THREE dads with no sailing experience will row across the Atlantic ocean in a gruelling challenge usually reserved for the toughest athletes.

Matt Garman, 52, from Rother Road in Seaford, will be joined by his two friends, Neil Furminger, 57, and Steve Woolley, 46, aboard a specially made vessel for the 3,000-mile journey from La Gomera in the Canary Islands to Nelson’s Dockyard in Antigua and Barbuda.

The Ocean Dadventure team will set off on December 12 for the six-week trip, where they will face “sleep deprivation, hallucinations, hunger, and the ultimate test of body and mind”, according to the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge website.

The Argus: The specially made boat that the trio will call home for six weeksThe specially made boat that the trio will call home for six weeks

Matt, who has previously participated in the Ironman endurance event, said: “I was chatting with Neil once at a rugby function, and his wife said, ‘It’s about time you did another one of your challenges, Matt’.

“To which my wife said, ‘well you’ll never guess what he’s planning on doing now, he wants to row across the Atlantic’. And of course, Neil wouldn’t stop texting me for the next couple of days, so we said let’s stop just talking about it and signed up.”

The pair convinced Steve to join the team before acquiring a boat in May 2021.

The Argus: Left to right: Neil, Steve and MattLeft to right: Neil, Steve and Matt

“We’ve been doing a lot of training in the winter on rowing machines, but now we’re into better weather there’s a lot more physically happening on the boat.

“We’re getting stuck in and it’s good. We’re up to about 140 hours on the water, the longest one we’ve done is 24-hour, we’ve got a 36-hour row scheduled in May.

The challenge will also raise money for Prostate Cancer UK after Matt’s father died of the cancer, and the Wolo Foundation which supports families suffering from cancer.

There will be up to 30 teams taking part in the race, with teams comprising between one and five members.