Bronze Sponsorship…         for a minimum donation to the charity of £100
Silver Sponsorship…           for a minimum donation to the charity of £250
Gold Sponsorship…             for a minimum donation to the charity of £500
Platinum Sponsorship…      for a minimum donation to the charity of £1000

All sponsors will have their company logo and a link to their website featured on the sponsors’ area of our challenge website – they will also receive a letter of thanks and a framed certificate recognising your support. The company logo for all Platinum sponsors will feature on ‘Champions of the Row’ banner that will be suspended directly behind the rowing machine at all times, allowing excellent exposure to the general public and the media. A photo opportunity will be organised for Gold and Platinum sponsors that will of course be submitted to our local media partners.

If your company would be interested in sponsoring the rowing challenge, please pop down to see me in town if you have any questions or if you would prefer you can email on info@worldrecordrow.com or call 07737 322483.

We will also be holding a charity auction to raise much needed funds for this wonderful charity just before Christmas this year – if you feel you couldn’t make a cash donation to Breakthrough but would be happy to donate an auction prize then again I would be absolutely delighted to hear from you.

Thank you,

Dave x

32059km rowed… 7016 km remaining

Goodness me, what a scorcher! Glorious sunshine over the last few weeks has caused me to sweat off at least half a stone in weight which bearing in mind I’m built like a twiglet anyway meant I was on the verge of disappearing altogether. Fortunately I’ve developed a love of eccles cakes and although the weight is sitting in all the wrong places I’m hoping I won’t be vanishing into a sweaty puddle just yet. We’ve got some great fundraising dates coming up so I’ve got everything crossed that the pennies will keep coming in over the summer months.

Last month I was very honoured to be invited to the Place To Be Proud Of Awards in Festival Place – particularly delighted with the fact that we got to eat lots of chicken and potatoes. I was thrilled to be nominated but genuinely didn’t expect it to go any further, consequently I had a little glass of wine and being the complete and utter lightweight that I am it went to straight to my  head. The last award of the night was the Judge’s Special Award which I managed to pick up and I was so thrilled that I pulled the most outrageous drunken and sweaty gurn for a photograph for the Gazette – unfortunately it made appearance a few days ago along with the title of ‘Does This Man Deserve To Turn On The Christmas Lights?’. I have to say that I looked at the paper and thought I wouldn’t let that person out of the house until I realised that wine fuelled mad man was me – I’m just so thrilled it was shot torso up as at that point in the evening I’m convinced I’d taken my trousers off and left them somewhere!

Brilliant and lovely chap that he is, Stuart Dimond (of raising lots of pennies for Breakthrough through two fantastic gigs at The Red Lion fame) and I have been banging heads together (just ours, we wouldn’t hurt anyone else) and our in the process of producing a charity CD called ‘The Breakthrough Album’. It will feature fourteen cracking Basingstoke artists (all aged between 15 to 19) and the hope it will not only be a good fundraiser for Breakthrough but also to celebrate what musical talent we have in our home town. They are all amazing and we hope to have the album ready for sale (for £7 and every single penny going to the charity) by the middle of August – I promise I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime I wanted to pop up the album cover, designed by Stu and Cameron – what clever lads they are x

We also received a lovely visit from June of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance to collect over 300 bras that have been so kindly donated over the last two years. I didn’t want to let them go but alas they have gone and to a wonderful home too - the bras have been sent to women in countries across the Third World, a terrific cause. 

A huge thank you to Romy for Jo for donating on our justgiving page - I’ve got my fingers crossed we can crack that £14,000 mark as soon as possible x

31346 km rowed… 8729 km remaining

Guys firstly hugest apologies for being a scally wag and not blogging in April – consider my hands severly slapped and prepare yourselves for an even bigger account of buttock trauma to make up for it.

Firstly, and most importantly, there has been a massive baby boom in Basinsgtoke and I’m delighted to report on my three favourites. Congratulations to the lovely Danielle on the birth of her beautiful daughter Jessika Mai – I should point out that Jessika was conscious when I held her… the power of a rower’s armpit always possesses the ability to knock someone out.

