A 23-year-old from east Yorkshire has set an event record in a 3,000-mile solo rowing challenge across the Atlantic.
Miriam Payne, from Market Weighton, set off from La Gomera in the Canary Islands on 12 December 2022 with the aim of reaching Antigua in the Caribbean within two months as part of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge – described by its organiser as “the world’s toughest row”.
Payne crossed the finish line in Antigua in the early hours of the morning on 10 February, beating the previous record in this event by two hours and 38 minutes. In total, she rowed for 59 days, 16 hours and 36 minutes, making her the fastest solo female in this race to date.
Back on dry land, Payne said the overwhelming feeling was tiredness. “When you get close to the finish, you can hear your family. I actually had a big energy burst,” she told the Guardian. “I’ve slept a bit but not much just because I feel really awake, which is weird. The last eight miles felt so hard because it was so close to the finish. By the end, I had nothing left to give.”
There were a few hiccups along the way, with the problems she faced beyond her control, such as the weather. “Luckily everything went relatively smoothly. It was a bit testy in the last week because I almost capsized a couple of times and that was really scary,” she said.
She added: “The week before last, I thought I wasn’t going to get the record any more because the wind dropped and I was going nowhere. There was one day where I rowed for 18 hours and I got less than 10 miles, so that was pretty demoralising. I could just feel the race record slipping away.”
The physics graduate said she hoped to raise awareness and money for the charities Wellbeing of Women and Mind, Hull and east Yorkshire, through the challenge. According to Atlantic Campaigns, the organiser of the challenge, Payne has already raised more than €13,000 (£11,400).
Throughout the endurance event, known as one of the toughest in the world, Payne stayed calm and positive, rowing for more than 15 hours a day in temperatures above 30C (86F), and often in strong winds.
During parts of the row, when she was just over 1,000 miles from Antigua, Payne was closer to someone on the International Space Station than anyone on land. “I felt in my own little world most of the time. I didn’t really have much of a concept of anything that was going on back home.”
Her mother, Alison Payne, told the Guardian: “As a family, we are all so very excited for Miriam and overwhelming proud of her achievement.”
After three years of planning, Payne’s parents waved her off from La Gomera. In a blogpost on her website, Alison Payne said she was “not without tears” when they said goodbye. “It was an emotional sight for us, and not without tears. Saying that, as parents we had an immense sense of pride watching Miriam row off into the distance and thinking about all she had achieved in recent years,” she wrote.
Payne vlogged the experience on her Instagram and TikTok, updating family and supporters with her progress and sharing videos about life alone at sea, such as what she was eating and how she cleaned her boat, Jack Keane. Her family have shared videos of their daughter enjoying an Irn-Bru.
She spent Christmas Day alone at sea, but spoke to her family twice. In a vlog, she said: “Happy Christmas from somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a weird one today, it doesn’t feel like Christmas. Not the most festive setting I guess, is it?”
Payne said she planned to take on another challenge, but not anytime soon. “There’ll be something next, I don’t know what yet. I guess I need to focus on career for a little bit for a while, but they’ll be another big adventure. I just need a bit of time to recover from this one.”
• This article was amended on 13 February 2023 to remove references stating that this was the fastest cross-Atlantic row by a solo female; the record is for this particular event.
