It is week 5 of the boys crazy Atlantic journey and unfortunately it has continued with much slower progress over the past week due to the loss of the loyal trade winds which had thus far been spurring them on.

On Monday, they went through the ‘1000 miles to go’ point which psychologically was a big milestone for them, all be it marred by the fact that they crawled through it using all their strength. On the plus side the calm weather enabled them to tackle a number of general housekeeping jobs that were long overdue. The cabin was given a thorough spring clean and most notably, despite having seen a shark a few days earlier, Harry dived in and set about scraping the hull free of barnacles and seaweed to yield a very welcome extra half knot of speed. Bet they wished they’d done it earlier!

They will shortly be going through the final third of the way marker and generally there is a quietly positive feeling of being on the home straight, all be it with their destination still over 800 miles away.

Both Harry and Alex would like to say a  huge thanks to all of you who have taken the time to write them a  message, send them riddles, rude jokes, motivational quotes and general messages of support via email. Due to their painfully slow satellite internet connection their support team accumulate them and they retrieve them every other day or so. “It is incredibly comforting to know so many people are following our progress and the messages provide a very welcome and much needed distraction. Onwards and westwards we go!”

Until next week you can track the boys progress at  http://www.rowing4research.com