The most important thing to us is the safety of our race entrants.  The best way to cope with an emergency is to avoid being in one in the first place through thorough preparation and planning.  However, accidents will happen and so we ensure that each crew member is trained so that they are fully prepared in the case of an emergency.  The race rules stipulate that each entrant must pass a number of courses to ensure they are prepared for the navigational and technical aspects of rowing an ocean.  Our series of workshops and seminars ensure that every crew is completely ready for any challenge.  Each boat will carry a number of pieces of equipment to for use in an emergency.

• Tracking device – Every crew will have a tracking device fitted.  This sends the latest position of each crew to the race website every hour or so but also can be activated remotely to provide more regular position updates ensuring that you crew can be found quickly if the need arises.
• EPIRB – Emergency Positioning Indicating Rescue Beacon – is a small but powerful beacon, which helps rescuers locate you in an emergency situation.  Once activated the beacon transmits a distress alert to the Search and Rescue (SAR) authorities via satellite.
• Flares – Can be handheld or parachute and are used to help avoid a collision (white flares) or indicate distress and aid locating those in need (red flares)
• Liferaft
• Lifejackets
• Medical kit
• Other emergency equipment
• As part of your race entry fee each race entrant will receive an annual membership to Global Rescue.  Their medical consultancy services operate a 24 hour telephone service which is second to none and they can also provide emergency medical extraction should it be required.

The support yachts that follow the crews are primarily to provide assistance to crews in non-emergency situations (e.g. additional freshwater if a watermaker breaks, spare oars if oars break etc)