Nick Southwood, of Bury St Edmunds, to row across Atlantic Ocean to break Guinness World Record

Four strangers are attempting to break a Guinness World Record to row across the Atlantic Ocean with a combined age of 240.

Nick Southwood, 60, from Bury St Edmunds, has decided to take on The Atlantic Dash Challenge which will see him row 3100 miles from Lanzarote to Antigua.

Nick, along with three other older rowers, formed the team called Row240 and they plan to row for 24 hours a day in alternating 2-hour shifts for approximately 45 days.

The team is called Row240 and they will be taking on the Guinness World Record in exactly one year’s time on Thursday, January 3 2025.

Nick said: “It’s all very exciting and I honestly just can’t wait to get going now.

“I know it might sound a bit bonkers, but I want to go on adventure while I still can.”

The current record is held by a team with the combined team age of 223 years and 211 days and Row240 will surpass that with a combined age of 241 years and 189 days once they hit the start line.

20 times more people have climbed Mount Everest than rowed across the Atlantic Ocean and each rower will be drinking 10 litres of water everyday while burning 6000 calories per day.

Nick said he felt inspired by the Kon Tiki expedition in 1947 which he read about as a school boy.

Another inspiration is a poem called ‘The Dash’ by Linda Ellis which takes a metaphorical look at the engraved hyphen on a tombstone between a date of birth and date of death.

In the poem, this dash represents the limited time we spend on Earth and asks the question: “When your eulogy is being read, with your life’s actions to rehash, would you be proud of the things they say about how you spent your dash?”

The team are now looking for local businesses to sponsor the voyage as the team are trying to raise funds for two charities, Shark Trust and Bowelbabe Fund.

Nick added: “It would be amazing if any business or company could come forward to help us raise money for this.

“There’s all different options for people to get involved from a sticker on the boat to creating their own prominent marketing campaign.”