UPDATE
A long overdue update from Atlantic Dutchesses. Apologies for the silence on our website. There have been some incredible developments in the past few months and we are moving forward with an increasing speed. It is hard to keep up, even for us.
First of all, the most noticeable; there has been a change in the team composition. Sadly, Melanie has left the team on good terms and in mutual agreement earlier in the year. The other Dutchesses decided to reach out to a woman that had messaged them earlier this year: me! On a Wednesday afternoon, while I was just minding my business, I got a message that would put my world upside down: “Hi, are you still interested in rowing an ocean? Meet us in Scheveningen in 2 days”. I did and, after 24 hours of consideration, I said yes. Obviously.
Another huge thing that kept us occupied is the boat. De Waard BV from Friesland has decided to sponsor our R45 ocean rowing boat and we are eternally grateful for that! The building of the boat started in October and she will be ready on January 10th 2020. We are extremely excited and cannot wait to pick her up in England at Rannoch Adventures.
We have also started to get our bodies in shape to physically be able to handle this extreme adventure. The physiotherapists from FysioFabriek in Utrecht are kindly giving us advice about training and making sure we arrive at the start in La Gomera top fit and without injuries. To back our training up, RP3 Rowing supplied us with their incredibly advanced rowing machines so that we are able to train indoors at home. There is no space for excuses to skip on training. Nutrition is another very important focus in our preparation and Janneke from Sportkeuken is hooking us up with the right people to make sure we can train and row with the right amounts of nutrients.
Additionally, we are in the middle of preparing for a couple exhibitions we have planned in early 2020. There is so much to learn and we are developing new skills along the way and we are so thankful for all the help we are receiving from everybody.
One thing we have come to realize is that there is no way we are able to pull this off with just the four of us and that is why we have been expanding our team in the past months. People with expertise in managing, boats, technical stuff, nutrition and social media have all stepped forward to lend us a hand so that we can focus on getting us ready for the most important thing in our lives: Rowing the Atlantic in December 2020.
Marieke