21-year-old Brit becomes first woman to row ALONE from Europe to South America

Published 01 July 2025
Zara Lachlan on her boat

3,794 nautical miles (4,366 mi; 7,026 km) separate the docks of Lagos, Portugal from Cayenne, French Guiana. The weather alternates between disorienting storms and a relentless sun, hurling waves and marine life at boats setting off from the southern coast of Europe and travelling along the equator to South America. A few cruise ships and cargo freights interrupt the horizon, but the Atlantic Ocean is otherwise a blue and isolated expanse. 

21-year-old Zara Lachlan (UK) rowed it, alone, in a 24-foot (7-m) boat. 

Nearly eight months after the determined rower set off from the coast of Lagos on 27 October 2024, Zara has claimed three Guinness World Records for her incredible trek: first female to row across the Atlantic from Europe to South America (mainland to mainland), youngest person to row solo across the Atlantic from Europe to South America, and the youngest person to row any ocean solo (female)

She is the first woman and youngest person to complete the journey, as well as the youngest woman to row an ocean solo, unsupported, and non-stop. No boats trailed behind her to monitor her safety, and nobody stepped in to help the exhausted athlete with a few strokes of the oars – over the course of her 97 day, 10 hour, and 20 minute adventure, Zara rowed nearly the entire time, for an impressive 17 hours a day. 

Along the way, she witnessed the unimaginable – from barracuda bites to orca sightings, flying fish and vivid hallucinations, terrifying storms and the bright blanket of stars reflecting off the smooth waves of the ocean at night.

“I just really enjoyed the whole experience. I thought I would be a lot more scared than I was,” she said to Guinness World Records, after arriving home in England.

Zara holding a flare after she finished her row

Before the waves

Despite her bravery and determination, Zara herself will admit that it was much more tumultuous than she ever could have expected. 

Although she attended a military 6th-form college, the now-22-year-old had been rowing for just five years once she pushed off from the dock in Lagos last year. Born in the US but raised in the UK, the British physics student was studying and rowing at Loughborough University when she decided she wanted to cross an ocean. 

“I just thought it would be good fun,” Zara explained. “I wanted to learn as much as I could about something new when I had the time.”

Prior to August 2024, she had never seen an ocean rowing boat before – growing up in Arizona and inland England, she was unfamiliar with marine life, and hadn't even spotted a fish in the ocean. 

And standing at 5 ft 10 in, Zara knew it would take practice to be prepared for all that the Atlantic would throw her way as she carried herself, her boat, and over 1,760 lbs (800 kg) of supplies across the ocean. 

With the help of some incredible coaches, she planned her route, strengthened her body (expecting to lose over ⅓ of her weight during the exhaustive journey), and completed over three months of intense rowing in rivers in the east of England. 

Zara's headshot

Zara was also lucky to secure sponsorships from a variety of companies to pay for her boat and supplies – namely from Women in Sport and Team Forces. Cross-ocean expeditions can be incredibly expensive, so she was beyond grateful (and surprised!) to receive so much support in just three months. 

“It’s expensive to buy a boat and all the equipment that you need, and all the food and everything,” she explained. But once her ambitions were financed, she knew there was nothing holding her back – so she prepared to say goodbye to her loved ones and set off on a multi-month voyage.

“They were supportive, of course, but scared,” she said. “My mother cried when I told her, and my dad didn’t really believe that I would actually go, because I had to raise a lot of money.

“Most people when they row an ocean have campaigns that last years so they can get everything done, but mine was quite immediate…” she continued. “We made the decision on the 2 July, and then I started training on the 1 August, and then I left on 27 October.”

Zara holding the UK flag before her departure

The crossing

After months of rigorous training and planning, Zara arrived in southern Portugal at the end of October, ready to take advantage of a slim window of good weather right at the edge of Europe. She said goodbye to tearful loved ones, and launched her boat into the blue water on 27 October, expecting to be back around 60 days later.

But Mother Nature had other plans for her.

“I knew within the first week that that [60 days] wasn’t going to be possible anymore,” she said. 

The trade winds that would support her journey appeared in the weather forecast, but not in reality, and Zara said she would spend 21 or 22 hours rowing but essentially making zero progress. The hapless strokes of her oars would just send her in circles, and she’d lose any headway she made while grabbing a few hours of sleep. She wrote in her diary that 35 of her first 39 days were “soul-destroying.”

