British women finish non-stop 15,000km rowing trip across the Pacific for charity
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British rowers Jess Rowe (left) and Miriam Payne in their vessel Velocity as they approach Australia's Great Barrier Reef in the Coral Sea on Oct 17, 2025. The pair left Peru on May 5 for the journey to Australia, raising money for charity and attempting to become the first women's team and the first pair to row across the Pacific Ocean non-stop and unsupported.
PHOTO: AFP
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Two British women have completed an 8,213 nautical mile (15,210km) non-stop row across the Pacific Ocean, arriving in the Australian coastal city of Cairns after a near six-month voyage from Peru.
Miriam Payne and Jess Rowe were unsupported across the vast expanse of ocean, spending around 15 hours each day at the oars to become the first all-female pair to achieve the feat.
After an initial attempt was abandoned in April because of a broken rudder, Payne, 25, and Rowe, 28, eventually set off in May in the nine-metre craft named Velocity, armed with 400kg of freeze-dried food, a water desalinator and some solar panels.
During their voyage they battled 30-foot waves, close encounters with whales, sleep deprivation, blistered hands and the constant danger of being hit by huge container ships.
Even when almost in sight of the Australian coast, they struggled with unforgiving tides that prolonged their ordeal.
“Those final few hours were brutal,” Rowe said after finally setting foot on terra firma. “The wind was pushing us off the channel, and we honestly thought we weren’t going to make it.
“We thought we might have to swim to shore. To finally be here, after talking about it for so long, just feels incredible.
“After so many days at sea, to finally see land, and the welcome we’ve had here in Cairns, is beyond words.”
ALTERNATE NIGHT SHIFTS
The pair rowed together during the day while at night they did alternate two-hour shifts so they could snatch some sleep in a tiny cabin at the front of the boat.
“We loved every minute of it,” Payne said. “There were some brutal challenges along the way, mainly equipment failures. We were never really terrified, the Pacific’s pretty peaceful.”
For large parts of the journey they were effectively invisible as their beacon stopped sending their location, while less serious was the fact they ran out of cherished snacks 30 days before the end, leaving them only with freeze-dried meals.
For Payne, it was her second ocean rowing conquest after crossing the Atlantic single-handed in 2022.
“It was really great to have Jess as a teammate,” she said. “What was great was we worked hard together, we problem-solved together, and we were always working towards the same goal.”
As well as rowing their way into the record books, the Seas The Day team raised about £80,000 (S$138,900) for The Outward Bound Trust – a charity that inspires young people to empower themselves by undertaking challenges in the natural world. REUTERS
