Rowing: Headwinds slow transatlantic rowers

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

The blazing pace set by the New Zealand men in the transatlantic rowing challenge has been slowed severely by headwinds and sloppy seas with a quarter of the distance still to row.

After 30 days at sea, Steve Westlake and Matt Goodman were forced to use their sea anchor for the first time in the race to try to stop their boat going backwards in headwinds.

At this stage the pair had expected to be covering more than 90 nautical miles a day in an area that usually has favourable trade winds. But the Telecom Challenge boat covered only 26 miles yesterday.

"You go through your good stages and your bad stages in this form of endurance racing - and right now it's really tough," Westlake said.

The chasing Australians on Freedom have suffered the same fate. They covered only 11 miles yesterday, and are 137 behind Westlake and Goodman, who have 700 to the finish line in Barbados.

The New Zealanders are still on target to break the 41-day race record, set by Rob Hamill and Phil Stubbs four years ago.

New Zealand women Jude Ellis and Steph Brown are in third place, with 1000 miles to go, but the Win Belgium brothers narrowed the gap to 17 miles yesterday.