A four-member Bahraini team is potentially less than a fortnight away from embarking on a daring, perilous adventure: attempting to row unsupported across the mighty Atlantic Ocean.
The two-month long journey, dubbed ‘Bahrain Mission Atlantic’, will cover more than 4,800km after starting from Spain’s Gran Canaria Island and ending in Barbados.
If they are successful, the four men will create history by being part of the first-ever team from Bahrain to have rowed across the Atlantic.
“We’ve tentatively chosen December 18 as the date we should depart, but it all depends on what the weather conditions are like on that day,” Warren Rowe, the leader of the team, told the GDN by phone from Gran Canaria.
“We could possibly delay it by a couple of days if we feel the weather is not right, but, for now, we’re looking at December 18 as the day we set off.
Rowe, 30, a former captain in the UK’s Royal Marines, has been serving as a member of the Bahrain Defence Force’s (BDF) Marine Battalion since 2020 when he moved to Bahrain. He is one of two Britons on the difficult quest – the other, his colleague, Robert Driscoll, served as a sergeant in the Royal Marines for 17 years.
Two Bahrainis, Sharida Abdulla Al Doseri and Saad bin Abdulla Yousif Musameh – who are also serving in the BDF Marine Battalion – will share rowing duties with Rowe and Driscoll.
A third Bahraini, Mohammed bin Khalid Shaheen, also from the BDF’s Marine Battalion, was part of the five-man squad that left the kingdom in September for the next phase of their training in Torquay, a seaside resort town in Devon, England, before the quintet arrived in Gran Canaria, where they have been based for the past four weeks.
However, Shaheen, who is currently injured, will not be accompanying his teammates on the difficult journey.
The mission is being supported by Shaikh Mohammed bin Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the son of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince and Prime Minister.
“It gives me great pleasure to inaugurate Bahrain Mission Atlantic,” he said in a statement when the five-man group started their training in the kingdom in June. “The people of Bahrain have always been known to relish challenges driven by a passion for achievement across wide-ranging sectors, and this mission will build on this.
“Rowing unsupported across the Atlantic Ocean is a genuine challenge that deserves recognition. If successful, they will be the first Bahraini team to complete the endeavour and will usher in another Bahraini success.”
‘Rowing unsupported’ means that there will be no rescue boat trailing the four men as they attempt to complete the crossing, which only 750 people – with just three Arabs among them – have managed to complete before.
“The odds are stacked against us,” Rowe admitted. “Typically, the people who have managed to successfully navigate the crossing trained for a year or two before starting off. We’ve only been training for a few months.
“And it’s a hard bargain. We will have to follow the same routine every day for 50, maybe 60 days. Two of us will row for two hours while the others rest in small cabins at either end of the boat. Then, they’ll take over for two hours. That is how it will be for the duration of the journey.”
Allied to the monotony of the two-hour rowing, two-hour sleep routine – which could cause mental health problems – will be the challenges the ocean will throw at the quartet. They expect to face 20ft waves and the mission will exact a heavy physical toll on all four men.
Rowers on previous expeditions reported losing an average of 12kg during the entire journey with an estimated loss of 8,000 calories per day.
“Like I said, it’s going to be difficult, it’s going to be very tough,” Rowe said.
“But it’s not impossible and we are confident that we are good enough to meet the challenge. This is our chance to create history for Bahrain and we are determined to do it!”
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