Five-man team take on Pacific rowing challenge

A businessman, entrepreneur and author says he is ready to take on his next challenge - to row the Pacific in a record time.

Kevin Gaskell, 66, from Newbury in Berkshire, has set his sights on breaking a world record by taking on the crossing from California to Hawaii.

His five-man team, called the Ocean5, includes his son Matt Gaskell, 34, Tom Higham, 37, Patrick Deacon, 40, and Stephen Greenan, 40, who are raising money for the Lewis Moody Foundation.

Mr Gaskell said: "I'm feeling excited, but I'm also nervous as it's a massive journey to take on."

The record for the crossing is 52 days, but the team are hoping to do it in 45 days and aim to raise more than £50,000 for the charity.

Mr Gaskell has walked to both the North and South Poles, climbed some of the world's highest mountains and smashed a world record for the fastest five-member team to cross the Atlantic.

Now he's preparing to cross the 2,800 nautical mile route over the Pacific Ocean from Monterey, California, to Hanalei Kauai in Hawaii in record time.

He told BBC Radio Berkshire's Kirsten O'Brien he had been climbing since he was 12 years old.

He said: "I did the poles because my little sister died of cancer and I wanted to raise some money for the hospital that treated her.

"So I thought I'd walk the North pole and if you've been to the north, you might as well go to the south."

The South Pole was the first expedition that his son joined him on.

He said his son was too young to join him in the North Pole expedition and was "a bit grumpy" he missed out so he said "I went back to the North Pole with him".

"I'd climbed all the mountains and I'd done the poles, I started to question what do you do next," he said.

He said: "A friend of mine suggested I should row the ocean.

"My response was 'I don't know anything about rowing, I don't know anything about seamanship' but my friend said I'd love it.

"So, I went away and thought about it, I came back and said 'why not'."

He's been training for the trip for several years and said "we never really stopped training because we do an adventure every couple of years".

The boat the team will use is 9 metres (27 feet) long, with two tiny cabins each end which are the size of a car boot and a bucket for the toilet.

Mr Gaskell said: "It will be very cosy."

He said: "There is no support vessel, it's just us, there is no where to go and nobody is going to come rescue us.

"Once you are 100 miles offshore, the helicopter can't get to you, so you are on your own.

"It's completely self-sufficient, we have solar panels on top of the tiny cabins, they power batteries and they drive a desalination plant.

"We turn seawater into drinking water, that drinking water goes into our freeze dried food – which we have 500kg on the boat."

The team will have to contend with strong currents, huge waves, bad weather and the effects of exhaustion.

He said: "We will be rowing 24 hours a day for up to 52 days and we find a two-hour shift is the optimum.

"Once you get into a third hour your productivity and efficiency goes down as you get very tired."

The team will depart the UK at the end of May to begin their preparations in North America, with their Pacific rowing challenge officially beginning on 8 June.

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