Waiheke Island.

START: MOTUIHE ISLAND

FINISH: WAIHEKE ISLAND NORTH SHORE

DISTANCE FROM AUCKLAND: 23.5KM

DISTANCE FROM TONGA: 1975.5KM

THIS will be the last daily blog on my attempt to row the South Pacific on a indoor rowing machine, otherwise these will get tedious.

Today was the longest time I have ever spent on a rowing machine, a whopping 50 minutes, and good God did my arse tell me, almost non stop for the last quarter of an hour.

But like a cyclist and his saddle or human being and a new pair of shoes, a comfortable relationship between rower and seat is one that is forged over time.

So anyway, I have made it onto the north side of Waiheke Island after today completing 10.5km on the Concept2 machine in Les Mills gym, rowing one-minute sprint intervals followed by a standard pace.

I am about one third of the distance to the Coromandel Peninsula, which I hope to have reached and left by the time I upload this blog next Sunday. There’s a long way until I complete the first leg of this trip, Auckland to Tonga.

Last weekend we officially welcomed on board our 4th crew member for the Great Pacific Race, James Wight. We’d been put in touch with James about a month ago by Chris from New Ocean Wave as he’d been looking for a crew to join. After a few weeks of Skype meet ups and phone calls, Sam, Colin and I (Fraser) had pretty much already made our mind up that he was the perfect man to complete the team.

As Sam currently lives on the Channel Islands, we’d arranged our meetup with James to coincide with meeting the Team Atlantic Splash (http://www.rowtheatlantic2013.co.uk/team.html twitter: @atlanticsplash) guys who we’d been chatting with over Twitter, email and phone for a few weeks.

The team t-shirts. iPhone cameras need to stop being so lazy and put some more effort in.

Sam and James made their way to my house in Tunbridge Wells – Sam bringing with him the team t-shirts he had arranged getting printed – where the plan was to head down to the Folkestone Regatta in Sandgate to grab a beer and meet the Atlantic Splash guys.

Just prior to the guys making it to my house, we received a text from Atlantic Splash’s Bastien that they were having issues with their trailer. One of their wheel bearings had gone so were unable to make it to Folkestone and were sat on the side of the road waiting for the AA to come and recover them.

It just so happened that the road they were on the side of was in Tunbridge Wells. Less than a mile from my front door! We hopped in my car (lazy I know – but it was cloudy…. don’t judge me) and headed over. Despite the circumstances they were a very chirpy and an incredibly friendly and welcoming bunch, though that could have partly been due to the Big Macs that had arrived just before us. We spent a couple of hours with them chatting at the side of the road and they kindly gave us a look around their boat which, judging by all the looks it was getting from passing cars, was as interesting to the general population of T.Wells as it was to us.

In one of the passing cars was Scott Gilcrest who rowed the Atlantic in 2002. Scott is originally from Newcastle but now living in Tunbridge Wells.

l-r: James Wight, Fraser Hart, Sam Collins, Scott Gilcrest, Neal Marsh, Bastien Leclair, Tom Hyland

We said our farewells to Atlantic Splash and James, Sam and I headed over to a town centre watering hole for a pint and a sunday roast where we officially offered him the 4th spot on the team, to our delight we hadn’t put him off and he accepted.

Welcome aboard James!

Motuihe Island. Technically I am here and not in a gym.

START: AUCKLAND HARBOUR

END: MOTUIHE ISLAND

DISTANCE FROM AUCKLAND: 13KM

DISTANCE FROM TONGA: 1986KM

I LEFT Auckland Harbour bound for Tonga on Thursday June 13 on my stationary row across the South Pacific, and rowed for little more than 30 minutes on subsequent days.

A goal of 19km per day has been set to get me to Hawai’i before the start of the Great Pacific Race, which is due to start in June 2014. The first leg ends in Tonga, 1996km from Auckland.

It will be ridiculously tough to accomplish this, but if I can, it should set me in good stead for next year’s race.

So I currently sit on the other side of Motuihe Island, some 13km from Auckland Harbour. On Thursday I rowed 6100 metres in 30 minutes, on Friday I completed 6900 metres in 32 minutes.

On the Friday session I used the interval function on the machine, sprinting for one minute and rowing at a more maintainable pace for the following nine minutes, with a peak stroke rate of 42/min.

The beautiful islands of the South Pacific.

IT’S Thursday June 13 2013; there are precisely 359 days to go before the scheduled start of the Great Pacific Race in Monterey, USA.

