Fair. Because when you first hear about it, the World’s Toughest Row sounds like something someone invented after too many drinks.

Two women. A 24-foot boat. Three thousand miles of open Atlantic. No motor, no sail, no support vessel. Just oars.

It’s real. It happens every year. And we’ll be at the starting line in La Gomera, Spain, in December 2027.

Here’s what we signed up for.

The Basics

The World’s Toughest Row is an annual unsupported (meaning you carry everything you need from the start; nobody is showing up halfway across with a resupply shipment) ocean rowing race across the Atlantic, organized by Atlantic Campaigns.

Teams depart from San Sebastián de la Gomera in the Canary Islands and row approximately 3,000 miles to English Harbour, Antigua. The crossing takes most teams somewhere between 40 and 70 days, depending on crew size and conditions.

Teams range from solo rowers to crews of five, competing in men’s, women’s, and mixed classes. Winners are determined within each crew size, so pairs race against pairs, fours against fours, and so on.

The 2025 fleet had 43 boats. The 2026 fleet has over 50 teams signed up, and 2027 already has 45.

The boats are purpose-built ocean rowing vessels. They’re designed to be self-righting, which means if a wave flips the boat (and this happens), it rolls back upright on its own. Comforting in theory. I try not to think about it in practice.

What Makes It So Hard

The race earns its name.

Each rower burns upward of 5,000 calories a day and still loses an average of about 17 pounds over the crossing. Sleep comes in two-hour fragments between rowing shifts.

Salt sores, blisters, and chafing are guaranteed. Waves can reach 20 feet. The Atlantic is over five miles deep at its deepest point, which is one of those facts I wish I could unlearn.

Teams have dealt with marlin strikes. As in, a marlin spearing its bill through the hull of the boat. The 2024 race had 13 of them.

Rowers have hallucinated from sleep deprivation. They’ve rowed through storms, through calms that lasted weeks, and through headwinds that push you backward despite hours of effort.

And all of this is unsupported. There is no chase boat. No supply drops. You carry everything you need from the start, and you handle whatever comes. Repairs, navigation, medical issues, all of it.

Fewer people have rowed an ocean than have summited Everest, and it’s not close. Roughly 300 people have ever rowed any ocean. More than 7,500 have stood on top of Everest.

Where We Fit

Lauren and I will be racing in December 2027 as a pair. If we finish, we’ll be the first American female pair to row the Atlantic.

Our boat is the Penny B, an R25 built by Rannoch Adventure, the lead manufacturer of ocean rowing vessels, and currently stored in the UK. We’ll make multiple trips over the next year and a half to train on the water and complete the mandatory hours required by the race.

Our fitness coach, Gus Barton, and our boat coach, Dawn Smith, have both rowed this ocean and have been world record holders. We’re in good hands.

Our boat is being prepped. The training is underway. We can’t wait until it’s our turn.

Because we’re dealing with primarily European organizations, a lot of these fees had to be converted to dollars. Many of the costs are estimates (or maybe better to say educated guesses based on research/my travel experience) but still have a lot of variables that could factor in and change them.

Buckle up.

Shared team costs

These are the expenses that exist regardless of whether you’re a solo rower or a team. One bill, split between however many of you there are.

• Race entry fee for a pair — €22,500 / $25,732

• Loose equipment (satellite comms, personal locator beacons, etc.) — $3,000 est.

• Shipping the boat, round trip — £12,650 / $16,895

• Insurance — $1,000 (complete guess)

• Boat training in the UK — £4,000 / $5,342 est.

Team total: ~$52,000

Per-person costs

These are the expenses each rower pays individually.

• Race registration — €1,000 / $1,143

• Food ($35/day × 60 days) — $2,100 est.

• Mandatory courses — £650 / $868

• Travel & accommodation, start line (10–15 days) — $4,000 est.

• Travel & accommodation, finish line (3–4 days) — $2,500 est.

• Travel & accommodation, boat training in the UK (5-6 trips) — $5,000 est.

• Fitness coaching (£175/month × 19 months) — £3,325 / $4,440

Per-person total: ~$20,000

And then, believe it or not, that number doesn’t include the single biggest line item:

The boat.

There are three options: renting (called “chartering” in the UK), buying new, or buying used. Specifics on those are coming in a different post. But for now, assume we go the least complicated route and rent. Cost for that: £30,000 / $40,068.

