Rowing: In a week when Murphy's Law kicked in, transatlantic rowers Paul Gleeson and Tori Holmes resort to mind games as an anodyne in logistical crises. In this diary entry Tori reveals how Jack Nicholson hallucinations and Lansdowne Road fantasies have helped shorten the ocean

Tori: It has been a disastrous week. I was rowing on Thursday when a 40-foot wave broke on top of the boat. It picked me up and threw me into the sea. The boat almost capsized, and the pieces of metal that hold the oars in their gates bent back and the oars flew out. It was really scary, to be honest. I had to have time in the cabin to recover; I was a bit shaken.

We had to repair the gates, which was pretty difficult - you're leaning over the side with a vice grip in a 40-foot swell.

Now that we've lost two oars we are down to our spares. The ones we lost were the good Canadian ones, so I tell Paul I'm gutted.

It was the start of a litany of things. Paul was rowing and a wave broke over the side of the boat and we lost our music, our MP3 player.

Then we weren't able to make calls on our phone just when we needed to - it's prepaid, and the company, which has our credit card, seems to have closed down over Christmas and the New Year.

The timing was awful because our water-maker packed in again. We went to the manual, and we figure it's the filter, but we haven't been able to fix it.

We went a day rowing without water or food. We didn't want to break into our ballast water because we thought that might lead to disqualification from the race - and we couldn't check with Woodvale, who organise the race, because our phone didn't work.

The next day we again had no water or food, so we just rowed during the day. We were ready to fall over. That stupid phone! We were praying somebody would contact us.

On Monday we finally did break into the ballast water. We won't be disqualified; we'll get time penalties - but that's not a huge issue at this point.

There are 150 litres of ballast water. We figure we'll ration ourselves to five litres a day: two litres each to drink and the rest for rehydrating our food - we're down to two meals a day, a morning one and dinner.

We also have a hand-held pump, which can give us three-quarters of a litre from an hour's pumping, and we'll each do an hour a day. It's gone from a race to a survival game.

We think we can fix the water-maker if we can get the filter off. It's heartbreaking. I don't know if the guy who tightened it was He-Man or what but we can't shift it. The thread on it may be damaged. We spent three hours at it yesterday. It doesn't help that our hands are seizing up.

Even in normal conditions you need to drink about two litres of water a day, so we're pushing the limits. It comes down to heart. We've put so much in. You can't give up; you must at least try to go on.

Paul has lost about a stone and a half. He doesn't think so himself, but he looks a bit like a famine victim. I haven't lost as much - I'd say 10 to 15 pounds. He was 12½ stone and I was eight when we started.

With no music we have to find other ways to occupy our minds when we're not rowing or sleeping. Last night, for example, Paul went to a rugby match with his dad. It was Ireland and Scotland. They travelled up from Limerick, had a few pints. Ireland won 42-24. They both had a great time.

You have to be able to lose yourself. We talk about the food we are going to eat when we get to Antigua. I write letters to my friends. Because we're not drinking as much here you're more sleepy when you're not rowing.

You find yourself looking at things. In the compass I always see Jack Nicholson smiling. You know, like he was when he was the Joker in the Batman film. It starts messing with your mind. It's amazing what your mind comes up with when it has to.

We have our pictures of family and friends to look at. On New Year's Eve we had a mini-bottle of Tia Maria and some sparklers friends gave us. Before midnight I finished my shift and said, "Don't wake me!" So I was asleep as 2006 started.

Paul says he got hit by a flying fish that night - he wished him a Happy New Year.

The physical bit of this is the easy part. When rowing you are so preoccupied you don't even think about the physical hit. When you stop you feel things.

This has been our toughest week. But now we're heading directly west and we have the trade winds behind us it has to get better. It can only get better.

(In an interview with Liam Gorman)

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