Charles Russell solicitor Charlie Marlow has launched his bid to row 3,000 miles across the Atlantic (see [2008] Gazette, 5 June, 8) by winning a race in the stormy waters off Plymouth.

Marlow and friend Matthew Mackaness are to row alternate two-hour shifts for the 50 to 60 days the crossing is likely to take. They will sleep and ride out storms in the two-man vessel’s tiny cabin. And if a whale surfaces beside them, says Marlow, ‘it’ll make a nice change to see a mammal who isn’t Matthew’.

The two are already avoiding one another at parties so as not to exhaust their conversation before spending two months in close proximity. Has Marlow always been a keen rower? ‘No, I played cricket at school.’