So the overall estimated total: team costs (~$52K) + individual costs for two rowers (~$40K) + the boat (~$40K):

$132,000

How we attempt to raise that kind of money is also a different post. But whatever we don’t raise, we have to be prepared to pay ourselves.

Lauren and I committed to WTR—as in, paid our $1,000 application fee each—on March 12, 2026. It took roughly two weeks for our payment to go through and for the WTR to give us access to their Hub, which is where all the race information lives.

In that time we were raring to get started with whatever we could, and being brilliant, we knew the physical part was a huge component of getting through 3,000 miles. So we did what anyone would do: we asked AI to give us a training plan.

I won’t lie, the plan we got wasn’t half bad.

What AI gave us — Cardio: Two Zone 2 erg sessions and one interval erg session per week. All rowing, all the time, right from day one.

What AI gave us — Strength (3 sessions/week, each a different focus):

Session A – Pull & Posterior Chain: Deadlifts: 4 × 6–8 · Barbell rows: 4 × 8–10 · Seated cable rows: 3 × 12 · Face pulls: 3 × 15 · Farmer’s carries: 3 × 40m

Session B – Push & Core: Back squats: 4 × 6–8 · Overhead press: 3 × 8–10 · Dumbbell bench press: 3 × 10 · Pallof press: 3 × 12 each side

Session C – Endurance Strength & Stability: Single-leg Romanian deadlifts: 3 × 10 each · Bulgarian split squats: 3 × 10 each · TRX rows: 3 × 15 · Side planks: 3 × 30–45 sec each · Dead hangs / grip work: 3 × max hold

AI gave me video examples of the exercises and it honestly worked pretty well. I did this for about six weeks.

Then the WTR race directors mentioned in a general meeting that anyone who wasn’t an experienced rower should really get themselves to a rowing club so someone could show them form basics.

Not many rowing clubs near the landlocked states of Colorado or Missouri. So we decided to go with an online coach. The WTR suggested two:

Gus Barton: gusbartonfitness.com Ed Raymond: garage852.com

Both Gus and Ed have done the WTR in previous years and have coached multiple ocean-rowing teams. Gus is in Canada, Ed is in the UK.

We interviewed with both but ultimately went with Gus. He was a little more hard-edged and tough-love than Ed, and that was something both Lauren and I responded to. (Although Ed was super nice and about half the price of Gus, so it was a tough decision.)

Gus’s three foundational pillars are:

1. Technical efficiency — making every stroke count instead of wasting energy

2. Aerobic capacity — being able to sustain effort for hours, days, weeks

3. Postural integrity — core strength, flexibility, and everything lining up right in movement. Helps prevent injury and reduces fatigue.

For a team with serious previous injuries (Lauren) and almost all muscle lost due to menopause (me), that third one was key.

So How Different Is a Real Coach From AI?

The honest answer surprised me. The exercises overlap more than you’d expect.

What both plans include: Deadlifts, overhead presses, dumbbell bench press, pallof press, TRX rows, side planks, dead hangs, split squats.

Where they diverge on the same exercises: AI gave me barbell rows — Gus does dumbbell rows. AI programmed back squats — Gus has focused on goblet squats. Small differences, but Gus has his reasons for each.

What AI included that Gus didn’t: Face pulls, farmer’s carries, seated cable rows.

What Gus includes that AI never thought of: A LOT more core and glute work. Hollow body holds, deadbugs, side planks with rows, side plank abductions, swiss ball hamstring curls, single leg glute bridges. The sheer volume of ab and glute-specific work in Gus’s plan dwarfs what AI gave me, and it goes straight back to that third pillar — postural integrity.

The cardio approach was telling too. AI had me on the erg for every cardio session from day one. Gus didn’t. He started me with two Zone 2 sessions and one interval, mixing erg and bike. After six weeks, we added a second interval session and started shifting more toward the erg.

I’m guessing he knows that 18 months of nothing but rowing machine might cause extreme burnout before you ever touch the ocean.

The Real Difference

Gus also tracks specific measurement markers: deadlift and goblet squat numbers that he uses to gauge progress. AI gave me a plan. Gus is building toward something specific and adjusting as we go.

But the biggest gap between AI and a real coach had nothing to do with the strength plan at all. It was our rowing form. And boy did we need help.

That’s a whole post of its own.

