The total cost of the row now that that everything has been tallied is about $480,000 xcd ($177,000 USD ) . This includes the boat new and all its contents , the entrance fee , health and life insurance policies for all crew , airfares , hotel and food for all crew in the Canaries for twenty one days , boat food (freeze dried) for sixty days , boat shipping from the UK to the Canaries , shipping of the trailer back to Antigua and miscellaneous expenses . This means it cost a $120,000 xcd ($45,000 USD) per crew member to cross the Atlantic . My crew were not asked to contribute financially in any way .
Unfortunately fund raising for the row itself was not very successful and the majority ($350,000 xcd) of the above amount was funded by me personally , a significant part of this l hope to get back from the sale of the boat . Hope springs eternal 🚣 ! I think the reason for poor financial support in the earlies was that the public was not aware or sensitized to this event and here I was a grey haired sixty seven year old man approaching many businesses and individuals on the island asking them for financial sponsorship in the thousands to row across the Atlantic . Yeah right !! The usual response was ” we’d really like to be a part of this but our budget for the year has already been allocated ” .Interestingly enough these same businesses / people started contributing generously to our Charity the Hospice once the row had started . The deduction here is they didn’t think we’d even make it to the Canaries much less complete the row and make it back to Antigua finishing fourteenth out of twenty six and making it into the Guinness Book of records !! Remember that the majority of the other competitors/rowers were young enough not only to be our children but our grandchildren ! To date the Hospice has gotten over $500,000 xcd and the figure is still climbing .
In retrospect I have no reservations whatsoever concerning this adventure / challenge and by all standards it was a terrific success , particularly so when seeing the benefits of the spinoff for the Hospice and the exposure Antigua/Barbuda has gotten from the international press releases associated with the race and Atlantic Campaigns .
The icing on the cake for me would be to see a fellow Antiguan team do it every year .
