A WIGTOWNSHIRE woman is celebrating after she and her fellow rowers broke the world record to become the fastest female team to row around Great Britain’s coast.
Team Ithaca and 49-year-old Maggie Hodge arrived back at Tower Bridge in London yesterday morning after spending 44 days at sea.
The team of six completed the 2000-mile GB row challenge unsupported, meaning that everything they needed to survive had to be on the boat with them. They now go into the Guiness Book of records as the fastest female team of rowers to complete the challenge.
But the final stretch of the journey down the east coast was not plain sailing.
Maggie said: “We had terrible weather all the way down the east coast since about Aberdeen with the wind against us all the way. We also had to shelter from a couple of storms.”
Maggie was brought up in Wigtownshire and attended Douglas Ewart High School before joining the army as a nurse where she played rugby at the international level but after she hung up her boots she struggled to find another sport that excited her.
She added: “I hung up my boots after 22 years of playing, I did wonder where I would find a sport which ignited such a passion again.
“After many years I found coastal rowing and I have not looked back. It brought the positive team elements I enjoyed as well as the physical and mental robustness I enjoyed.
“I turn 50 in 2024 and I wanted to set myself a challenge and when this opportunity came along, I stuck my hand up and volunteered.”
Following the celebrations Maggie will return to her home in Portsmouth and to her 14-year-old Labrador Hamish for a well-earned rest.
