Plenty of ex-mariners were on hand to shake their heads at our naivety, especially when they found out we had no real sailing experience … and had never rowed.
I was working in London as a dry-cargo shipbroker for HSBC Shipping Services (now Hartland). My rowing partner, Ben Stenning, was a ship’s agent for Bollore in Ghana. The idea had originated seven years before at university, and had subsequently been fuelled by a few glasses of red wine and disillusionment with our first jobs, the daily commute, the depressing flat.
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