The crew of HMS Argyll recently raised money in aid of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity (RNRMC) through their 'row the Suez Canal’ challenge.
During the silent hours of Thursday 12th July HMS Argyll reached a milestone during her deployment. The ship and ship's company reached the Suez Canal, an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.
In good naval tradition, the crew tested themselves to see if they could row the equivalent length of the canal on a rowing machine whilst the ship completed the actual transit through the canal.
The distance of the transit was 120 miles and the ship would cover that in over 15 hours. Rowing was broken up into 20-minute slots and would require a minimum of 45 people to row an average of 4.3km each to cover both the distance and time.
First up to row was LS Dominic Nott who set the benchmark with a strong 5225 metres; over the course of the day this distance would only be broken twice, whilst others tried their hardest but came up short.
As the sun started to rise, the heat inside and outside the ship increased dramatically thus making the task harder. As expected, there was a slight dip in distances covered; surprisingly enough though, during the midday heat, the record for the longest distance rowed was broken twice in quick succession first by LPT Andy Lowes with 5358 metres and then by Lt James Cain RM with a monster 5541 metres.
The ship finished its transit early evening and amazingly the ship's company achieved their goal by rowing during the entire transit of the Suez Canal. After the rowing had stopped the calculations then began, as an apprehensive ship's company waited to see if they had covered the equivalent distance of the canal. Final figures showed that the rowers had covered 128 miles, around 8 miles more than the ship had covered through the canal!
The Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity would like to thank HMS Argyll for their incredible fundraising efforts as well as congratulating them on the incredible achievement.
