
He left the army in 2008 but never forgot the inspirational lessons he learnt from the troops he fought alongside.
He now works for global business performance consultancy firm McKinney Rogers.