Updated 18/08/11 - Well I made it everyone! It was very hard work and has left my hands in tatters but I'm feeling good! I lost 3kg, 3" from my waist line, increased my chest by 1", my arms are looking huge and my stamina is way up. And on top of all that we've raised almost £1100 for the Mission. AND.. I go on leave today! I would like to thank you all again for your donations and support, I'm sure it will go a long way to help support less fortunate seafarers world wide.

Updated on Aug 1st 2011 at 8:02 PM from the JustGiving API

Just received confirmation from Farstad Shipping that they will be donating £400 towards the challenge. I would like to thank Farstad very much for such a generous donation and their on going support for my challenge.

Hello everyone, thank you so much for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I am so pleased that I am able to do some fund raising for the Mission to Seafarers, they are a fantastic charity, which I'm sure most of us have called in on at some point in our career for anything from a phone card to a friendly ear. I also would like to thank Farstad Shipping and Nautilus for their support with this challenge.

I shall hopefully be updating the page as I go along with daily snapshots of my rowing distances and maybe the odd sweaty shot of myself hard at work!

My challenge is as follows:

I am to row 300km at level 10 on a Concept 2 Rowing Machine, over my next 28 day trip at sea on board the Far Splendour. I join the ship on 22nd July and leave on the 19th August.

I have sat and worked this out, I need to row 12km a day for the first 10 days of the trip and then 10km a day for the rest. I use the rowing machine a lot on board, however have found it difficult to make the 10km mark every day. Hence why I call this a Challenge! It takes me around 5 minutes to row 1km on the Concept 2 rowing machine and I find that it is a good pace.

Also, as I'm sure you are all aware, I am not the skinniest of beans out there - so for every kg I shed, I'll throw £10 in the pot.

Thank you all again for visiting and please give what you can. All donations big or small will be very much appreciated.

Yours aye,

Mark Hart, 2nd Mate

(01/08/11) - Hello everyone following my progress on here. All is well and im over a third of the way there now. My aches and pains are starting to lessen and I really am getting into this now (I feel like I'm over the hump). For those of you checking out my times in my photos, I'm only allowed 10 photos on here at a time so thats why you can't see my early rows anymore. I can't believe everyone has been so generous and we've raised almost £400 so far. I'm not sure if the £2000 target is realistic, however I'm still going to go for it. Hopefully, I will be able to get a piece in the Nautilus Telegraph and hopefully that will boost the cash level. Also, although my weight did go down at the begining, it is starting to increase again to its initial level. I put this down to adding muscle as my trousers are loosening. SO, for every inch off the waistline, I'll stick £10 in the pot. £20 so far!!!