'Most brutal ordeal' for MND charity rowers

Rowers doing a lap of Great Britain to raise £57m for motor neurone disease charities have arrived in Scotland.

The Row4MND team was forced to detour to Northern Ireland earlier this week where they became stormbound, but they are back on track and arrived at Port Logan in Dumfries and Galloway earlier.

Solo Atlantic rower Mike Bates, from Leeds, said the detour was an "added bonus" and made the challenge a "true United Kingdom adventure".

He said the challenge had been the "most brutal ordeal" and made "rowing the Atlantic feel like a walk in the park".

"The weather wasn't on our side, but we've still managed to cover an incredible 250 nautical miles over the past week, and we spent some valuable time gelling as a crew," he added.

The four-person crew set off from Land's End on 25 July and headed north into the Irish Sea, before 20-knot headwinds forced them to stop at Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire.

They returned to Cornwall and started the challenge again in the other direction.

Less than two weeks later, they were contacted by HM Coastguard when MP Rupert Lowe posted online having mistaken them for "illegal migrants".

Almost seven months later, Parker, who is from Kilmarnock but who now lives in Surrey, said the challenge had been a "hell of a lot of hard work" but the "best thing I've ever done in my life".

"When it's two in the morning, in the pitch black, in the fog, with the sea smashing the boat around, with your oars going in different directions, when you've been rowing for seven days, two hours on, two hours off, and you're cold - it's brutal," he said.

"I'd be lying if I said you don't think 'why on Earth am I doing this' every so often.

"[But] I know exactly why I'm doing this, and this is great. I'm so lucky that I get to do something like this."

They are due to relaunch in May, traversing the rest of the Scottish coastline including the Western Isles.

They will then focus on crossing the Pacific - from California to Hawaii - in 2027, before attempting the world record row between New York and London in 2028.

They want to raise £57m in four years, having chosen the figure for rugby legends Doddie Weir and Rob Burrow, number 5 and 7 respectively, who both died from the degenerative disease.

They have raised more than £145,000 so far for My Name'5 Doddie Foundation and Leeds Hospitals Charity.

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