Welsh Women at Sea
Merched Y Môr Team
““We want to show that nothing – not gender, not our aging bodies, not even our minds – can stop us from achieving great things.” ”
This is a bold statement from four 'ordinary' Pembrokeshire women who are about to do something absolutely extraordinary – row 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.
This feat will make them the first all Welsh female crew to complete the challenge.
The group called Merched Y Môr (Women of the Sea, in Welsh) will start The World’s Toughest Row from La Gomera, in the Canary Islands on the 12th of December.
Merched Y Môr are hoping to complete the challenge in six weeks or less but are required take supplies to last them eight weeks.
They will finish in Antigua, having rowed in excess of 1.5 million oar strokes across waves reaching up to 20 feet high and sweltering hot conditions.
Sleeping on their ocean boat in rotation, carrying all their supplies and fixing any of the problems that arise on the boat, are just some of the things the ladies will have to master on this challenge.
The team of Denise Leonard, Helen Heaton, Liz Collyer and Heledd Williams started rowing together in 2022 and have been preparing for the race ever since.
“I feel excited about it. All of a sudden it seems very imminent, which is really nice, actually, because it has been quite a while prepping,” says Helen.
“Although it is daunting, and obviously we will all be nervous when we set off, I think it would be weird if you weren't.
“We have done so much preparation, that really there's very little left that we can do, other than prepare our bodies as best we can, and it will be what it will be,” says Denise.
““What is really obvious to me is the lack of representation of women in adventure.
“They do exist but predominantly at a lower level and as soon as you get to the higher levels of the more extreme sort of adventures, it’s massively male-dominated.””
Meet the women behind Merched Y Môr
Denise Leonard
Denise, 49, came up with the idea to enter a boat in the race during the 2020 pandemic lockdown.
She was inspired by watching the Jasmine Harrison become the youngest solo female to row the Atlantic at just 21 years old.
“It was definitely something that really grabbed me in terms of it being a real adventure. Perhaps it's one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and I really wanted to do this as a crew of women,” says Denise.
Denise is an outdoor adventure education lecturer at the University of Wales Trinity St David.
She says: “What is really obvious to me is the lack of representation of women in adventure.
“They do exist but predominantly at a lower level and as soon as you get to the higher levels of the more extreme sort of adventures, it's massively male-dominated.
“That is a narrative I have been sort of challenging for a while professionally.”
She began asking around for a crew to take the challenge on and recruiting other members for the boat.
Liz Collyer
Liz, 39, had done the course that Denise taught in outdoor adventure and was managing a climbing wall that Denise took her students to, when they had a conversation about the race.
Denise says: “I came away from that session and just thought, that's somebody who I know I could row an ocean with.
I sent her a text message saying do you want to row across the Atlantic with me and she weirdly said yes without much hesitation.”
Liz came from a very active background with climbing, mountain biking, ice climbing and rowing.
But this will be her biggest challenge yet.
Helen Heaton
Helen, 59, lives on the same street as Denise and they often walk their dogs together.
Denise asked Helen if she would want to join the challenge across the Atlantic.
“We were out on a dog walk and it just felt like the right thing to do would be to ask Helen.
“I knew that she is really determined, and she has got a really strong mind and I knew that if there was someone who was going to just keep going regardless it was going to be Helen,” says Denise.
Helen stopped doing sport at school, but she decided to start sea rowing in her 30s because it was a team sport, and it scratched that competitive itch she had.
Heledd Williams
Heledd replied to a Facebook post about joining the crew and after meeting with the other three women, was invited to join them.
Although other people had been considered from the Facebook post, it was Heledd’s complete commitment to the challenge and her friendliness that made her a valuable member of the team.
Other people who had replied to the Facebook post were concerned about the training period and were wanting to have children, which Denise says would put too much strain on their lives.
Heledd says she became interested in the idea of rowing the Atlantic after reading Roz Savage’s book about it, but she did not think the opportunity would ever present itself.
Heledd started rowing later in life so that she could de-stress from her life as a care worker.
She says: “It's that mindfulness as well and you can't let your crew down.
“If you sign up to, to go for a row and you really can't be bothered because you're tired, you've worked all day, you have to go because your crew is waiting for you.
“So, you jump in a boat and then you feel a million times better when you have been on the sea and you're meditating and it's a de-stress as well.”
The three-year preparation
The team have trained together for three years and was recently told by the safety officer at the pre-ship inspection that the team was, “consciously competent, bordering on unconsciously competent.”
Having the right skills that they needed took a lot of time and it has been a challenge to balance work and family life alongside training.
“We have had to navigate, alongside trying to maintain focus and commitment to this as well, alongside working full-time. I think this could be a full-time job in itself,” says Heledd.
Each of the women train on their own rowing machines and then come together to train in their Ocean boat, which needs at least 24 hours to make it worth it.
“The preparation for the race is probably 20% physical training and 80% everything else.
“Like fundraising, gaining sponsorship, doing the social media, learning all the electrical systems on the boat, learning all the technical navigation stuff, doing the compulsory courses.
There is so much that goes on behind the scenes, that people don't necessarily see,” says Denise.
“I thought, I’ll sleep at night, but during the day, I’ll sit on deck and have a chat, but no, you need to sleep every time you are off shift.”
The worries about the race
One of the hardest things about being on the boat is the rest and recovery, while rowing across the Ocean.
A previous race completer told Merched Y Môr that they would need to sleep in any time they were not rowing.
“I hadn't imagined that at all. I thought, I'll sleep at night, but during the day, I'll sit on deck and have a chat, but she said, no, you need to sleep every time you are off shift,” says Helen.
The sleep schedule will be drawn up and written down between the team, because when you are sleep deprived and fatigued it can be difficult to do simple maths.
“At the moment we have done a two hour on, two hours off basis. So, Denise and I will row for two hours, and then we'll have two hours off.
“Then Helen and Liz will take over on the oars. The others will always be resting or sleeping.
We could potentially just be tidying up the boat, boiling water, making food, having a good wash.
You need to wash the salt water off your body every time you come off shift, otherwise you're going to get blisters and abrasions and that kind of stuff,” says Heledd.
The weather is also a big factor in the challenge and the boat is equipped with special anchors and a parachute to stop it from blowing too far off course.
In particularly bad conditions, they are able to hunker down in the cabins and wait for the weather to pass.
“We want to be four women and a boat, and one mission, and just to be focused purely on that.”
The good bits
The team are looking forward to the “simple life of eat, sleep, row, repeat”, and having a once in a lifetime adventure.
“Part of the appeal of the row, is to step away from the complexities of life and that accessibility and be remote.
“We want to be four women and a boat, and one mission, and just to be focused purely on that,” says Denise.
Liz says she is looking forward to the wildlife and the bioluminescence that could be visible from the boat, as well as the stars with no light pollution to cloud them.
Heledd says she is also excited to go for a swim in the water that is up to 8.5km deep.
The team say this has been a deeply inspiring journey and hope that it will inspire other women and girls to seek out adventure too.
· Merched Y Môr is 70% of the way on their fundraising goal for the RNLI, Popham kidney support, Sea Trust Wales and Action for Children
· If you would like to donate, you can head to Merched Y Môr's website
· If you would like to follow their journey, you can follow Facebook and Instagram to see their preparation and some coverage of the race