Huge congratulations too to our very own Craig Killick on the birth of his gorgeous daughter Annabelle and to also to the very lovely Jacqui Sanwell on the birth of a beautiful grandson – I’m still not all convinced that Jax is old enough for one of those!

There’s also been a surge in record attempts over the last few weeks… in a far less exciting way than pretty babies but certainly very nerdy in a rowing geeky sort of way. The end of April saw a new record set for most metres rowed in a season of 17,111,960 m… and lets be honest, it doesn’t get much more nerdy than that! But with world record no. 5 in the bag it was time to have a pop at record no’s 6 and 7.

At 10am on Saturday 8th May at the Reading Hilton, I began an attempt with my very good friend Ollie Trinder (top lad and fellow rowing geekazoid)  to set a new world record for longest continual tandem row, raising money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. The previous record, set by Atlantic Rowers Dan Darley and Rich Dewire back in 2005, stood at 72 hours and 17 minutes – we hoped that we could row a further 30 hours and set a new record of 100 hours by 2pm yesterday on Wednesday 12th. At the back of our minds, Ollie and I knew that if we could maintain a steady pace of 10km an hour continuously for just over four days then we could set a new fastest tandem million metre record in the 20-29 age category.

Preparing for the off!

Our timetable was to row in two hour shifts until midnight , at which point Ollie would row from 12am until 4am and I would then continue rowing from 4am until 8am. We would then return to two hour shifts until the following midnight and the double four shifts would begin once more. Our train of thought was that the two hours shifts would help reduce fatigue (and allow us to maintain a steady pace) and the four shifts at night would allow us to try and get at least 2 and a half hours sleep every 24 hours. With neither of us being kings of the power nap, we didn’t really get any sleep during our two hour rest breaks, it was just a chance to stretch, have something to eat and make a call to a loved one.

Ollie driving through the metres

The first day felt good and comfortable – we seemed to be keeping a steady pace, talking happily to people who dropped pennies into the bucket, heads up and backs straight. Even throughout the first night, the excitement of trying to set a new record meant that the two hour sleep had very little impact on our enthusiasm. The second day, whilst we began to feel a little more weary in the afternoon, seemed to fly by so quickly and by midnight on Sunday, 38 hours since the row began, we had 400km on the clock and were 2 hours ahead of target.

Ollie keeping up a great pace in the wee small hours

The second night hit both of us very hard – just trying to keep the split below 3mins/500m felt like we pulling sub 1.40 and the fact that we hadn’t really been able to keep down a decent square meal was really beginning to hit our energy levels. The tiredness meant that we were beginning to feel quite queasy with anything we tried to eat and in turn meant the build up of lactic acid was that much faster. Rowing during the third day gave us a little relief I think quite simply because we were plodding in daylight – giving up was simply never an option for either of us which only served to make the build up to the third night even worse. Rowing for 24 hours is one of the toughest physical challenges I have ever done and for all of us who have made it through it is quite simply one of the sweetest feelings of satisfaction – unfortunately as the hours clocked over I just couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, the whole thing just seemed never ending and our ability to look no further than the end of our two session (and then take great pleasure in a two hour rest break) went rapidly. There was an overwhelming and inevitable sense of dread rowing that third four hour set in the early hours of Tuesday morning. I’d managed just over half an hours worth of sleep during the four hours that Ollie had been on the machine and when my alarm went off at 3.20am, fluid had been building above both knee caps. The change over at 4am was hysterical – Ollie held the seat so I could quickly jump on and take the first stroke (we never tied our feet down during the challenge) but while my left foot went into place above the foot strap, my right leg locked completely causing my entire body to pivot and nearly send me flying off the rower. Ollie laughed so much that he slipped on a puddle of coke he’d sleepily spilt everywhere around the machine and nearly broke his back on a nearby chair arm. Fortunately after three strokes of arms only, I gingerly slid my right foot into position and plodded until the next changeover at 8am.

