By Jonathan Brocklebank My epic journey across the Atlantic in just 59 days
(...and how a giant shark nearly stopped me!) Remarkable story of Scots mother who bravely rowed into the record books
AFEW nights ago, Elaine Hopley sensed for the first time that her solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean was doomed. She had woken up in complete darkness, which could only mean that all the instruments in her rowing boat had failed. Had a thunder storm knocked out the electrics? Was this the crisis that would turn all those exhausting days at sea, battling 60ft swells, nursing innumerable aches, into an agonising waste of time and money?
No. It was the world’s fastest ocean-crossing oarswoman adjusting to being back on dry land. Even when her partner Ali woke up and reminded her where she was and that the race was over, Miss Hopley took some convincing: ‘I was being told where I was, it was clear where I was, but I couldn’t actually get it into my head that I wasn’t still on the boat.’
By any reasonable expectation she would still have been aboard Jan, the 21ft rowing boat she had named after her late mother. It was only 61 days since she had left La Gomera in the Canary Islands, and the record for a solo woman rowing the 3,000 miles from there to Antigua in the West Indies was 70 days.
But that was before Miss Hopley smashed it by a week and a half, triumphantly rowing into port after 59 days, 19 hours and 14 minutes at sea. For a woman of 45 who at one time in her 30s was unable to walk more than a few feet to due to a debilitating disease of the colon, it was a magnificent personal achievement.
Yet as Miss Hopley, from Dunblane, Perthshire, enjoys a few days’ rest with her partner and their two sons in Antigua, it is clear she never seriously entertained the prospect of failure – not in her waking hours, anyway.
In the teeth of ferocious winds, almost daily rain and mountainous seas, the mind of the singlehanded voyager remained resolutely positive. As oars clattered off her shins, as her bottom ached and a jellyfish caught in her clothing delivered repeated stings, her focus on the job in hand never wavered.
Even a shark, easily bigger than her boat, which she saw leaping out of the water a few hundred feet away did not cause her to wonder how this adventure might end.
‘It was huge,’ she recalls. ‘I was going through a squall at the time and I was glad it didn’t come any closer to me. Adrenaline was definitely flowing through my body, but that’s part of the whole adventure.’
She adds: ‘I trust myself. I know what I’m like and I know what I can deal with. I’m pleased with myself because I dealt with a lot of harsh conditions out there and I got on with it and just thought: “Do you know what? There’s no point in crying and getting yourself into a complete tizzy, because it will actually make your situation worse.”
‘Not that I ever wanted to cry, because I actually thrived on the fullon Atlantic conditions. I wanted that – I wanted the real experience of an Atlantic crossing.’
She certainly got it. Setting off on December 14, her first few days were spent battling winds from what seemed like every point on the compass. Hours of rowing could be spent doing little better than standing still.
Then there was the solitude, so absolute on the vast ocean as to be quite intolerable for most mortals. Only twice on her 59-day voyage did Miss Hopley see other people – the crew of the support vessel patrolling the waters on behalf of all craft involved in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. She admits: ‘I felt a bit bluey after my two visits from the support vessel as I watched them sail away, as they were lovely to chat to and the support they had given me over the radio was priceless.’
Then came the crises she had to deal with – such as the day a bolt snapped on her water maker, putting it out of action – and enormous psychological challenges, coping with sleep deprivation, inaccurate weather forecasts and occasionally emotional calls home.
While she was at sea, her partner Ali celebrated her 47th birthday, their son Harvey turned nine and his brother Guy turned seven.
Although Miss Hopley managed to speak to all three by satellite phone, she says Guy could become quite upset about hearing from his mother from somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic: ‘He found it quite hard, so I only tended to speak to him when he wanted to speak to me.’
yET there were no second thoughts about the voyage: ‘I always knew it was going to be hard mentally, physically, emotionally. And obviously it was bad timing with all their birthdays. But it was a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity and my family have been completely supportive.’
And so, for 59 straight days, it was ‘always onwards’, even as massive ocean swells tossed her craft around like a cork.
‘I never had any negative thoughts, because that’s when things start to go wrong,’ she confides. ‘You know that from past experience – you just have to keep the drive going and remember the reasons why you’re out there.’
The reason why a business owner from Dunblane found herself in a rowing boat in the mid-Atlantic dates back 20 years to the time it became clear that her mother was suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s.
Miss Hopley had already lost her father John through lung cancer, and her mother’s illness took hold when she was only in her mid-50s: ‘It’s a nightmare for people who get the disease and a living nightmare watching someone losing their mind.’
