We’ve both done some fairly daring things in the past – Rachel with her scuba diving (including with sharks), water skiing, surfing, getting her motorcycle licence and driving a rally car – Lin with abseiling down Chester Cathedral, parascending and spending 3 months in Kenya on Operation Raleigh.

Being the type of women willing to take on a challenge is what led to us taking on the Atlantic Rowing Challenge but something that we have found ourselves doing recently took a lot more courage than we were prepared for. Publicity for our challenge is one of the main keys to raising funds and awareness, not only for us, but for our chosen charity Breast Cancer Care.

So we have been working really hard to get the publicity we need and consequently have found ourselves in a bit of media frenzy. As well as the large amount of local newspaper coverage, Rachel did a live interview for BBC Radio Coventry and a recorded interview for Dee 106.3 and Lin did a recorded interview for Lantern FM in Devon. We were also filmed for ITV’s Granada Reports (our first time out in a double scull together!), we’ve been auditioned for Ready Steady Cook and Lin has met with a media production company who are interested in producing a documentary for us (subject to finding a broadcaster). However, nothing could prepare us for this particular publicity activity. Splash News Agency has signed us up for exclusive interviews before and after our challenge that they will then syndicate to women’s lifestyle magazines.

Our first interview was in Richmond where we arranged to combine it with a photo shoot using Jan Meek’s ocean rowing boat ‘Carpe Diem’. After spending a number of hours scrubbing the decks (and removing dead things!) to make her look nice and clean, we took the photographer and our interviewer across the river and behind a small island to give us some privacy from the public who were enjoying the lovely sunny day by the river. This was so we could demonstrate what it will really be like at sea when we’re rowing naked and capture some nice Calendar Girls style shots for the magazines. Not all the shots were of us in the nude – thankfully – but we did find it much harder than we thought we would, summoning up the courage to take clothes off in the open air, in front of strangers, is tougher than you might think. Being photographed in our birthday suits was an experience that we found pretty embarrassing and we did have to remind ourselves why we were doing it – it’s for Breast Cancer Care.

We’d also like to thank James Cracknell for his wise words of advice – ‘Sell the naked thing, the press pick up on that.’ James, we did it! As one magazine has already bought the story, we have to feel good about what we are doing. It’s for a great cause and hopefully we won’t have to do it again!

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