Early morning plodding!

The last full day on the Tuesday gave us hope and optimism but having had just over 6 hours sleep in the last 72 hours we were so tired it had little impact on our ability to pick up the pace. I think we caught our second wind later that afternoon however and despite picking up 68km in 8 hours from midnight until 8am on Wednesday (our final day), the end was defiantly in sight.

By the time we hit the 100 hour mark at 2pm we were 26km off the million metres – close enough to stay on for a further 2 and a half hours to set a double world record, a tandem endurance record of 103 hours and a tandem million metre record of 102 hours 32 minutes 58.1 seconds. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much physical relief – it was without doubt the toughest sporting challenge of my life. Ollie was simply magnificent throughout and I’m so incredibly proud to know him – a brilliant guy with a huge heart and strong as an ox, I get the feeling that at the age of 23 he has many years of endurance rowing record breaking ahead of him.

Sheer relief… and tired bodies

As wonderful as it was to complete this with Ollie, it came at a bit of a cost physically. Both knees swelled up quite badly and I think I’m beginning to ride my luck in terms of pressure on the body – for the last two years of the round the world row I’ve managed to stay clear of severe niggles on the joints but areas are now starting to play up. I’d dearly love to try and get more records but there comes a point where I have to think that the main challenge is to get to December without letting anyone down. To set my last two tandem records with a wonderful guy like Ollie will stay with me for the rest of my life. I’m prouder still in the knowledge that I am only the third person in the world to have rowed in the foyer of a Hilton hotel – first and second only to Ollie and his brother Ben!!

A huge thank you to Jo, Steve and Iain for donating online via justgiving – we’re now up to £13,163 which is tremendous. Fingers crossed we can have a brilliant push over the remaining months.

As always, I would have fallen to bits without the support of so many fantastic people - thank you  x

28612 km rowed… 11463 km remaining

Well it’s been a long drop from Alaska but at last we’ve hit the most southerly point of the virtual route – all north from here on in! It will take a bit of time to cross the Atlantic but once we land in Liberia on the west coast of Africa, we’re just 7,000km and 5 months row from Blighty – it will feel like I’ve never left Basingstoke… though I suppose I technically never have … stop laughing!!! x

This rowing post is dedicated to the brilliance of a young man called Stuart Dimond  – if you were lovely enough to catch up on the last blog, Stu organised a gig at The Red Lion Hotel to raise money for Breakthrough earlier in the month featuring some of the brightest up and coming musicians this fine town has to offer. The ability to collect money throughout this challenge has been utterly dependent on the kindness of wonderful people donating money and time and raising the profile of the charity – the Craig Killicks, Jacqui Sanwells and Simon Rayners of this world. I’m very proud to add Stu to this list- he’s symbolic of all that is brilliant and talented in the young chaps and chapesses in this town and while we’ve got young men like him coming up through the ranks I believe Basingstoke is in a very good place. An excellent town chock full of excellent people x

The guys raised a fantastic £256 from their first charity gig for Breakthrough in January (the single biggest donation of the row so far) – I was so hopeful that they could match it with their second. Stu confidently suggested that they could double it the week before – a sell out night the following Friday and a whopping £568 raised tells me that if I ask him for the moon on a stick for my birthday he’ll be able to do it. It means that the two gigs have raised an incredible £824 – they guys are hoping to organise another at some point during the year, Basingstock here we come!

I arrived at The Red Lion Hotel at 7.20pm (ten minutes before the start of the gig), plenty of time I thought to grab a quick drink. I met up with Fay (Stuart’s mum) at the bar, amazed at how many people were in the cafe area waiting to get in.

‘Nope, these are the people who can’t get in – the room’s at capacity already!’ she smiled.

I couldn’t believe it – mind you I suppose it shouldn’t really have surprised me. There were 8 bands playing during the night, each one disgustingly talented and with a very, very big following. Thankfully we were able to sneak in at the back just as Goodnight Siren were warming up and the whole evening was just brilliant. The strangest and loveliest feeling for me was to be able to give someone a hug standing up without hanging on to a rowing chain – I don’t think many of the guys had seen me standing up before, Toby said he always thought I’d be taller than I actually was… I cried a little inside.

