Our crew of James Cook, Nick Thompson, Ronnie Rouse, Charlie Nowlan and Sam Vrhovec, are rowing from Barcelona to Ibiza in July 2025 to raise money for the NOMAN Charity.

The Lancashire boat will compete in a race against other crews, covering more than 300km of the Balearic Sea and is likely to take 3-4 days.

During the event we will be fully self-sufficient… rowing, navigating, eating and sleeping!

Individually, and as team, it will take months of physical dedication to prepare us for this challenge including countless hours in the gym (mostly on the rower staring at a blank wall) and on the water, along with the need to pass various safety qualifications.

Whilst we are no strangers to fitness challenges, this event represents a huge undertaking for us all, one we are only willing to endure due to the charity we are supporting.

At the heart of this challenge the goal is to raise as much money as possible for a the hugely worthy cause that is NOMAN.

NOMAN raises awareness about the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) related cancer epidemic in men and women, and campaigns for universal HPV vaccination.

The NOMAN mission is to eliminate 5% of cancers worldwide through global coverage of gender-neutral HPV vaccination programmes. HPV is the causal agent of 5% of all cancers, and we can prevent these simply by vaccinating both boys and girls against HPV.

Since their inception NOMAN have raised over USD 3m and over 60 countries now offer a gender-neutral vaccination versus zero when they began. This is a huge success, but the job is far from done and as you can see from the map below there are plenty of countries still to go in the endeavour to offer the vaccine worldwide.

More information about the great work that NOMAN do around the world and other ways to get involved can be found at the link below.

https://www.nomancampaign.org/

Cancer effects nearly all of us in one way or another much more than anyone would hope. Within our group specifically we have lost, parents, other family members and friends far too early in their life.

It is against that backdrop that we ask you to donate anything you can to this amazing charity that are set on nothing other than making a huge difference around the world.

What you will get from us in return is... 110% effort in our training and time at sea along with far too many updates of our training as we get going in earnest (likely in painful situations wearing dodgy lycra).

Finally, a huge THANK YOU to our employer Lancashire who via their charity foundation have kicked off our fundraising effort with an extremely generous GBP 30,000 donation to this amazing cause.