For five years Miss Hopley became her mother’s full-time carer, giving up her job as a ski instructor to do so. Towards the end, she was often in touch with Alzheimer Scotland, using their helpline to draw strength for the inevitable conclusion to her mother’s story.
One blessing is that her mother always recognised her, if only by the sound of her voice, because by then she had lost her sight.
‘She never lost that recognition,’ says Miss Hopley now. ‘If she had, I think it would have tipped me over the edge.’
She was there at the end, holding her mother’s hand as she took her last breath and kissing her goodbye. Then, after her mother’s death at 72, she
resolved to raise money for the charity which had been her lifeline through the toughest days of the 16-year illness.
It was from her father John that she had inherited her love of the outdoors. He was an expert skier and yachtsman – skills his daughter and her siblings embraced. But it was as a mountain biker that Miss Hopley first made her name.
She won the women’s cross country series several times in the 1990s and, since then, has completed solo bicycle tours of Australia, New Zealand and Chile – as well as cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats in seven days.
But crossing the Atlantic in a rowing boat was by far her biggest and most dangerous challenge.
The vessel cost £50,000, paid for through her home improvement business DIY Gal. Just getting to the starting line in La Gomera required all the money she had, plus a bank loan.
Now, interspersed with her elation at becoming a record breaker, there are more sober considerations. How will she raise the £4,000 needed to return the boat to the UK? Will she have to sell it? It will be a wrench, but almost certainly yes. And yet, for all the headaches that lie ahead, it is clear Miss Hopley would not trade her experience for the world: ‘I can’t even explain in words some of the conditions that I faced and yet I absolutely loved it. You just have to run with the conditions and run with nature. I got my boat up to ten knots at one stage, which is really fast for a boat.’
HER voyage was one of two halves. Much of the first half was spent clinging on, using all her seafaring skills to avoid capsizing in the swollen seas and unfavourable winds.
She settled into a pattern of two hours rowing, two hours resting and four hours sleeping between midnight and 4am. But the regime was seldom adhered to in the second half of the voyage – the conditions were just too good and the winds too helpful not to take full advantage.
‘During the day I was rowing pretty much for 20 hours most days. You want speed and to get a good crossing. You’re out there to row and the conditions were fabulous. I used to canoe surf, so I knew how to surf a boat, which was a big part of the fun.’
There were daily visits from seabirds, along with whales and dolphins: ‘The wildlife was phenomenal. I saw loads of whales and, when I get home, I am going to do the research and figure out exactly what I saw.’
The encounter she would rather forget is with the jellyfish which got caught in her rash vest: ‘The heat out there can be incredible so on a regular basis I would take my rash vest off and dip it in the water and then put it on wet. Well, this time a jelly fish got caught in it and obviously when I put it on and got stung. I took it off and immediately treated myself.’
For several anxious hours she wondered how her body would react. Would she be forced to call the race doctor for help, or lose precious hours through illness?
Not at all. She ploughed onwards and, within four or five hours, felt no ill-effects at all.
Much more costly in terms of hours lost was the broken bolt on her water maker. For two days she tried to fix it before resigning herself to the fact she was on rationed water for the last two weeks: ‘I just got on with it. That’s what you have to do when you’re out there.
IT is a supported race but the support vessels could be days away from you. If you phone somebody, nobody is going to come in a couple of hours and help you with your problem.’
That, Miss Hopley explains, is the whole point of attempting an ‘unassisted’ transatlantic crossing.
‘If something breaks on your boat you have to fix it yourself. If someone comes onto your boat and helps you, then you’re seen as being assisted. So you don’t want to be helped or rescued.’
In splendid isolation on the ocean wave, she would think of her parents every day and take comfort from the knowledge that their pride in her efforts would know no bounds.
‘I know they would have been absolutely behind me the whole way,’ she says. ‘I thought of them all the time when I was out there.’
But only when she was two or three days from hitting Antigua did she allow herself to dwell on the fact that she was about to become the fastest woman to row the Atlantic: ‘I was just so focused on what I was doing that I didn’t have it in my head until I got closer to the island and thought: “Do you know what? I can get an Open Class world record.”
‘But every journey has to end and, when you get close to port, you’re psychologically ready for getting back to real life, I guess.’
Real life has been hugging her partner and young children for the first time in two months. It has meant pressing muscles, unused since mid-December, back into action: ‘I haven’t walked for 59 days.’
And it means losing those ‘sea legs’, the ones which make her think she is still aboard Jan when she is really asleep on terra firma – her voyage over, her goal emphatically achieved.
To donate to Alzheimer’s Scotland or to help return the boat to the UK, visit www.eh-oceanrow.com