Phil Morrison and Spud Rowsell, better known for designing and building quality, high performance racing boats, have put their heads together and come up with an Atlantic challenge rowing boat for a team of rowers from Dartmouth.

This 24ft loa, carbonfibre, four-man rowing boat made its debut at the Southampton Boat Show this week and the four-man team from the Dartmouth Rowing Club (Phil Langman, Ian ‘Yorkie’ Lomas, Jason Hart and Shaun Barker were on the stand to chat about the Atlantic Xtreme challenge which could see them becoming the first ocean fours team to row the Atlantic.

Organised by the Ocean Rowing Society, the 2004 John Fairfax regatta starts from La Gomera in France on 20 January, and the 3,000 Atlantic crossing will finish in Barbados hopefully no longer than 50 days later. Langman commented: “Our aim is anything between 30-50 days. The current world Atlantic rowing record is 35 days with a 10-man crew, so we want to set a record as the first four to complete the course, and we’re going for the outright speed record too.”

As super-fit rowers who race fours and eights at Dartmouth Rowing Club, the Xtreme team are aware of the sort of hours they need to put it to make the challenge a success but they are also aware that getting the challenge boat in the water for training as soon as possible is priority. “Because we only took delivery of the boat last week, we’ve not had a chance to launch it yet,” added Langman, “but when we get back to Dartmouth next week, we’ll launch it and start training, for several days at a time in the worst conditions we can get to give us an idea of what it will be like. We also need to get in to our two-hour sleep/row shift routine.”

With a start date of mid January 2004, and knowing the boat will have to be shipped out to France on 15 December, the team has a fairly tight time scale particularly as they still need to find another sponsor. Queensgate, having paid the cost of the boat, is their main sponsor, but they still need to find another £12,000, £8,000 of which is the entry fee.

More details of the Atlantic Xtreme challenge and the 2004 John Fairfax Regatta can be found at atlanticchallengedartmouth.net, or by contacting Phil Langman on 07776 061063.,