Fernandina rower’s Atlantic record bid ends eight miles short after grueling battle with tides

By Mike Lednovich/Editor

Fernandina Beach ocean rower Paul Lore and British rowing partner Dawn Smith were only eight miles from completing a 2,500-nautical-mile North Atlantic crossing when exhaustion, dangerous currents and the risk of being swept toward rocks forced them to summon a lifeboat.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution towed the pair and their 28-foot ocean-rowing boat, Penny B, into Newlyn Harbour in southwest England at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday.

The tow brought an unexpected end to the unsupported portion of their crossing from St. John’s, Newfoundland, and may have cost them a potential Guinness World Record. But it did not diminish an extraordinary display of endurance by two rowers who spent 50 days battling the North Atlantic to raise money and awareness for military veterans, service dogs and children affected by a genetic disorder.

Smith said on Facebook Sunday after resting in Newlyn, they planned to put Penny B back in the water and continue rowing along the English coast toward Smith’s hometown of Burnham-on-Crouch.

“We are absolutely not allowing an eight-mile tow to ruin a 2,500-nautical-mile mission,” Smith wrote. “The journey to Burnham-on-Crouch continues.”

The final ordeal began Thursday night as Lore and Smith crossed a busy shipping corridor off the British coast. The Traffic Separation Scheme functions like a highway for large vessels, with ships traveling in designated lanes.

The rowers spent six hours crossing the lanes while continuously monitoring ship traffic, navigation lights and their Automatic Identification System. Neither got meaningful sleep.

By Friday morning, Lore and Smith said they could see land for the first time since leaving Newfoundland June 26. But the celebration quickly became a desperate struggle against coastal tides.

Beginning around 9 a.m., both rowers pulled together as a tidal current of more than 3 knots pushed against Penny B. They eventually reached a point where they could no longer move forward.

“So, we kept rowing anyway,” Smith wrote. “Not to make progress, but simply to try to slow down how quickly we were being pushed backwards.”

The boat began drifting toward a reef, forcing Lore and Smith to make another exhausting push to clear the danger. They then encountered overfalls — steep, confused seas created by the fast-moving tide — that threatened to knock down the boat.

Even after hours at the oars, they found themselves farther from their destination than when the effort began.

When the tide finally turned, they rowed as hard as they could in an attempt to reach shallow water where they could use the boat’s conventional anchor. They came within approximately two miles of a safe anchorage before the tide reversed again and began carrying Penny B backward.

The pair considered continuing around another side of the coast or deploying their parachute anchor. But Lore and Smith determined that using the sea anchor so close to land and among passing vessels could leave them unable to maneuver if another boat approached.

Their only remaining option was to row for another tidal cycle — perhaps 12 more hours — merely to slow their backward drift before attempting the approach again.

Smith said she had gone more than 24 hours without sleep and had spent approximately 12 hours rowing alongside Lore. They had eaten little and taken only brief water breaks.

“I was in pain, exhausted and starting to shake,” she wrote. “There is a point where determination stops being resilience and starts becoming poor decision-making.”

Smith made the call for assistance.

The Penlee RNLI lifeboat crew, dispatched by the Falmouth Coastguard shortly after 11 p.m. Friday, reached Lore and Smith and towed Penny B safely into Newlyn. The lifeboat station reported that the rowers were fatigued, cold and struggling against the conditions.

Smith initially described herself as “devastated beyond words” that the pair had accepted a tow so close to the end. After a meal, a glass of wine and a full night’s sleep, however, she said she began seeing the tow in the context of everything that had preceded it.

“Yesterday morning, that tow was all I could see,” she wrote. “Today, I can see the 2,500 nautical miles that came before it.”

Lore and Smith had endured weeks of headwinds and countercurrents, dense fog, cold rain and days when they could make little or no progress. They deployed their parachute anchor repeatedly, suffered broken oars and survived a knockdown in which the boat was rolled onto its side by a wave.

They maintained an around-the-clock schedule of three-hour rowing shifts, repeatedly leaving warm sleeping bags to put on wet clothing and return to the oars.

Lore’s accounts from the boat documented the same punishing routine: cold, broken sleep and the psychological toll of pulling for hours while adverse currents erased much of their progress. Yet the former Marine and retired air traffic controller continued taking his shifts and, with Smith, helped keep the expedition’s social-media followers engaged with humor and videos from Penny B.

The ordeal was a particularly personal one for Lore, a Fernandina Beach resident who served eight years in the Marine Corps and 30 years as a federal air traffic controller. Before the expedition, he explained that supporting veterans was central to his participation.

“I’m rich in time, and I want to give my time to others,” Lore said. “I want to make a difference in a veteran’s life because they make a difference in my life by protecting us every day.”

The Hometown Row is raising money and awareness for three organizations: Phoenix Heroes, a British group assisting veterans and their families; K9s For Warriors, which provides trained service dogs to veterans; and Penny’s Flight, which supports children and families affected by neurofibromatosis.

The North Atlantic crossing was the third leg of an ambitious route designed to connect Lore’s hometown of Fernandina Beach with Smith’s hometown in England. In January, Lore and Smith rowed from the Canary Islands to Antigua in 44 days, setting a Guinness World Record as the fastest mixed pair to row the Atlantic from east to west. A planned second leg from Antigua to Florida was canceled because of adverse weather.

Smith said she is consulting Guinness World Records to determine whether the North Atlantic crossing could still qualify for recognition because the pair had crossed the longitude of Britain’s westernmost point under their own power before accepting the tow.

But she said a certificate was never the expedition’s principal purpose.

“We just rowed that tiny boat across the North Atlantic,” Smith wrote. “That’s what I’m choosing to remember.”

The rowers planned to resume their journey Sunday, initially rowing about 12 nautical miles to an anchorage before waiting for a favorable tide. Their goal remains to arrive in Burnham-on-Crouch on Aug. 29.

“We’re safe. We’re rested. We’re fed. We’re smiling again,” Smith wrote. “And this afternoon … we’re going rowing.”