“You get really hard moments…” said the rower. “It was really important to still feel like I was doing something, even when I had really awful weather and I could only get 11 miles from like 20 hours of rowing or something. I just told myself, ‘that’s actually just 11 miles I don’t have to row later.’”

But once she passed the Canary Islands, the weather became more compliant, and she was beginning to adjust to her routine. 

GPS route of her journey

The route Zara took from Portugal to French Guiana, in yellow.

Zara would never row for less than 17 hours a day, and on her ‘off-time’ she would never sleep more than four hours total, preserving her stamina by breaking up her rest time into one 90-minute sleep cycle and 20-minute power naps. 

Her typical ‘day’ started at midnight, and she would row until 3:00 a.m. before taking a three-hour rest break to refuel and relax. She’d then row from 6:00 a.m. to midday, take a 90-minute nap until 1:30 p.m., row again until 9:00 p.m., then rest and recharge til midnight when her cycle would repeat.

“That doesn't work for everyone, but I’m young and I know that I can work off of that amount of sleep,” she said.

She kept in contact with her team by sending out a preset message on her Garmin GPS, and managed to call her loving boyfriend back home when she could, but otherwise was completely alone – an experience she surprisingly enjoyed. 

“I've never spent that kind of time on my own before – it was 97 days – and I actually honestly loved it,” she said.

Zara rowing near the coast

But after her boat accidentally capsized around her 40th day, her cell phone broke, and she suddenly found herself without the company of music, audiobooks, and podcasts. For 57 days, she was completely solitary, with nothing to entertain her but the effort of the rowing and her own mind.

“I was in complete silence for two months,” Zara said. “And because I’m in complete silence, and because I’m getting so little sleep, I hallucinated, like, almost daily.” She described seeing waves crest into grey horses before crashing back into the ocean, and birds that encircled her boat before disappearing into falling flower petals.  

“All of mine were really pleasant,” she continued. “Some people have some really scary hallucinations, but mine were just good fun.”

Other experiences weren’t so thrilling, however – Zara recalled a frightening moment at night when a giant ship cut just 0.1 miles in front her boat, nearly crushing her after it failed to detect her on its tracking system. 

She also had to keep a wide berth as she passed a pod of gigantic orcas spurting indignant puffs of water while leaving Europe. And at one point, a barracuda bit a chunk out of her foot as it dangled over the side. On a separate occasion, a shark detected a bloody cut on her leg, and lurked behind her boat for 45 minutes. 

“[Before my trip] I had never actually been around sea life or anything like that, so I had never seen a fish in the ocean before I left,” she said. “And it was amazing. I got to see fish… so many different kinds of whales, I saw dolphins, [and I] got to swim with dolphins…

“It was on the whole absolutely incredible, I saw things I didn't know were actually real.”

The sun on the ocean, taken by Zara

By the time she was approaching South America, it was hard for Zara to comprehend what she had accomplished. She had spent nearly a third of her year on the water, and the last 50 days completely alone. When her boat bobbed up against the coast of Cayenne, French Guiana in South America, she hardly could believe she hit land.

“I didn't realize that I'd finished,” she said. “I didn't realize what I'd done until, like, a couple of months after I finished. 

“Actually only one person ever has done this solo and it was before I was born, and he managed to do it 18 hours quicker than me, so I missed out [on taking the overall record] by just under a day.” 

“So I actually felt quite disappointed because I couldn't look at anything that rationally… I was thinking about all the times I could have gone around a different way from an island in the Canaries and whatever. 

“But now I'm okay with it, and just really lucky that I got to go and grateful for everyone that let me go,” she said.

Zara finished and holding flag

After devouring her first freshly-cooked meal back on land, salmon and vegetables, (“I was surrounded by fish for so long I was wondering if I could ever eat fish again, but then it was my first meal back!”) and catching up on some well-deserved sleep, Zara was finally able to reflect on what she had done.

“It was so nice to have that sense of purpose every single day,” she said. She felt the trip prepared her well for her future in the military, and taught her how to overcome forces as powerful as nature and her own mind – “I just really enjoyed the whole experience.”

And who knows, one day she might take to the water again – if she hasn’t thrown herself into another record-breaking experience. 

“I would absolutely love to,” Zara said. “Probably not water straight away. Probably a different one. But still some records. And then maybe in a couple years I'll come back to the ocean.”

Congratulations on your incredible achievement, Zara, you are Officially Amazing! We’re sure the ocean is looking forward to your return.

Pictures provided by Team Forces