Cambridge student completes solo Atlantic row

A student from Cambridge has completed a solo row across the Atlantic Ocean.

21-year-old university student Zara Lachlan departed from Lagos on the Portuguese Algarve on Sunday 27th October 2024.

97 days 9 hours and 20 minutes later, she made history as the first female (and youngest person) to row solo, unsupported and non stop from mainland Europe to mainland South America.

Zara rowed 3,600 nautical miles (4,100 miles) to French Guiana, despite injuries, a broken oar, vicious weather, encounters with orcas and sharks, and a near collision with a larger vessel.

Having just completed her physics degree at Loughborough University, Zara, will be joining the Army on her return as a technical officer.

Zara said it was a gruelling and fantastic adventure:

"It felt like it was not only the end of the challenge but, the culmination of a longer mission to get me here, to prepare me for this challenge and then to take on the Atlantic – and make it!

"It was tough. At some points really tough. But it's in those moments you find out what you’re really made of. In many ways I didn’t really have a choice - I just had to grit my teeth and row."

Through this challenge Zara has hoped to inspire women and girls into sport and she is also planning to host a talk from the ocean for schools across the UK.

She has been raising money for two charities through her record-breaking trip, Team Forces and Women in Sport.