World’s toughest row solo gun Liz Wardley’s big fright after month at sea in Atlantic Challenge

Atlantic Challenge solo rower Liz Wardley was worried she might be on the end of a marlin attack but instead it was a much scarier creature which caused a shocking fright for the ‘crazy Aussie’.

Liz Wardley is rowing across the Atlantic.

Solo rower Liz Wardley was nervous about a marlin attacking her tiny 7m rowing boat Tic Tac in her Atlantic crossing but instead it was a much bigger sea creature at the centre of a frightening encounter at sea.

Wardley has now passed day 30 in the world’s toughest row race with around 10 more days still to go before the intrepid Australian arrives at the finish in Antigua.

On Tuesday - her 32nd day alone - she gave an insight into the good, bad and frightening aspects of the last few days of rowing with a call from sea after a particularly bad night - and a close and very scary encounter with a giant whale.

Battling atrocious conditions, Wardley has been forced to row with only the minimal rests to combat wind and waves pushing her either sideways or backwards.

“It’s been horrendous. You just can’t stop rowing,” Wardley said via satellite phone.

Liz Wardley is rowing across the Atlantic. Pic: Micky Montoya

“It’s is exhausting. It is really physical. But the conditions will get better with some northerly and nor’easter flow’’

Wardley’s hands are cut and calloused and her body bruised and fatigued - and skinner with a three kilo weight drop already.

Wardley had heard stories of marlin ramming boats in the race and causing major damage to hulls and rudders but it was a whale which got way to close and personal for the Australians liking.

“I had an Aquarian below the boat, including a marlin, a pod of dolphins and a school of tuna,’’ said Wardley who watched them on a Go-Pro camera she attached to a window squidgee for some nautical TV.

“It was beautiful. Fortunately the marlin was only interested in the tuna below the boat.

“I also saw a couple of whale/ One lobbed up alongside the boat to check me out but another one popped up so close it was really scary. A few more seconds and it would have come up beneath me.

“You see these big creatures around and it makes you feel very small. It was about double the size of Tic Tac.’’

With better currents ahead Wardley could well break the solo women’s record for the crossing of 55 days.

Wardley is rowing to help raise funds for the Chumpy Pullen foundation.

Liz Wardley is rowing solo.

Liz Wardley is rowing across the Atlantic. Pic: Micky Montoya

EARLIER: ‘IT’S MARGINAL WHICH IS CRAZIER, THIS OR THE SYDNEY TO HOBART’

Australian Liz Wardley has raced alongside members of The Monaco royal family, with the world’s best round the world sailors and in the deadly Sydney to Hobart yacht race back in 1998 when just 21.

She has survived horrendous conditions, storm tempests, major dramas at sea, nearly been swept overboard and a fair dose of sexism along the way.

Now this well known Volvo round the world sailor, who grew up in PNG and was schooled in Australia, is in the midst of another ocean challenge - in a completely different sport, on a little boat that looks like a half eaten Tic Tac and is eight foot shorter than the little yacht she raced in the 1998 Sydney to Hobart.

And this time when the Hobart fleet set sail on Boxing Day Wardley was on her own, out of sight of land, in a row boat crossing the Atlantic in a challenge even she admits is daunting.

In mid-December Wardley started the Atlantic Challenge in the world’s toughest row race - a body breaking test from La Gomera in Spain, to Nelsons dockyard in Antigua.

SYD-HOB: Wins, miracle rescue

Australian Liz Wardley on her little row boat. Picture: Georgia Schofield

Heading towards a month on, she is still out at sea in the race formerly known as the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge (TWAC) - an epic endeavour involving more than 3000 nautical miles of exertion, sleep deprivation, hunger, pain from blisters, rashes, cramped and fatigued muscles and potentially even hallucinations and dramatic weight loss.

“You’d think I would have learnt wouldn’t you,” laughs Wardley, who was the youngest skipper in the deadly Sydney to Hobart 25 years ago which claimed the lives of six men.

“It’s marginal, which is crazier. This or the Hobart.

“The best part has been discovering how to surf this little beast down Atlantic swell. The worst was getting caught in a low pressure system and having to go under para anchor for a day and then on and off for another day as I slogged upwind to get out of it.’’

Wardley currently has an ETA of early February after around 51 days of solo rowing but is unfazed.

“I’m actually really loving it but it’s been a very hard slog,’’ she said from out at sea.

Liz Wardley at 19 on her yacht Dixie Chicken.

Liz Wardley on Maserati in 2015.