I tried head banging at one point but felt quite lightheaded after a few seconds and nearly took out the stage left speaker – I retired to the back of the room to chat with a few of the guys before coming on stage with Stu’s band Eyes Wide Closed as they performed ‘Cancer’, a real heartbreaker that they wrote especially for the gig (I think it’s just become the anthem for the row). I spent most of the song with my arm round Stu which was great for me but rather awkward for him as he ended up playing the guitar one-handed. I felt like a rock star being up with the chaps on stage – even though I have no musical talent and also had second thoughts about throwing a telly through the window due to health and safety regulations. Realising I am completely not rock n’ roll I left it to the pros – and how fantastic they all were. A hugh thank you to Goodnight Siren, The 4:20, David Gunner, Eyes Wide Closed, Kobra, Bless The Hour, The Forgotten Martyr and Blood Of The Spectre – for all their brilliance and for a great night. I should also say how terrific The Red Lion Hotel were for allowing the evening to happen and for all their time and patience – apparently they’ve got a delicious menu in their restaurant…

So without further ado – it’s piccie time!!

A busy night at The Red Lion!

The lovely Caroline, lead singer of Goodnight Siren.

Our hero in action!

Damn he has great hair!

Liam of Eyes Wide Closed clearly being cheeky.

A proper stand up cuddle with Fay and Harry.

Thank you to Cameron for taking all the brilliant shots.

I’ll pop the link up to the Gazette article on the night in the next blog – have a wonderful Easter x

27896 km rowed… 12179 km remaining

Never in my life have I been more desperate for the arrival of spring! After ripping a gaping hole in my long johns last week I’ve just about had enough of violent head winds up my trouser legs… cursing the weather and clenching my fist at the sky just seems to make it worse, Basingstoke weather has just got it in for all of us! Although February is a shorter month, we’re still making very steady progress towards the South Atlantic and we’re just a few days away from getting our virtual toes virtually wet in a big virtual ocean… in a sort of virtual kind of way. The pennies are still coming and we’re now just over £12,000 raised for Breakthrough, that’s 32% of our target which is wonderful – I’ve always been of the thought that even we only raise another penny for the rest of the challenge then it’s a penny more towards the fight but I so hope we can raise an absolute bomb. The lovely people of Basingstoke have given again and again, not only with donations but also support in the form of cuddles, fig rolls, woolly scarves and a green fluffy penguin from a man called Bernard. It’s time to get some corporate cash to back up all that good will and I’m keeping everything crossed we can get it – we’ve got a great team in place to move us in the right direction.

Over the last few months it’s been an absolute joy (despite the buttock burning agony!) to row with James and my brother Jonathan on a few occassions and set a couple of world records along the way – the next one up is an attempt with my good friend Ollie Trinder to have a crack at the longest continual tandem world record on 8th May at the Reading Hilton. The record currently stands at 72 hours and 17 minutes and we’re going to try and raise the bar to 100 hours if we possibly can – heavens knows why, I just think Ollie’s mean – he’s a fitness instructor and the right side of 25 with biceps the size of Bournemouth so I hardly think it’s fair I have to row with him… well, he’s not really mean, he’s actually a really lovely guy but I still think he’s cruel… in a lovely way. The plan is to begin at 10am on the Saturday, rowing in 2 hour shifts (swapping to four hours at night) and finishing at 2pm on Wednesday 12th – Ollie is as strong as an ox so I hope I won’t let him down. I’ll pop up more details in the next blog.

