ROWING:Christmas and the New Year is the time for anniversaries and for remembering. But over the next few days Gearóid Towey and Ciarán Lewis will revisit the moments when either one could have lost his life.
On January 8th last year their attempt to row across the Atlantic ended when their small craft capsized and had the stern torn off. Towey and Lewis survived for hours in the wild Atlantic in a small life raft before being rescued by a Spanish tanker.
Towey, extraordinarily, was back in the Irish international rowing programme within weeks and went on to take a bronze medal at the World Championships in August with the Ireland lightweight four.
He said yesterday it was only after the World Championships he really got a chance to relax and cast his mind back over the awful events of that January day.
One of the questions people asked was why they didn't stay with the boat, but Towey recalls the moment of parting in vivid detail.
"When the boat turned over, it was in bits, it was floating, (but) the hull was barely over the surface of the water. The life raft was underneath, of course, so we needed to get that out. Once we had it out and inflated, we jumped into it and held on to the boat," he said. "We had a line going out to where the boat was, but we were really afraid that the boat would puncture the life raft, so we kept it at a good distance.
"I had the line in my hand. The conditions were so bad that the life raft was filling up with water every 10 minutes with the waves crashing in on it.
"A wave would hit like a f***ing steam train. One of them hit us really badly and I lost the line. That was when we lost contact with the boat."
Over the Christmas just gone, Towey says he got a feel for what it was like for his family back home, who were "thinking of you all the time". But even after the misery of the row and its terrible end, Towey says he would not rule out another go.
Lewis, too, has not been turned off challenges by the experience. Right now he's back in the Canaries, the starting point for the Atlantic race - training for an Iron Man triathlon in May.
