Charlotte Porter has built a reputation across two fast-moving worlds. Sailing circles know her first as a match racer, with her teams Edge Women's Match and 2.0 Racing Team claiming silver at the Women's Match Racing World Championships in 2022, 2024, and 2025. She has more recently taken on the role of Lead Global Physiotherapist with SailGP. Both environments reward clear thinking under pressure and an ability to stay composed when conditions shift without warning. What she is preparing for now shares those qualities and very little else.
Porter is one of four crew members taking on the World's Toughest Row, an unsupported ocean crossing from the Canary Islands to Antigua covering more than 3,000 nautical miles. The format strips everything back: row, eat, sleep in whatever fragments the ocean allows, then row again. That rhythm continues without pause, around the clock, for an expected 45 days. There is no support vessel nearby and, once the crews leave the start line, no easy way out.
A conversation with Kiwis Nikki and Bob Parr, who completed the Atlantic crossing as the oldest mixed pair in the 2025 edition, painted a clear picture of what crews are actually stepping into. That year, some boats were pushed well off course by dust clouds, others by currents and drift, adding miles and days to a schedule that was already punishing enough. The race has a particular talent for grinding people down well before Antigua appears on the horizon.
The physical cost is significant. Crews burn somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 calories a day, and getting adequate nutrition becomes a constant challenge rather than something that can be sorted once and forgotten. Food is selected for density and portability, but most crews pull into Antigua with one thought occupying their minds above all others. Rest happens in the sleeping capsules, taken in short, frequently interrupted blocks that rarely add up to anything resembling enough.
Porter's crew has made a deliberate decision to bring a psychologist into the team's preparation, which says something about where ocean rows are genuinely decided. Fitness and rowing technique both contribute, but neither is what ultimately carries a crew across. As fatigue accumulates and conditions stay indifferent, the question becomes a simpler one: can each person keep showing up, day after day, when nothing has improved and the miles are still stacking up?
The team rows under the name You Row Girl, and the combined experience of its four members maps closely onto the kinds of problems an ocean crossing throws at people. Porter brings her physiotherapy background alongside a Diploma in Paramedic Science. Ruby Scholten, originally from Australia and now living in Southampton, is an emergency nurse who has worked with Porter as an on-water medic during the America's Cup. Hebe Hemming, also based in Southampton, has a boatbuilding background from her work with SailGP. Amy Sparkes, from Poole, manages the financial and organisational side of the campaign.
When gear fails in the middle of the night, when someone needs medical attention 1,500 miles from the nearest shore, when a call has to be made on a few broken hours of sleep and no good options, that particular mix of skills stops being background detail and becomes the thing that actually matters.
Porter is straightforward about what the crossing represents. "It's probably going to be the hardest thing we ever do."
The campaign is raising money for two charities alongside the row itself. CoppaFeel! focuses on early breast cancer detection and education, particularly helping younger people recognise the signs to look for. Women in Sport works to keep women active and involved across all levels. CoppaFeel! became personal for Porter after she discovered a lump herself, an experience that shifted her thinking on the issue considerably.
"It really sparked me to go, OK, this is actually something that younger women face as well. Speaking to my GP and getting referred early for scans and specialist review was the most important thing. Luckily, there were no abnormal findings, but it made me realise how important it is to know what to do and to act quickly if you ever find yourself in that situation."
The crew intends to run practical education sessions in the lead-up to the row as part of that awareness effort.
The start is in San Sebastián, La Gomera, with December still some way off and considerable preparation still ahead. Their boat, Mermaid, resembles a capsule more than any conventional idea of a rowing vessel. She has made the Atlantic crossing twice before and is currently based in Poole, where the crew has been learning her systems and working through what actually needs to be on board. Space is genuinely limited. With four people, all their food, and the necessary equipment already filling the available room, there is no tolerance for anything that cannot justify its presence.
The bulk of training is being run out of Poole, starting with weekend rows and building toward longer blocks as the calendar permits. Night sessions are scheduled deliberately, run when the crew is already tired and working in reduced visibility, because those are the conditions that actually matter. Porter has no illusions about what the ocean will deliver. "You're never going to have perfect technique in an ocean rowing environment."
Working all of this around a full job in New Zealand and regular international travel with SailGP adds another layer of complexity. Training, fundraising, work, and travel commitments overlap constantly, and with crew members spread across New Zealand and the United Kingdom, time zones and coordination become their own ongoing challenge as December draws closer.
The total campaign budget is around £170,000. A meaningful portion has been secured, but there is still a gap to close. As Porter puts it: "There's lots of moving parts… trying to get sponsorship and things organised."