In December 2027, my teammate Lauren and I are rowing 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean in a 24-foot boat with no motor and no sail. The race is called the World’s Toughest Row, and if we finish, we’ll be the first American female pair to do it.

I’m Janie, a novelist from Colorado Springs in my mid-50s. Lauren is an emergency physician from Missouri in her early-40s. We met on a medical mission trip in the Philippines. We’ve only been in the same room together a handful of times. And now we’re going to spend 45 to 60 days in a boat the size of a parking space, rowing in two-hour shifts around the clock, across open ocean.

Quick note: this is my account of this process. Mine. Lauren might remember things differently, disagree with my choices, or have done it all another way. She’s my teammate, not my co-author. Everything here is one woman’s version of how to row an ocean.

This blog is the manual I wish existed when I started.

When I decided to do this, I went looking for the practical stuff. Not the inspirational quotes or the highlight reels. The actual information. How do you find a teammate? How much does it cost? How do you train for an ocean row when you live a thousand miles from the nearest coast? How do you get a boat, modify it, ship it to the Canary Islands? What do you eat for 50 days? How do you fund the whole thing?

Some of that information exists, scattered across podcasts and YouTube videos and the occasional blog post from a team that already finished. But no one has written it down, in order, from the beginning.

That’s what this is. I’m writing it as I go, in the order I’m living it. If you’re here because you’re curious about ocean rowing, you’ll get the real version. If you’re here because you’re thinking about doing this yourself someday, you’ll get the closest thing to a playbook I can give you. If you’re here because you followed us from Instagram and want the longer story behind the 30-second Reels, this is where it lives.

I’m posting on social media too (@teamstillmakingwaves). That’s the day-to-day, the short clips, the jokes. This is the depth. The stuff that doesn’t fit in a caption.

I’m not sure how often new posts will be… since writing is my day job, sometimes more writing just isn’t possible. So I imagine it will come in fits and starts. But I’m excited to share what I’m learning.

Start at the beginning and read forward, or jump in wherever. At the top every post, you’ll find a clickable list of tags:
Boat • Learning • Money • Personal • Team • The Race • Training

Click on any of those to see more posts on that topic.

Let’s go.

How exactly did I end up signed up for a 3,000 mile row across the Atlantic?
To be honest, I’m not exactly sure.

Things I know it wasn’t:
❌ Lifelong dream
❌ Because I’ve done so much rowing
❌ Because I’ve watched the World’s Toughest Row (WTR) race for years and thought: “You know, I could do that.”
❌ Because I read some book about others’ ocean-rowing adventures

Nope. All I really know for sure is that Facebook in its infinite wisdom decided to put the WTR in my feed in December 2025 and I was intrigued.

But not intrigued in a “maybe I should sign up” sort of way. Why would I do that?

I have ZERO rowing experience that’s not on an erg (rowing machine) and these people were obviously experts. I live a couple thousand miles from the nearest ocean, when WTR participants probably were raised by Neptune himself. Plus the race takes 45-60 days—who has time for that?

If you know me at all, you know adventure is in my blood. I’ve got a history with endurance races. I’ve done 150-mile, multi-day, self-supporting races in Iceland, Scotland and Kenya. I’ve hiked to Everest Base Camp, run a marathon in Antarctica, and even attempted an Ironman Triathlon back in the day.

I’ve traveled to 56 different countries, and in 2023 (the year I turned 50), I made it to all seven continents in one year.

All that to say: me and questionable decisions? We’re not strangers.

But honestly when I was watching the reels and updates on the 40ish teams involved in the WTR2025, I was invested but not considering it for myself.

American Taryn Smith was the belle of the ball that year. She was attempting to become the first American solo female to row the Atlantic. Young, upbeat, fearless… it was fun to watch her daily posts.

Yeah, that woman (ahem, and maybe a teeny-tiny bit my above-mentioned relationship with questionable decisions) is to blame for all this.

More specifically, this 3-minute Inside Edition video recapping her journey:

Pay special attention to 1:40 in that video.

That’s where I got in trouble. The moment my thinking about the World’s Toughest Row changed with one sentence by Taryn.

“I signed up to row the Atlantic by myself having never rowed before.”

I didn’t stand up and shout, “Well, by God, I’m doing it too!” As a matter of fact, I just went on about my day.

But a seed had been planted.

And now here we are.

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Boat • Learning • Money • Personal • Team • The Race • Training