Also coming up is the next gig at Basingstoke’s Red Lion Hotel, organised by Stu for Friday 5th March and starting at 7.30pm – if you fancy a fantastic night watching some very talented young chaps belt out their hits then it’s well worth popping down early as the last bash was a sell out and they’d hate for you to be disappointed. If moshing is your thing, you’ll have a riot… if you’re a coward like me and prefer clapping at the back, then please join me for a cuddle, buttock discussions and hilarious fig roll anecdotes. I’ll pop up all the photos from the night in the next entry x

Thank you again guys for all your support – I know I keep saying it but it really does mean the world to me. A huge thank you also to Jae, Kirstin and Auntie Heather for all donating through our justgiving page - we’re now just shy of £2,000 raised online which is brilliant.

 Happy almost Spring and may your days be ever long john free! (at least until October) x

Thank you again guys for a wonderful day and I hope I’ll be able to come back and visit you all again very soon x

26514 km rowed… 13561 km remaining

Now I know that a rather unfortunate by-product of the rowing has been a constant and disturbing monolgue on my part concerning my terribly battered buttocks but the weather has been so bitter of late that I’ve been plodding with rather numb cheeks for too long – five snow falls in six weeks and wind chilling temperatures of -5 degrees centigrade have forced me to wear not one but two pairs of long johns causing a slight waddle and a lot of very unpleasant itchiness!! This has been a long but really good month for the row – despite all the rotten weather we’ve managed to clock up just over 1500km since the turn of the year (the fourth best month in terms of distance since the row started back in May 2008) and a really lovely flurry of donations have come in. One of the most fantastic and humbling things for me during the challenge has been the support of all the brilliant young chaps and chappesses in town and earlier this month Stu (one of Fay’s boys… Fay of fig roll fame!) organised a charity gig at the Red Lion Hotel in Basingstoke. The night was a sell out with over 130 people and the guys raised an amazing £256 for Breakthrough – it was such a success that they’ve booked another date for Saturday 5th March and as they’re all brilliantly talented it would be well worth popping down to watch them in action… more exciting details to follow when the boys confirm the line up.

Here’s Stu below in full flow… (and yes ladies, he is available!)

And a very busy Red Lion!

With just over ten months of the row remaining it was important to get off to a flying start in a bid to raise the profile of the challenge on a corporate level too – I’m delighted that David Taylor and his company 2010media have joined the team. We met up with Craig and Jacqui from The Escape and Simon from Raycon to talk through the row and how we could raise more on a national scale for Breakthrough - Dave had lots of fantastic ideas so I’m more confident than ever that we can hit our £55,000 target. I also had the chance to row at The Ark for the ‘Fit for Business Event’ – it was a great opportunity to talk about the challenge and Breakthrough with some key decision makers in town, as well as our MP for Basingstoke and Deane, Maria Miller, and Destination Basingstoke CEO Felicity Edwards. I’ve got my fingers crossed that the support that Maria and Felicity have shown for the row again helps to spur companies into action to keep the pennies coming in. Clive and Karrin, who organised the event, donated £100 and we collected another £50 that morning alone which was wonderful.

A huge thank you to David, Linda, Seimon and Jack for all donating via the justgiving page. I’d especially like to mention Dave (who’s a lovely guy) - he donated £100 in memory of his mother Edna who very sadly passed lost her battle with cancer on Christmas Day. 500km of our Brazilian route was rowed in Edna’s honour x

We’ve just had a funky new official facebook page set up too in a bid to boost funding – please do join if you can x And thank you so much for all your wonderful messages of support on the original facebook page - it keeps me ticking over in more wonderful fashion than two pairs of chafing long johns x

Jason set up a facebook page for Kel to raise awareness of breast cancer and her tremendously brave battle against it – if anyone would like to write anything on her wall I know it would mean so much to her family.

