A 42 year old man, originally born in Merstham, and who is so passionate about raising money for a local animal charity, will be spending Christmas away from his family!

Alone at sea for 90 days, Daryl Farmer, now living in Forest Row, East Sussex, will be raising money for “East Sussex Wildlife Rescue & Ambulance Service” (WRAS), rowing over 3,000 miles solo from La Gomera to Antigua starting on Wednesday, 14th December 2016. He will be one of 12 boats undertaking the “Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge”, and he will be one of only four soloists!

With no engine and no sails, Daryl will have to row every inch of the journey in his Pure Class traditional style ocean rowing boat, expecting to undertake approximately 1.5 million oar strokes to complete the journey.
The journey will test his durability, seeing him row for up to 18 hours a day!

“More people have been into space and successfully climbed Everest than rowed across the Atlantic” said Daryl Farmer, “I’ll be encountering waves up to 50ft high and need to carry everything I need in my boat with me for the entire journey, like all my food which includes almost 10kg of nuts alone, 1-2 chocolate bars a day, mini cheddars, liquorice, sesame bars and paste and many other meal packs of dehydrated food. I will need to eat 5,000 calories a day whilst rowing”.

Daryl’s boat “Bojangles” has a built in desalinator to produce drinking water and the communication and navigational equipment is powered by solar panels which produce 260watts of electricity.

Trevor Weeks MBE, founder of East Sussex WRAS, said “I take my hat off to Daryl, I think this is the riskiest, furthest and most challenging and demanding fundraising anyone has ever done to help support our charity. This makes me feel so humble and privileged to have been chosen when there are so many other causes out there. The wildlife of Sussex will certainly be grateful for his mammoth challenge which we hope will see WRAS able to replace one of its ageing ambulances”.

Before setting off, Daryl said “This challenge is the world’s most toughest rows, and I’m just one of four boats doing it solo. I’ve volunteered with WRAS for a couple of years now, and I am blown away by how such a small organisation has such a big impact on protecting nature and returning at risk wildlife back to the wild. The staff and volunteers work so hard and tirelessly, and I think this will be mirrored by my row.”

Anyone wanting to sponsor Daryl can do so via his just giving page https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/atlanticsolo2016
or
https://www.gofundme.com/rowers-ark

Anyone wanting to follow Daryl and race progress can do so at https://www.taliskerwhiskyatlanticchallenge.com/race-tracker/