“Those final few hours were brutal. The wind was pushing us off the channel, and we honestly thought we weren’t going to make it,” says Jess Rowe. Along with Miriam Payne, she’s just finished an immense rowing ordeal. The pair arrived in Cairns, Australia on Saturday after rowing from Peru, an adventure that took 165 days at sea and spanned 8,213 nautical miles.
But they nearly didn’t make it. After starting in April – and again in May – the pair suffered several potential row-ending emergencies. And, on 21 July, the intake filter broke off their emergency watermaker.
“Then came watermaker failures: burst pipes, endless repairs and some days spent hand-pumping. Even our emergency unit broke, leaving us to improvise a fix for the filter.”
The electric watermaker couldn’t be used due to power issues, so the team’s only option was to come up with a DIY solution – otherwise they’d be forced to quit.
The answer was Payne’s Calvin Klein underwear.
“After nine pipe fixes, we finally discovered a bypass that kept us going.”
This video shows her plumbing skills which kept the mission afloat.
Mental challenges afloat and back on land
“We’ve not walked for nearly six months and so this is going to be exhausting,” says the female duo.
“We’ve used a totally different set of muscles on the boat than we’ll need on land so bad backs and sore muscles will be the norm until we regain our strength.
“From experience after rowing 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean in 2022 we know that this will take a few months. In addition, we have six months of sleep deprivation to catch up on, and we’ll likely need a lot more than the standard eight hours for a while.”
A complicated start for first female pair to row Pacific
Getting to Australia wasn’t easy – especially the start. “Our start was delayed and just six days in, our rudder snapped beyond repair. The spare had started to delaminate too and after desperate attempts to improvise a solution, it looked like the dream could be over.
“Drifting toward international waters, we faced losing not just the row but our boat. Then came our hero: Alec Hughes, who paused his round-the-world sail to tow us 350 miles back to shore, saving the expedition.
“With new rudders and a tight cyclone-season deadline, we relaunched just in time. But the ocean had more in store. Cold, cloudy skies, no tailwinds and major power issues forced us into ‘ghost ship’ mode, with most electronics shut down. Our parents have been keeping a watch from home, tracking nearby vessels since we had no AIS alarm.”
“The first 3,000 miles offered no following seas — just cross winds, crashing waves, seas like treacle and salt sores.”
But, the pair say that the ocean has given back in ways that made every hardship worth it. “We’ve rowed beneath skies crowded with stars, with the Milky Way stretched overhead and shooting stars bright enough to light up the night. We’ve shared the sea with sea lions, dolphins, a sperm whale, turtles and seabirds we’ve come to know like neighbours. We grew fresh greens on board and even caught a yellowfin tuna—a feast after months of freeze-dried meals.”
Brutal heat boosts batteries
This time, while the heat was brutal – especially in the run-in to Australia, the team says at least it boosted the batteries. “After 6,000 miles like a ghost ship, the joy of finally switching on our chart plotter again was immense.”
And, even before making land, the team announced that it’d smashed its charity fundraising target of £50,000 with the fundraising total now at an amazing £95,000 + for The Outward Bound Trust.
Paying tribute to her crewmate Rowe says she “wouldn’t have done it with anyone else”, and that the pair are “excited to plan new adventures together”.
In August last year, Jess Rowe, who works for DG Maritime as a navigation account manager told MIN she likes taking on big challenges. It runs in the family (her father, Nick Rowe, rowed across the Atlantic in a pair back in 2005). So she skippered a team across the Atlantic Ocean in 2022 as part of the World’s Toughest Row. That had its challenges, she says, but not enough to put her off.
What happened to the third rower from Seas the Day?
At that point the team was expected to also include Lottie Hopkinson-Woolley, who was new to rowing. Hopkinson-Woolley did not make the final cut. In Spring 2025, she posted on LinkedIn to express her frustration.
“For nearly two years, I was preparing to row across the Pacific as part of the Seas the Day Ocean Rowing Team. I left my job, trained relentlessly, and took on critical responsibilities — managing shipping logistics, working on the boat, and securing sponsorships. Then, just 24 days before we were due to fly to Peru, my teammates decided they would continue without me — without warning and without a contract to protect me,” she says.
According to Hopkinson-Woolley, the remaining rowing team issued a statement saying: “Seas the Day Ocean Rowing Team will now be continuing as a pair, with Miriam and Jess rowing the Pacific together, while Lottie embarks on her own new adventure.”
Hopkinson-Woolley says that might suggest she chose to leave, but that was not the case. “The decision was not mine, and I was left with no formal agreement to fall back on.”
Sports teams need formal contracts
With that in mind, she warns people – when committing to a major project – get it in writing. “No matter how strong a relationship is at the start, things can change, people can change. Without clear agreements, people can be left vulnerable.”
She says that in sports teams – and other areas of life – verbal agreements are not enough and advocates contracts that outline financial contributions & responsibilities, decision-making processes and what happens if someone exits (voluntarily or not). Hopkinson-Woolley is now looking for sponsorship to embark on an Atlantic rowing crossing with her partner Ethan Chapman to raise money for the RNLI.
The post How knickers saved rowing adventure for first female pair to conquer Pacific appeared first on Marine Industry News.
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