Delft Rowing Team finishes second in ocean race over thousands of miles

In doing so, the team covered The World’s Toughest Row in 36 days, 11 hours and 5 minutes. That’s well within the 40 days they set themselves as a goal. Only the British HMS Oardacious team was faster. They arrived a day earlier. But because they had one man more, team Out of the Blue is the fastest ‘four’.

Team Out of the Blue consists of Amir Anwar-Hameed (Ireland, 26), Mark Bolger (Ireland, 26), Marko Rehbein (Germany, 26) and Paul Heijnen (Netherlands, 21). They know each other from their studies at the TU Delft Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. Heijnen was the only one with any rowing experience at the start of the adventure. He started rowing with Proteus in 2021.

Sea sickness and knock downs

Ocean rowing is never smooth sailing. This time was no exception. At the start on 13 December, there was a strong trade wind (easterly, force 6-7) around the Canary Island of La Gomera, which gave the rowers a strong push but also created hefty waves.

Many crews suffered seasickness and several boats capsized (‘knocked down’). Some broke an oar in the process.

Two weeks later, the wind had turned and many crews threw out the parachute shaped sea anchor to avoid being blown back. Around the beginning of January, the wind became favourable again (from the east), but the temperature rose uncomfortably high. At 30 degrees, rowing is tough.

A week later, the field was spread far apart. The vanguard, including team Out of the Blue, had favourable winds and made great strides, over 150 kilometres a day. The rearguard spent more days trailing the sea anchor.

Team Out of the Blue rowed into the harbour of Antigua with fireworks on the evening of 18 January. They raised over EUR 32,000 for their chosen charities, Mind Us and Jigsaw, both in the field of youth mental health.