20/01/2024
What these four legends have just done is *almost* unfathomable.
3000 miles, 20ft waves, 38 days, 1 ocean.
Their faces say it all.
Let the celebrations begin 🎉🎉🎉🎉
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Team Marduk just rowed the Atlantic Ocean to raise £50,000 for two incredible charities: and . They’ve nearly reached their target - please donate via the link in our bio! Thank you SO MUCH for all your support ❤️
Photo credits: .toughest.row
19/01/2024
With 40 NM left to go, the lads just had their closest encounter with another vessel (approx 500 metres away) 🙋
After a radio call with the captain they found out they’re heading to the Mediterranean Sea! A large amount of the ship’s crew then appeared on their bridge and waved to our team, so they gave some good waves back 👋🏻 Whilst this might not seem like much, it’s the closest encounter to another human Team Marduk has had in 38 days!
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Remember, the team are rowing the Atlantic to raise £50,000 for and - please support them via the link in our bio 🙏 Thank you so much for everyone’s support!
17/01/2024
After 5 weeks of rowing the Atlantic…
🥉 3rd in the Fours
4️⃣ 4th in All Boats
🚣 2462 NM rowed
🌍 201 NM to go (!!!)
This is it. The week Team Marduk will land in Antigua after rowing AN ENTIRE OCEAN🚀
As they push the final few days to the finish line, please consider donating to help them along to their £50k fundraising mark for two amazing charities - link in bio. Any amount, big or small, means the world ❤️
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Remember, the team are rowing the Atlantic to raise £50,000 for and - please support them via the link in our bio 🙏 Thank you so much for everyone’s support!
17/01/2024
Today the boys celebrated reaching the ‘200 NM remaining’ mark🤩👏 The prize? 2 cans of lukewarm Fanta… yeeeeah they know how to have a good time 🕺
They also celebrated making land in Antigua😍 Adam asked us to pass on this message:
🗣️”We are absolutely buzzing for our boat park neighbours, HMS Oardacious, who came first and landed today. They’re an awesome bunch of guys and had a lot of challenges with their boat pre-race. However none of that seemed to phase them as they begun the challenge and dominated pretty much from day 1, demonstrating that the silent service rules on top of the waves, as well as under them.
Marduk hopes they had a fantastic reunion with their loved ones and a well deserved drink. We look forward to toasting them properly when we get in!!”
In other news, as you can see from the happy pic, conditions have improved massively for our boys and they’re clocking up great speeds in the final push🚀
Applying their top GCSE maths skills, they are hoping they may arrive on Fri night or Saturday morning 🤞
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Remember, the team are rowing the Atlantic to raise £50,000 for and - please support them via the link in our bio 🙏 Thank you so much for everyone’s support!
16/01/2024
The Atlantic does NOT look like this right now for our brave sea farers…
It appears the boys have annoyed Poseidon with their conversations about dry land and all the things they want to do on it. Over the past 24 hours they have been pulled in all directions with regular ejections off seats!!!
They are currently experiencing 20-25 kn of wind, complimented by many rolling waves in all directions and some of the biggest swells they’ve seen so far which is crazy 🤯As Jack would put it: “It feels like we are riding a mechanical bull at a water park“ 🫨
This has brought back many painful memories of the similar sea conditions which contributed to their bum sores and bruised joints just a few weeks ago – however, the team are all over their wet and dry drills and are focusing on maintaining these aches and pains for the next few days💆♂️
They have 282 miles on the clock and expect to break into the sub 200 miles bracket by tomorrow evening, which is UNBELIEVABLE!🚀🚀🚀
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Remember, the team are rowing the Atlantic to raise £50,000 for and - please support them via the link in our bio 🙏 Thank you so much for everyone’s support!
15/01/2024
How do you 💩 on a rowing boat in 20ft waves?
Introducing the REAL MVP on board Amphitrite during Team Marduk’s Atlantic crossing… the blue loo bucket 😍
This is one of their most asked questions about life on the boat… No, they do not have a support vessel with a toilet and beds on… and no, they don’t have some kind of compact portaloo situation. They simply have this trusty bucket 🪣
Leaning over the side to relieve yourself is a bit dicey, especially in rough seas. Some teams go for a camping toilet but they are cumbersome and have to live on deck. So the lads decided to go for a biodegradable bag in the bucket method.
Over the last 4 weeks or so, 2 main techniques have come to the fore:
1️⃣ For our front cabin dwellers (AJ and Jack) - ‘the drape’ - this is where the arms are draped over the cabin roof to give some support while squatting. Comfort: 9/10. Accuracy: 10/10. Speed 6/10.
2️⃣ For our rear cabin dwellers (Ads and George) - the ‘drop and pop’ - carried out at the back of the boat, the participant holds the side safety ropes while squatting more precariously… Comfort: 6/10. Accuracy: 10/10. Speed 10/10.
Then it’s just a case of biodegradable baby wipes straight over the side - and job is jobbed.
Please drop your messages of support for the blue loo bucket below or donate (link in bio) to make the bucket’s plight worthwhile 🙏
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Remember, the team are rowing the Atlantic to raise £50,000 for and - please support them via the link in our bio 🙏 Thank you so much for everyone’s support!
14/01/2024
Snap from last week’s anti-cyclone🌀 Admin in these conditions was really difficult, particularly boiling water for brews and food!
