Tampa women’s team becomes first North American crew to win on world’s toughest row

Chantelle Beguin and her team rowed in the dark, hoping they would finally reach land. After rowing 12 hours a day and being at sea for more than a month, they wanted nothing more than to be safely held in the arms of their families.

Then they saw something in the distance – the cloud bank was so low that they could not fully make out it. light. They finally arrived at English Harbor in Antigua, but to their surprise, they were the first women there.

“From that moment on, it was just the most intense experience,” Begin recalled.

Salty Science, a rowing team led by Begin, a marine biology professor at the University of South Florida, won the women’s class in the World’s Toughest Row, an annual 3,000-mile endurance race across the Atlantic Ocean. They are the first North American team to win this category.

It took the four women 38 days, 18 hours and 56 minutes to complete the race. It departed from Spain’s Canary Islands on December 13, 2023 and finished in English Harbor on January 20, placing seventh out of 38 crew members from around the world.

The idea to create Salty Science was born in 2020 when Lauren Shea, a master’s student at the University of British Columbia, saw the race and wanted to try it herself.

Shea reached out to colleagues at USF with the idea of ​​forming a team of four female scientists united by a passion for ocean conservation and education.

The team includes Begin (44), Shea (27), Noel Helder (28), and Isabelle Côté (60), Begin’s doctoral advisor at Simon Fraser University in Canada. There is.

“We jumped on it right away,” Shea said. “But when we signed up, we didn’t really know what we were getting into. At the time, none of us knew how to row.”

Begin said it took the women nearly three years to train for the race. They had to learn how to live on a boat that could accommodate her three rowers at a time, but only had a small cabin for team members to rest. The bucket served as their bathroom.

They also had to learn how to navigate water and train their bodies to row for 12 hours a day.

The team underwent intense training for 10 to 14 hours each week with physical trainers. Training was difficult because the women all lived in different cities: Palm Harbor, Shea and Court in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Helder in Fairbanks, Alaska.

They met for one week in August 2022 and January 2023, and for two months in the summer to train together on the boat, but otherwise trained alone.

Check out the top stories in Tampa Bay

Subscribe to the free DayStarter Newsletter

We’ll send you the latest news and information you need to know every morning.

Everyone is registered!

Want more free weekly newsletters sent to your inbox? let’s start.

consider all options

When they got out to sea, conditions were rough.

During the first 10 days, Begin and his team encountered unexpectedly large waves that damaged some of their equipment.

One of the waves broke the oar in two. Fortunately, the team had extras.

“It’s important to be well prepared and discuss all possible scenarios in advance,” Begin said.

The next day, the machinery used to purify the water stopped working and the boat and cabin began to flood. The salt water damaged the machine’s electric pump and connections, but thankfully the team brought a replacement.

The team also had to use a chartplotter to track their position in the Atlantic Ocean, as the autopilot continued to fail to navigate properly.

At one point, the boat nearly tipped over, and the team had to deploy a device to slow it down in rough seas.

Begin said they have to deal with problems as a team, including boat breakdowns, illness, pain and fatigue.

“It’s a big mindset issue. When you go into a race as a team, you know you’re going to be in a race for a long time. So we have to work every day as best we can,” Begin said. Ta.

The women survived on a diet of dehydration, fruit snacks, chips and crackers. Helder said they had 55 days worth of food and calculated that each team member would need to consume 4,000 calories a day.

The women rowed two at a time in shifts of two to three hours. Shea said they never slept for more than two and a half hours at a time. All of the rowing resulted in each team member losing 14 to 18 pounds.

Begin said Salty Science has set several goals. They wanted to cross the finish line safely, maintain relationships with each other, and grow as a team.

While the team agreed it felt great to win, “winning wasn’t our main goal going into this game,” Begin said.

Salty Science has raised $252,000 of its $500,000 goal to support charities focused on ocean conservation and training the next generation of scientists. They are still accepting donations for that purpose.

After five weeks of staying up late with each other, listening to multi-part podcasts and listening to Taylor Swift to wake up, Begin said she’s proud of what her team accomplished.

“We got off the boat very unsteady on our feet,” she said with a laugh.