The power of POSITIVE

Felicity Ashley was rowing across the Atlantic when she developed some worrying symptoms

- KAREN EVENNETT.

When Felicity Ashley's brother-in-law David signed up to row from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean, she thought he was bonkers. 'Why would anyone want to do that?' she asked his wife - her younger sister Pippa.

But the night David completed his challenge, in January 2020, Felicity set her alarm for 2am to watch live on Facebook as he pulled into Nelson's Dockyard in Antigua.

'It was spine-tinglingly exciting and I found myself thinking, "If I feel like this, thousands of miles away, how awesome it must feel to be there crossing that finishing line?" recalls Felicity, 48, who lives in Oxfordshire.

Pippa, now 46, had been fairly disinterested when David, now 50, first mooted the idea of entering the race. But she'd flown out to Antigua to greet him and, a week later, called Felicity with some rather unexpected news. 'She rang to say she'd got a boat and suggested we enter the same race together!' Felicity says.

'I was 43 and recuperating from a hip replacement.

But I'd always been fit and sporty, running when my surgeon was amazed I could even walk. So I went for it and agreed. I saw it as an opportunity to prove that ordinary people can do extraordinary things - with the right mindset.' So, along with Pippa, her friend Jo, and Jo's friend Lebby - the team they called The Mothership - Felicity embarked on 18 months of rigorous training to prepare for the late 2021 Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, aka 'The World's Toughest Row'.

'We'd have no professional crew on board.

It would be just the four of us, and we had to be thoroughly trained in everything from navigation and radio operation to first aid at sea,' she explains.