Ex-SAS man ready to embark on solo row across Atlantic

A FORMER SAS soldier is fulfilling a decades-long dream by rowing solo across the Atlantic.

Ian Rivers, 55, will set off from New York on Monday, weather permitting, and will spend around three months on his own rowing the roughly 3,500 miles back to St Mary’s in the Isles of Scilly.

“Doing the row solo is the ultimate challenge really because it’s just me with my boat against the elements, the conditions,” he said.

“I’m hugely, hugely looking forward to actually getting under way.”

The seed for the idea was sown in the 1980s when, early on in his 27-year military career, Mr Rivers was staying in Plymouth’s Royal Citadel, which looks out on the water.

“I’d quite often look out there and read about the exploits of rowers crossing the oceans,” he said.

“And I always thought that one day I’d end up in North America – I wasn’t too sure where at the time – and I’d row back home to the Isles of Scilly.”

Around 18 months ago, Mr Rivers – who left the military in 2011 after 21 years in the SAS – started planning the trip for real.

To make things even harder, Mr Rivers, from Hereford, is attempting the journey without the use of GPS to navigate.

He believes he will be the first person to row the full northern Atlantic full route from New York to the Scillies using celestial navigation.

“The way navigation is done now, you jump in your car, you whack a postcode in there, you arrive at your destination, and you’ve missed the journey,” he said. “So for me, because it’s the adventure, I wanted to go back to how seafarers first crossed oceans and actually knew where they were.”