Malvern rower crosses the Atlantic with help from late dad

A woman who has completed a solo Atlantic row says speaking to her late father throughout "really helped".

Lara Vafiadis, of Malvern, Worcs, spent 98 days on the ocean after leaving La Gomera on 12 December.

Arriving in Antigua at 11:00 GMT, she dedicated the 3,000-mile (4,828km) challenge to her father Nick, who died from prostate cancer last September.

"I just started speaking to my dad when I had moments where I doubted myself," she said.

"The one time that I really felt like he got me there was when I had to jump in the middle of the Atlantic ocean to clean the bottom of the boat.

"I remember sitting on the side of my boat and just looking up and just asking for him to keep me safe," she added.

The sales manager, who now lives in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, battled extreme seasickness, colossal waves and repeated power losses during Atlantic Campaign's Talisker Whisky challenge.

One one occasion she strapped herself to the deck of boat Nick the Greek in the dark to repair a bilge-pump after a flying fish became wedged in it.

On another, she was trapped in her cabin for days by a storm, tossed about like she was in a washing machine.

The achievement has helped her "conquer self-doubt", Ms Vafiadis said. "[It] shows the same determination and resilience that my dad had through all of his life, and I've got that, and I need to really embrace it because I can do anything," she added.

She has raised about £52,000 for charities Prostate Cancer UK, Plan International UK and RA World and Our Only World.

"If it helps one family not go through what we've gone through, or one brother, son, father, uncle [is] able to catch it early enough and use the amazing resources that Prostate Cancer UK have, [that] means the world to me, it really does," she said.

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