Due to the absolute slog, the lads also burned through their entire store of 3-in-1 coffees in around a week 😅 They were a non-negotiable when getting on the oars at 02:00 to get beaten up by the Atlantic.
George’s face here says it all for the crew at the time: “hanging out, but hanging on”!
As Team Marduk enjoyed another beautiful, clear sunset this evening just
14/01/2024
With less than 500 NM remaining(!), Adam fills us in on:
🤩 Record speeds
🐟 A new crew member
💔 Lost fingernail (NOT pictured, you’re welcome 😉)
🗣️ “Hi everyone! Slight setback for us as the last join connecting our damaged outrigger sheared off, taking the front rowing position out of commission. This means we are unable to row 3 up and compete as effectively😢
We’ve recently been thrown some heavy waves and large seaweed fields that slowed the boat down. George earned his MVP badge by getting into the choppy seas to unhook a Tina Turner blow dry sized amount of seaweed off our rudder. He also located and destroyed some barnacles that had taken up residence without paying rent 👊
Subsequently, the sea state changed and with our newly clean hull we started to put some speed down. Over Friday night we were the fastest crew in the fleet! 🏎️😎
We also wanted you to meet the tiny fish volunteer that tried to join the crew yesterday morning🐟 He was pretty keen to get onboard but seemed to die shortly after we told him he needs to do 12 hours on the oars a day 🫤
Other than that, we’ve realised that most of the good food have gone and the horse trading for certain rations has begun. The bar tab for Antigua is already in the red for some of us🫣
Also, my little fingernail fell off. We continue to try and reduce weight wherever possible 🫡
We’re hoping that the prevailing conditions continue and that bums can hold out for one more week before some sweet, sweet relief!❤️🤙🏻”
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Remember, the team are rowing the Atlantic to raise £50,000 for and - please support them via the link in our bio 🙏 Thank you so much for everyone’s support!
10/01/2024
While the dehydrated ration packs should contain the majority of the vitamins the team need for their crossing, the boys are taking a few supplements to ensure they’re getting the right nutrients to support the physical demands on their bodies 💪
One is supplements (the brown ones➡️), which the team have been taking prior to and during the race to keep their stamina up, improve their endurance and maximise their performance.
The team’s daily dose of supplements looks like:
💊 4 x supplements (the brown ones)
💊 5 x BCA tablets
💊 1 x multivitamin (the little orange one)
💊 2 x electrolyte tablets (the big pink ones)
Huge thank you to for providing the team with 3 months worth of their daily supplements - they need all the strength and energy they can get 🙏🚀
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Remember, the team are rowing the Atlantic to raise £50,000 for and - please support them via the link in our bio 🙏 Thank you so much for everyone’s support!
09/01/2024
WHALE TALES from Alex on day 28 😲🐳👇
🗣️ “Day 28 and 4 weeks at sea! I call this one THE BOY WHO CRIED FISH…
Over the past few days George has claimed to have seen dolphins and whales on various occasions and the rest of the crew have laughed him off as delirious from lack of sleep 😵💫
Well yesterday, George shouted again… We all poo pooed him but looked anyway as we had nothing else to look at, and we did indeed see some type of whale!!🐳
It surfaced closer than 15m from the boat, and it was pretty big! It had quite a small dorsal fin. We think it was on its own so we assume it was a whale, not a fat lonely dolphin🤔 George’s new nickname is the Seahorse whisperer.
Whale tales aside, it’s really hot again and we are enjoying seeing the miles to finish tick down at a faster rate than they were 🎉”
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Remember, the team are rowing the Atlantic to raise £50,000 for and - please support them via the link in our bio 🙏 Thank you so much for everyone’s support!
09/01/2024
As Team Marduk push onwards, deep below them is a submarine structure so large that it dwarfs everything else on planet Earth - the Mid Atlantic Ridge ⛰️
It’s the longest mountain range on the planet, stretching some 10,000 miles 🤯 The peaks stand around 2 miles tall (!) and sometimes reach above sea level as islands - like Iceland and the Azores 🗾
The boys will be unaware of it as they pass over... Spare a thought for them pulling the oars in blissful ignorance, focusing only on pushing to the other side of this mammoth ocean 🌊
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Remember, the team are rowing the Atlantic to raise £50,000 for and - please support them via the link in our bio 🙏 Thank you so much for everyone’s support!
08/01/2024
Quick show of hands from AJ and Adam on day 27👋 DO NOT SWIPE IF YOU’RE EATING 🥲
Hand destruction aside, the boys were disappointed to learn they were overtaken this morning in the 8am update😱 They’ve been watching slowly catch them and have been struggling to match their speeds, despite grafting on the oars with a 3 up routine for most of the day.
They gave the boat hull another clean so speeds have picked up a little 🙏
In lighter news, the team have been pleased with their inventions on the ocean: the arseless boxer shorts, various seats, new hull scrapers fashioned out of old bottles, and various other bits and pieces have all done well. The most recent addition to the Marduk SS24 fashion line is too graphic for Instagram but involves a sling fashioned out of premium sandwich bag plastic and muscle tape 😳🍒 👀
watch your back.
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Remember, the team are rowing to raise £50,000 for and - please support them via the link in our bio 🙏 Thank you so much for everyone’s support!