Women rowing across Pacific approach halfway point

Two British women are approaching the halfway point of an epic 8,000-mile row across the Pacific Ocean.

Miriam Payne, 25, from East Yorkshire, and Jess Rowe, 28, from Hampshire, set off from Peru on 5 May after an earlier attempt failed when their boat broke in rough seas and they had to be rescued by a sailor.

Miss Payne's father, Christopher, said they were about 4,000 miles (6,500 km) away from their target of Australia and had about 12 weeks to go.

The pair had seen "a fantastic amount of wildlife, whales, dolphins, flying fish hitting them in the face", and were regularly stung by jellyfish when cleaning the hull, he added.

"They've seen nothing on the ocean in the way of boats, nobody," Mr Payne told BBC Radio Humberside.

The pair, who call their team Seas the Day, faced a "race against time" to cross the ocean before the start of cyclone season after their rudder broke during an initial attempt at the beginning of April.

They had to be rescued about 350 miles from the coast of Lima and towed back to shore. A Norfolk-based boat builder then worked around the clock to make a replacement rudder.

Miss Payne, from Market Weighton, started rowing when she was at university in Glasgow and completed a solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in 2023.

She met Miss Rowe in Antigua at the finish line of the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge, in February of that year.

Mr Payne said the Pacific challenge had taken three years to plan and there was a team of people in the UK supporting the two rowers.

"They've met the challenge incredibly well because they've had a lot of setbacks," he said.

"They obviously broke the rudder and had to come back, they've got electrical problems, they got water-maker problems so it's make do and mend.

"They'll get through it."

The rowers are raising money for the Outward Bound Trust charity.

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