On 20th December 2015, four mums set out to row across the Atlantic ocean. For Helen Butters, Janette Benaddi, Niki Doeg, and Frances Davies, the journey was the culmination of 18 months preparation which began with some unusual inspiration: “When I was about 41 or 42, I had this urge to do something that challenged me both mentally and physically,” Helen told us. “The reason why I had that in my head was because I had seen Melanie Sykes on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, and she had really inspired me. So, when the opportunity came for me to learn to row on a Saturday morning I instantly said yes, because that seed had already been planted in my head. I learnt to row with Nicky, Francis, and Jeanette, and it became like our therapy every week.”
It was only a matter of time before the group would start looking for a new challenge to take on: “Two years later, Francis said: ‘I’ve seen this race call the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, where you row across the Atlantic ocean, shall we do it?’ and we all instantly said yes. Then we had to convince our families that it was a good idea, and then once we’d done that, we planned how we were going to do it.”
Of course, a journey like that isn’t something that can be done on a whim, and the group had a lot of prep to do before they could get out on the open ocean: “It was a big project,” Helen explained. “We had to get a boat designed and learn how to use and repair it. As a team, we all worked well together. We are all very different and we all brought different skill sets.
“Before we could go, we had to do a survival at sea course, which was really interesting but very difficult. We also had to do our RYA Yachtmaster Ocean qualification. For that you have to learn to navigate by starts, so Niki and I went down to Devon to learn that. We also rowed across the North Sea as a way to prepare.”
Even with the intense preparation the team did, the 67 day journey across the Atlantic was never going to come without challenges: “We couldn’t prepare for the 40 foot waves or hurricane Alex, which we were caught in the middle of. We talked about the Atlantic being the 5th member of our crew because it was a killer every day. We rowed two hours on, two hours off constantly, so we only ever got two hours of sleep at a time. It was hard to motivate yourself to get back on your seat at night-time because it was scary. It was pitch-black and you could capsize at any moment.
“What helped with that,” Helen explained, “were the values that we had on the boat. That we had to look after each other before ourselves. I would think ‘I have to get back on my seat because Niki needs to rest’.”
Such a strenuous and challenging journey left a profound impact on Helen, even after the team reached Antigua in triumph: “One of the big takeaways for me was that to enrich your life, you need to take things away from it, not add them”
The journey had such a profound effect on the team that they decided to come together and write a book, entitled Four Mums in a Boat, to share their experience with other people: “The book came out of failure. We were in the middle of the Atlantic and hurricane Alex was coming and we were scared. We tried to row away from it, but we couldn’t. After that, we were saying ‘actually we’re glad that hurricane Alex is on its way, because if we write a book, it will make the book really exciting.’ We were coming up with all these chapter names for a book, so that’s where the idea for the book came from. And it did really well. It was on the Sunday Times bestseller list! Since then, we’ve had loads of messages from people who have read the book and said, ‘it made me laugh, it made me cry, and now I’m going to find my ocean and I’m going to do something’. And for me, that’s been the best part about having said yes to this challenge.”
Helen now has her sights set on a new challenge: cycling from Leeds to Barcelona. The journey, named Tour de Maggie’s, is in aid of Maggie’s, a charity providing free cancer support and information in centres across the UK and online: “They basically offer holistic support to people with cancer and their family and friends. Every Maggie’s has a big kitchen table, and they describe it as being like sitting around your best friend’s kitchen table. That support is for free, and people can access it as much as they want, for how long they want.”
Helen’s story came full circle in a way, when a copy of the book found its way to Melanie Sykes: “She contacted me on social media after reading the book and basically said that she was so pleased that she had inspired me to do the challenge, and that I had inspired her to do something! She’s really keen to row an ocean as well, so I keep saying to her that we need to row an ocean together!”
To find out more about the book, Tour de Maggie’s, or Helen herself, visit Helen.butters.com or find her on Instagram @butters_and_beyond and @tourdemaggies