God bless darling x

25111 km rowed… 14964 km remaining

Time for the old winter thermals to make an appearance! I always look forward to the thought of rowing in freezing temperatures to show rugged grit, manly defiance  and steely determination but as soon as it actually happens I find it utterly miserable – for the second time this year I’ve rowed in snow and if I can get away with not seeing it again during this challenge I will be absolutely delighted. Despite the numb bum, the build up to Christmas in the town centre is always exciting and the virtual plod has taken us into Brazil – this time last year we were in virtual Russia which made perfect sense with the weather… I think I’ve properly messed up the route this time round! As we hit the 18 month point in the challenge I popped into the BBC Radio Berkshire studio for the Sarah Walker show to talk about the row  - the interview starts at about 2 hours and 11 mins in and if you’d like to  have a listen please do so here. There’s also a really cool piece on the Breakthrough Breast Cancer website and I’m hoping it will help us raise some corporate sponsorship as we gear up for the last 12 months of the row- we’ve just hit the £11,000 mark which is absolutely fantastic.

Earlier in the month I met up with my good friend Andrew McCargow who works as a professional photographer… we met at night in the freezing rain in the middle of the War Memorial Park - he simply asked me to bring a rowing machine and some tight fitting tops. The result of our liason were a series of outrageous photographs involving multiple rowers – if only there were four of us… I could have had this wrapped up by last Easter! I have popped two of my favourites below.

Andrew is as cool as he is talented – if you’d like to know more about him and see his amazing work please check out his website.

A huge thank you to Sam, Andrew, Paula, Simon, Paul, Bhikhu, Rob, Gwen, Jon and Simon for donating online through the justgiving page and especially to Harvey and Carol for collecting all the left over change from an Indian meal that came to a rather wonderful £50!  I’d also like to thank my good friend Martin (who you might remember from the September blog as running as a gorilla in The Great Gorilla Run in boiling heat over the summer) for giving me a figgy pudding… it’s  like a fig roll but you can add ice cream to it and not look ridiculous!

This last year has been a great one for the row (we’ve covered 17,000km in the last 12 months and rasied over £11,000 to date) and the support has, as ever, been brilliant and utterly vital to me – without it I would have come a cropper a long, long time ago. Hopefully this coming year will bring even more pennies for Breakthrough – they deserve everything we can muster for them.

Thank you again and have a fantastic Christmas and New Year x

22887 km rowed… 17187 km remaining

Good heavens! Buttocks of burning agony!! On Saturday 7th James Burrows and I began rowing in the attempt to set two individual endurance world records. If Jim could row for a minimum of 25 hours, he would set a new record for the heavyweight 30-39 age category – I had to row for 26 hours to break the current lightweight 20-29 record or 28 hours to set the overall lightweight record.  Jim and I started out at 9am on the Saturday and with all the football and rugby on throughout the day the time really flew. At about 7pm though the old left buttock really started playing up and I popped on the ‘crevice cushion deluxe’, superbly designed by Johnny Stock – I nearly cried with relief! Eating was a bit of a tricky one (we burned just over 27,000 calories between us) and the noodles we couldn’t eat during our ten minute break at the end of the shift tended to be a bit gloopy the following hour! I usually don’t have any problem eating anything at any time but from 3.30am onwards the thought of anything just made by stomach churn – by 7am (with 22 hours gone and 8 left to go) I was beginning to feel really rough – Jim kept wolfing down his jaffa cakes and I just had to keep picking at malt loaf to keep me ticking. 11am was a bit of a low point – Jim set his new record at 10am and by 11am his back just gave in, we’d been rowing alongside each other for all that time and losing him was just awful. Thankfully by midday by brother was perched on Jim’s rower talking me through the last three hours and the rest of the family were with me for the last shift which was brilliant. I wolfed down a roast at home and passed out at about 6pm last night with fig roll nightmares replaced by ones involving malt loaf and a big tube of arnicare! It was a really tough slog but Jim set a new 30-39 HWT record of 26 hours – I stayed on for a bit longer and set a new overall lightweight time of 30 hours – I was just very lucky to have the family with me for the last three hours to pull me through it.

Jim and I recorded some footage of the row ( I apologise for all it’s cheesiness!) and if you’d like to have a watch, it can be seen in 3 parts – Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. 

A huge thank you to Patricia and Russell for donating online through the justgiving page - and please keep the comments coming on the rowing facebook page, I love reading them and they really do keep me going x