In the infamous 1998 race Wardley skippered her own yacht, the little Dixie Chicken, and during the height of the storm went to render aid to a fellow yacht at the height of the horrendous conditions.

But Wardley, who bases herself in far north Queensland when not in European sailing, said one thing she hadn’t been doing during her epic row is thinking about what happened when a Bass Strait bomb in the form of a deep depression low blew the yacht race apart, triggering a massive maritime disaster.

Australian sailor Liz Wardley went on to become a round the world racer.

“There are so many memories out of that race. You never forget it,” she said.

“But I don’t think I should be thinking about it. I won’t let myself think about it in this crossing.

“But I did learn a lot. Most people around me are concerned that I don’t have fear.

“Fear is an important emotions on a boat but I can’t afford to let it overwhelm me.

“But having lived through something like that the 1998 Sydney to Hobart you have a different height for your preparations. You make sure everything is perfect.”

But even the best preparations aren’t able to shield Wardley from the sheer pain of what she is doing - and a long list of nasty medical issues.

Liz Wardley down below in her row boat Tic Tac. Picture: Georgia Schofield

Pre-race she experimented with gardening gloves, rugby gloves and sailing and rowing gloves to determine which affords her the mist relief from callouses and open blisters - an occupational hazard of the race.

Less than a week in she had open blisters on her hands.

Skin infections, the sailors curse of guwhale bum - a painful and nasty rashes cause by salt water and wet clothing - are another, along with mental and physical fatigue, muscle spasms, painful cramps and general stiffness and discomfort.

“Tic Tac is 7 metres and 1.6m wide. It’s not comfortable,” she said

“There’s nowhere to sit and relax, nowhere you can relax or stretch all your muscles, even lying down you are rolling around.

“I am using a foam wedge seat I can fit in the cockpit and rest my back against the hatch.”

Wardley’s hands showing the brunt of her new passion.

Her medical kit contains an assortment of things from antibiotics and sun screens and an assortment of creams for chapping and rashes and treatment for stomach issues.

“Sea sickness is a big one. I’ve never been sea sick fishing, in the round the world race or on a yacht but I’ve made myself sick in the row boat reading a manual in the cabin,” she said.

“All of a sudden I went ‘oh no, I’m sea sick. This is what it is about’. I experimented and found something that helps.”

There are also issues with a diet of predominantly freeze dried food causing constipation and making it more crucial than even for Wardley to stay hydrated at all times.

“You get clogged up and it’s not fun,” she said.

“I’m taking in 3500 calories a day - 2000 in meals and the rest in snacks and I get in between three and four litres of fluid a day.

“Then you have to pee and that’s difficult. I just have to use a bucket. The constant movement of the boat doesn’t make it easy.’’

But she has had to contend with far worse at sea in the past.

Aside from the Sydney to Hobart in 1998, she has raced through the treacherous southern ocean, been on a yacht which has done a Chinese job – in layman’s terms a death roll where the boat is slammed on its side with the mast laid on top of the water - and competed in famous solo challenges, including the Solitaire Figuaro.

In the Volvo round the world race, sailors spend more than a month at sea with interrupted sleep, high levels of fatigue and stress and volatile weather conditions occupational hazards.

She has rounded Cape Horn on numerous occasions, battled cyclonic winds and seas, nearly been pulled overboard when her foot became hooked in a line and assorted other mini dramas.

She even did much of her round the world race in 2001/02 when just 20 without waring shoes.

But if anyone knows how to strip down an engine, fathom hydraulics and effect repairs on the run, it’s Wardley.

“The thing that's hard is just getting from one end of the row boat top the other,’’ she said.

“The movement never stops. It’s just tippy, and everything is a struggle.

“But it’s mother nature. You just have to find your race rhythm.

Australian Liz Wardley is rowing solo in the crossing.

Crews who competed in a past Atlantic crossing have told harrowing stories of losing masses of weight, hallucinations, eye infections, and in the case of an Australian crew, being stalked by a marlin during the 2020 assault on the ocean rowing event.

The marlin repeatedly rammed the rudder of the Road Less Travelled team with the crew also tossed upside down by a rogue race wave in the middle of a storm.

When told the marlin story, Wardley laughed.

“Don’t tell me any more,’’ she said.

“If there’s a marlins stalking me, I’ll stay on deck.’’

It hasn’t happened yet to Wardley but it has happened in this race to another crew.

A women’s team were attacked by an eight-foot-long spearhead fish 1000nm from land when a marlin pierced their hull three times, forcing the crew to make emergency repairs.

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