Rachel and Lin met up with her for the first time in her new livery at Henley Women's Regatta in June, and you certainly can't miss her!

Despite the rain and mud bath that was Henley, the team generated a lot of interest over the 3 days and had some good success with fundraising and gaining new sponsors. They also had the luxury of staying at a friends lovely cottage just a couple of miles away and thoroughly enjoyed even more luxury in the form of a hot tub in the garden for a bit of relaxation after hte long days at the event.

They've also had a run of luckin bringing on new kit sponsors. Kit and equipment is vital to the challenge and everyone who donates kit frees up more funds for Breast Cancer Care. Following the lead of solo rower Roz Savage, our team contacted Kakadu in Australia to buy some gloves to row in. As soon as John and Helen Korkou from Kakadu heard about the charity side of hte challenge, they offered 3 pairs of their famous golf gloves (ideal for ocean rowing) to the team.

In the same week, this was followed up with the offer of made to measure shhpskin seats from Easirider, who are more accustomed to fitting out motorbike seats than rowing seats. But have experience after making covers for the Rowgirls team in the last race. Shortly afterwards, Lin arrived home one night to find a package waiting from Yakpads in the USA. With the innovative neoprene covered gel pads they make for canoeists and kayakers, our team should have the best kept tushies in the business!

The pair have also been finalising some long-standing sponsorship deals and have spoken to G-Comm (satellite phones and airtime), Avon Inflatables (life raft) and Garmin (hand held GPS's) to talk over the packages and delivery dates. The team must complete 48 hours living onboard and want to make sure they have all the kit onboard the boat by the time they do this in order to make sure they can test all the systems properly.

At the end of June they travelled to London to meet up with the team from Plain Sailing, who are now on the water for their annual 'Rount Britain Experience' sailing trip. Confirmed as silver sponsors, Plain Sailing have provided both a cash donation to the challengeand a voucher to entitle both rowers to take their 10 day, Day Skipper qualification on their return from the challenge.

The next day brought a 5am start to collect the boat from MDL Marinas, Hamble Point and heading into Teddington (with Rachel towing for the very first time) to the Teddington River Festival. With mixed weather, the event picked up as the day went on and the team thoroughly enjoyed their time there. The festival is an annual event and althought the recent rain meand that the river was flowing too fast to launch hte boat, the team found a handy spot next to the RNLI stand from which to meet supporters and answer endless questions about the challenge.

Other fundraising events have also been taking place, run by team supporters. Joanne Blundell teamed up with Weymouth Swimming Pool and ran a rowing machine challenge, raising £150. Meanwhile in the North, the New Cross Singers took part in a sponsored sing, working thie way through 50 watery songs in 2 hours of non-stop singin, raising £900.

But the next big fundraising events are an appearance at Asda in Swindon on 21 July, and then four days at Strensham Services on the M5 from 27-30 July, pop along and say hello if you're in the area. The team are also planning a big party on a Thames boat on 20th October - and everyone's invited. Keep checking the news online to find out more about ticket prices and what's included.

Pretty in Pink!

Question of the Month - What do you get asked most often?

There are several questions that crop up regularly for Lin and Rachel, but at the recent Teddington River Festival 'How long will it take?' seemed to pip the others to the post. The answer is 70-100 days; they would like to beat the British Women's record of 75 days, but know htat this has to take plenty of factors into consideration before coming a reality! After answering  the question around 200 times, thed did find that the words actually started to sound strange and both women suffer from sore throats and husky voices the day after an event!

Other common questions are 'When do you go?' normally closely followed by 'Oooh, isnt' that the wrong time of year?' - incidentally, the answer's no, it's exactly the right time of year! And on a day to day basis, they often get asked how the training is going - this generally relates to the physical side of their preparations.