The Team Behind the Dash
Billy Taylor – Director and Co-founder
Alex Mason – Director and Co-founder
Alex had 10,000 miles of hiking and 4,000 miles of cycle touring experience, but no ocean rowing experience until she met Billy in 2016. As a reserve rower for his Indian crossing, Alex got her first taste of ocean rowing when she vomited for 37 hours across the English Channel.
Alex then went on to row across the Atlantic Ocean in 2020 with Billy and has since been involved in the management of multiple independent crossings.
Chris Martin – Safety Officer
Chris Martin is a record setting ocean rower with more than 18 years of involvement in and support of those participating in the sport.
Chris came to ocean rowing via an accomplished river rowing career. He was part of Team GB for 6 years, competing for Britain at junior, under-23 and senior level returning with a medal from every World Championships he competed in. He rowed the Atlantic solo and became part of the first (and currently) the only pair to row the North Pacific from Japan to San Francisco in an endeavour taking just over 6 months.
Since hanging up his oars he founded the Great Pacific Race between California and Hawaii, has provided training and land-based support and guidance for more than 140 rowers taking on their own ocean rowing expeditions and sits on the board of the Ocean Rowing Society, Guinness World Record Adjudicators for the sport.
Simon Rowell – Weather Router
Since 2015 I have been the meteorologist for the British Sailing Team, and forecasting at the Olympics & Paralympics in Rio and the Olympics in Tokyo was fantastic, if rather challenging. I have also been the forecaster for the Clipper Round the World Race since 2011, with other clients ranging from ocean rowers superyachts to TV production companies, and for land-based clients in international rugby, cycling & golf.
I have been a yachting professional since 1997, starting off as an instructor before working for Clipper Ventures both as a round the world race skipper on the winning boat in the 2002 race and as assistant race director in charge of the day to day operations and all the skipper and crew training for the 2005 race.
I am an RYA Ocean Yachtmaster Examiner and spent two years as Chief Instructor at UKSA in Cowes before going back to university in 2009 to study meteorology at the University of Reading, finishing the MSc course in 2010 with a distinction and a dissertation investigating how hurricanes start in the North Atlantic.
Before all this I spent seven years as an engineer on oil rigs in various usually insalubrious parts of the world, and have a thorough grasp of the many and varied uses of both gaffer and self-amalgamating tape, and of how to find a machine shop that can cut a 1 inch left hand thread in Brazil on a Sunday.
Justin Adkin – Scrutineer
Growing up amongst fishermen and professional seafarers, motoring, rowing and sailing off the Devon, Dorset & Cornish coasts I pretty much born into boating!
Aged 18, during an engineering apprenticeship, I built my first boat and soon realized this was where my passion lay. Off the back of this I got a job with Peter 'Spud' Rowsell & Phil Morrison who are renowned racing dinghy builders and designers. At this boatyard the design for the very first trans-Atlantic racing rowing boat was built and I was fortunate to be amongst the team that set the ball rolling in ocean boat design for all future events.
Since then, from 2003, as well as running my own boat building company, I have been an inshore & offshore RNLI lifeboat crew member, skippered a 4 man rowing crew across the Atlantic, taught boat building at a leading Academy, been to California on the support crew running the trans-Pacific rowing races and since 2013, been the 'at sea' Race Officer for the 'NOMAN' Mediterranean rowing races.
Ed Wildgoose – Communications
Ed previously designed and built the IT, risk management and portfolio management infrastructure for a hedge fund with over $6bn AUM. These are some of the most hard-to-please customers that you can imagine! He now runs MailASail and uses this experience to create user-friendly software for setting up and managing email and communications from the middle of the ocean.
MailASail’s philosophy is that you shouldn’t need to be a computer whizz-kid to send an email & receive reliable weather whilst on passage. Their products are designed to provide fast, cost effective and reliable communications with emphasis on ease of setup and operation (plus the team work really hard to provide excellent after sales care & support).
MailASail work with numerous ocean rowing events & ocean yachting races and is the official communications provider for the Atlantic Dash.
Dr Rasheeda Williams – Medical Advisor
Dr. Rasheda Williams is a Cuban trained General Practitioner, who has become well known within the yachting community for her medical expertise treating residents & yachties , as well as being MCA approved to offer ENG1 Medicals for 2022.
She has been one of the main maritime physicians on island for the last 10 years performing local seafarers’ medicals.
With 15 years’ experience – Dr. Williams has practiced in Central America as well as Antigua and has ventured into the realm of Functional Medicine and IV rehydration therapy along with her regular practice.
In additional to her medical management of varying aliments , she offers integrative treatment , vaccinations, Vitamin injections, blood testing, urine test, STD checks, call out visits and much more.
We have received great reviews about her friendly demeanor and willingness to assist-be it in her office or on mobile onboard visits.
Steve Lupson – Photographer
Hi, I'm Steve, a photographer lucky enough to be living in the Canary Islands in Spain. More specifically Lanzarote. I have lived on the island for six years now. Originally from Southern Africa and then moved to the UK. I have been a full-time photographer since moving to Lanzarote. I can honestly say it's the best job in the world.
Jim Cudd - Watermaker Specialist
Jim runs the family owned marine company Nautilus marine watermakers, specialising in supplying and servicing watermakers based near Southampton, UK.
For over 15 years Jim has been working together with countless Ocean Rowing crews and this has given him a fantastic insight into what works and what does not when it comes to the needs of an ocean rower for producing fresh water. Nautilus now produce their own watermaker designed specially for the rigours of Ocean Rowing.
When Jim is not sorting watermakers he enjoys sailing and fishing – and the odd visit to the pub!