Ran and I came to know each other bit by bit through months of training and now rowing across the North Atlantic Ocean. Two individuals (mixed duo) with very different lives have now lived on this confined small rowing craft (25 feet long, 6 feet wide at beam, and less than a foot above water line), taking on this 50 day or so journey, all by ourselves, is a daunting experience.
Having different ideas and opinions on how to take advantage of favorable conditions and whether to fight through and continue rowing when conditions seem safe yet unmanageable.
So, a BIG fight came when we differ on we should row as fast as possible, meaning we should adopt to a different shift pattern or rowing in duo. No one won when comm heat up! “A happy boat is a fast boat!” seems easy to say than does. The night cooled us down, and the darkness hid our anger emotions. What did we fight for? One and only one foot stretcher!!! We lost the other one in an earlier storm. So, rowing duo is much harder to do (slide my seat back and forth like a yoyo) while Ran would not want to change to 1 hr on and 1 hr off…
When the wind finally switched from with us to against us, we auto managed to sync our energies to fight this bigger monster.
Being a captain or skipper is only as good as on paperwork. Directing positive energy to make a happy boat and to go after the monster wind is what both of us had consensus. And, the rhythm of “Bound for England”, helped us tremendously!
YouTube link to song « Bound for England »
https://youtu.be/ldf7fFvv0aw?is=YTU0pAFPvViA_rXO
Spotify link to 《Bound for England》 English.
https://open.spotify.com/track/2HLqFoZ5oLVWrCdqzr6670?si=h80i3T5DSoi3FlKmS0Q4eg&utm_source=copy-link