The race is 2100 miles long, which I have covered by airplane within a day; by car in a couple of months; and through walking, cycling and running combined in around two years.

The task next year is to row that distance, which will end up being a few clicks more as we get pushed back by currents and probably take a wrong turn somewhere, in about five weeks.

Apart from the inflatable dinghy with the orange plastic oars you get while on holiday in France, I have never rowed a moveable vessel of any kind, yet Team Pacific Rowers plans to win the inaugural race.

There is a trinity of reasons we will be at the start line in California next year: adventure, to raise awareness of a particular cause (as yet to be confirmed), and to lift the still to be named trophy presented to the first team of four to cross the line in Honolulu.

So, with less than a year to go training has now started. I have been in contact with West End Rowing Club in Auckland who have said will contact me when their next ‘learn to row’ sessions start, hopefully sometime in August, and sea kayaking will be another way of building fitness.

But plenty of training will be taking part in the gym, on the lesser used rowing machine. Let’s be frank, rowing machines, like most cardiovascular fitness machines, are flipping dull. Motivation will be needed.

To keep this up, as it were, I have decided to spend the next year rowing 7052km from Auckland to Hawai’i, from the discomfort of a rowing machine. That’s little more than 19km every day, for the next 12 months.

In fact it will be more. Although I do not have currents or navigation problems to deal with, I do plan to visit a few islands on the way to Honolulu, which takes me a little bit adrift from a direct route.

As I leave the isthmus of Auckland land will be visited often on the first few days, but the sea to Tonga is rarely punctuated after that.

From Tonga it is onto Samoa, then Christmas Island, and then Hawai’i. In this perverse fantasy I will cross the Tropic of Capricorn, the Equator, and the International Date Line.

The feat will take place in the gym, with any mileage covered while kayaking taken into consideration. Currently I use the Les Mills gym on Victoria Street West in Auckland.

I am blogging about this to prevent me failing, knowing it is on record and therefore must keep going.

So leg one, from Auckland to Tonga, is 1996 kilometres, which means I should make it by the end of September. Keep following and spread the word.

Colin Parker

We have a mention in the Monterey Herald. Click the above image to read the full story.

WITH confirmation in Monterey this week that the first Great Pacific Race will leave from the Californian town, Team Pacific Rowers managed to get a mention in the local newspaper.

The Monterey Herald reported race organiser Chris Martin’s announcement that the inaugural ocean rowing event will leave from the city’s marina, and with it a quote from Pacific Rowers crew member Colin Parker.

The team’s Twitter feed was followed by Herald journalist Phillip Molnar, who Colin contacted immediately after leaving a job interview with the NZ Herald in Auckland to see if assistance was needed with any story he was writing.

Phillip replied that a quote was required, so one was pinged to the reporter from a Samsung mobile while riding on a suburban Auckland bus as deadline approached.

With the story of the race now broken, it will now be 13 months of securing media attention to raise awareness of the oceans, and for our corporate sponsors.

@pacificrowers

After a great drive home from work in the best weather we’ve seen yet this year, I walked through the door to find a nice surprise. My New Ocean Wave Pacific Rowing Race entry pack has arrived having only been put in the post yesterday.

In it are race rules & appendices, and information pack, an ocean chart, various forms to fill out and return and a brochure of freeze dried food. I’ve spent the evening poring over the chart and putting together my menu for the weeks at sea. I’m going to be eating a lot better on water than I do on land.

AFTER a lot of hard work and back and forth, Team Pacific Rowers has its official team logo.

Huge thanks to graphic designer, photographer and videographer extraordinaire Tom Crane at Crane Creative in Etchingham, Kent, for putting in the miles on what I think is the sweetest logo I’ve ever seen.

Tom has also done work for Team Boatylicious so he’s fast on his way to becoming the official unofficial graphic designer for the New Ocean Wave Pacific Rowing Race for 2014.

Tom can be contacted through his website: crane-creative.co.uk or via twitter on @Crane_Creative

TODAY marks the day Team Pacific Rowers became an official part of the New Ocean Wave Pacific Rowing Race for 2014.

We’ve paid our deposit and are listed on the entrants page of the New Ocean Wave website. It’s a very exciting time for us. If I wasn’t already reeling from the booze last night, I’d certainly be popping a bottle open to celebrate. Instead, I’ll have to make do with Aspirin, water and bread.

WE are looking for a four-man ocean rowing boat and are currently investigating and following up a number of leads. However, we can never have too many so if you know of a boat on the market please get in touch at info@pacificrowers.com or leave a comment below.