A CREW of three female rowers, including an Abergavenny lawyer, are about to embark on a world first as they attempt to cross the Atlantic next month.

Elaine Theaker, will join Di Carrington from Pontesbury and Sharon Magrath from Shrewsbury when the crew fly out of the UK on 30th Nov to La Gomera in the Canaries to join their boat, Poppy, and the other 27 crews who are taking part in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. Poppy has been in transit since end of October on a container ship.

Final preparations, briefings and scrutinising will follow before the event gets underway on December 12. The crossing could take between fifty and seventy days depending on weather and ocean conditions.

The crew will be supporting charities including Alzheimer’s UK, Macmillan Cancer Support, Relapsing Polychondritis UK and the Motor Neurone disease Association.

‘We were originally a crew of four but one member had to pull out; this means that instead of breaking records we will now be setting them as there has never been a crew of three females row any ocean.’ stated Elaine.

Supporters will be able to track the team’s progress on their long and lonely voyage as a ground crew will be maintaining a regular blog and all the crews in the race can be tracked on the ‘Yellow Brick Race Tracker’ which goes live around December 12 at the start of the race.