Force Atlantic: Meet the Army's first all-female team taking on the World's Toughest Row
Force Atlantic will make history this winter when the British Army's first-ever all-female crew embarks on a 3000-mile journey across the Atlantic in the World's Toughest Row.
The four-person team will be rowing across the Atlantic Ocean, unsupported, in an ultimate challenge that tests the team's physical and mental fortitude.
The team will be departing from La Gomera in the Canary Islands in mid-December, in an 8.5m-long rowing boat, in a journey that's expected to take approximately six weeks where they will reach their destination in English Harbour, Antigua.
The team includes skipper and 22 Multi-Role Medical Regiment's Captain Imogen O'Brien, 1 Medical Regiment's Major Rebecca Glover, 6 Regiment RLC's Warrant Officer 1 Sheridan Lucas MBE and Corporal Emma Gibb who is a nurse at DPHC in Tidworth.
The Force Atlantic 2024 project began almost three years ago, instigated by Capt O'Brien, and she says preparing to row an ocean without their support team wouldn't be possible – those six personnel behind the scenes have been crucial in practical roles such as media, communication, nutrition and strength and conditioning.
"You can't achieve this as just being four," Capt Imogen O'Brien admitted.
She added: "There are all these people that come in and help you and get us to the start line and then across.
"So, it's about making sure that each one of us has our voice at the table."
WO1 Sheridan Lucas added: "To try and get four personalities to work together is going to be a hard task and I think we've got just the right mix."
Throughout their challenge, the team will have to battle sleep deprivation, salt sores and the physical extremes of the Atlantic Ocean, with the job of getting their boat safely across to the other side.
"It's so huge, that I think if I fully understood each aspect of what we were going to be exposed to, it would put so much fear in me that I wouldn't start," Maj Rebecca Glover said.
Capt O'Brien added: "The amount of lessons that we learn when we are out there are huge, because also you want to experience different weather, different sea states, tiredness levels and just kind of administering ourselves on the boat is really important as well and you can only do that by spending time out there."
In undertaking this challenge, the team have chosen to raise funds for the charitable foundation 'The Girls' Network', a charity that helps girls from disadvantaged backgrounds to achieve their potential through mentoring and a network of female role models.
The Girls' Network's mission reflects the team's reasons for taking on this challenge, as they also hope to promote women, inspire others and to belong to something bigger than themselves.
Capt O'Brien said: "We just wanted to show that you really don't have to do something like this, you don't have to be a rower, you don't have to be anybody.
"We want to raise money for them, we all also want to become mentors for them and then link up our engagement tour after with the schools that they work with because the work they are doing is incredible and it is changing people's lives really, and girls' lives, so it's really cool."
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