Here they would have to spend birthdays, christmas, new year. The trip is going to take between 30-40 days.
And yes, you read that right. They need to calm all the way only with the help of four oars and a little wind. In intervals of two hours they must alternate on the team of two men ro in two hours and sleep for two hours. Without a stop.
“It’s like being thrown into a dryer, where it is screwed up for omdrejningerne,” says the 32-year-old Lasse Wulff Hansen, who is the only one of the men who have rowed trip before.
the Trip, to go out on, called ‘Atlantic Challenge’ is a challenge where 35 teams in each of his rowboat cover the approximately 4800 kilometres from the canary island of La Gomera to the island of Antigua in the caribbean archipelago.
“I fear those nights where it just gets dark, and the waves are extremely violent. But I expect that the courage grows with us over time,” said Michael Lynge, who must keep 50-årsfødselsdag on the Atlantic ocean the 13. december.
throughout the trip we will be here at B. T. provide you with current updates about what’s happening on the water. In addition, In the coming weeks be able to read the reports from the medical personnel at the følgebåden, the men’s family and much else.
Including, you can meet the four men
It is not a perfectly safe trip, and therefore, four of the men trained in more than ten months before the Thursday, take the first tag in the veins.
After 10 hours there is no cellular coverage. After two days, they are too far away for a rescue helicopter could reach them.
“We were out on the first training on the Atlantic ocean on Monday. I took myself to look out over the horizon and think: ‘Wow, it becomes a game’,” says Anders Nørregaard, who is one of the four men.
But they do it not just for themselves. The rudder for a good purpose: PTSD-affected veterans.
That they have chosen to support veterans with the disorder PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, there is a good reason for that.
With the team is Mikkel Schmidt, who themselves suffer from PTSD.
“I have PTSD, and it has guided me in many years. I have said no to virtually everything,” he says.
It is important for him to get the opportunity to be an inspiraton to others who are suffering from the same.
“Now, I take ownership of my PTSD – I don’t live for it anymore.”
today, he is no longer in the Defence, but working at a school for theatre and performing arts as støttelærer for young people, who, like him, even have it mentally difficult.
In his defense, he was issued four times. Three times in Afghanistan, and one of the three times was together with Lasse Wulff Hansen.
“I was in Afghanistan in 2009. It has been been on, and I have the red tape a little with the psyche. It was something that had space to think about and clean up out on the water,” he tells about the trip over the Atlantic ocean, he was on in 2018.
Just to get the thought out all the dark places in his head is something that Mikkel Schmidt looks forward to.
“All the demons that have lived within me for the last year, I nudge on the shoulder. And so they must be thought through. Each a small black corner must be visited,” he says.
Although he knows that it is not safe, that the trip at sea will help him further, so he hopes that he can change the dark thoughts mode.
“They must be made weightless, so they don’t fill me anymore,” says Mikkel Schmidt.
