Barbados or Bust!

Fishguard, on the Welsh coast, early one Saturday morning. It's drizzling but the water in the harbour is flat. Two athletic-looking seafarers, a man and a woman, stand side by side eyeing the horizon with a mixture of excitement and uncertainty. The water looks calm here – but out there lies the Cruel Sea...

Which makes you wonder why Andrew and Debra Veal have spent the best part of three years devoting themselves, their finances and their spare time towards preparing a small boat that they are hoping to row 3,000 miles from this side of the Atlantic the other, in what is possibly the maddest race known to man.

Andrew smiles. "As I've said to many people who've asked that question: 'If you have to ask you wouldn't understand the answer anyway'." Andrew, 33, a management consultant, and Debra, 26, the managing director of an internet business, are two of 36 entrants from 13 different countries in the Ward Evans Atlantic Rowing Challenge (the race starts in Tenerife today at 10am GMT). This is the second staging of the amateur event. Sir Chay Blyth – who rowed the Atlantic himself 35 years ago – masterminded the first race in 1997. "It's a supreme mental and physical challenge," says Blyth. The winners of the original event, two hardy New Zealanders, Rob Hamill and Phil Stubbs, rowed Kiwi Challenge to Barbados in a staggering 41 days. In his subsequent book detailing their odyssey, The Naked Rower, Hamill revealed that he spent night and day gripped by a paranoid fear that his partner would kill him if he was a moment late for any of his rowing shifts. (The book's title refers to how the pair coped with hot weather: they rowed naked, taping up their testicles for protection.)

For a deposit of £13,000 (part of a total cost of £50,000) the Veals received the unassembled boat kit handed out to all crews. They will row Troika individually, following a two hours on, two hours off rotation, 24 hours a day. When not rowing, the resting partner tries to sleep, eat and make any repairs needed. (They've calculated that Andrew alone will have to consume each day 8,000 calories-worth of vacuum-packed meals to sustain himself.) The only time they will stop is when the sea is so perilous they have to drop the storm anchor and stow themselves away in the tiny stern cabin.

But on their first full training outing in Wales, the Veals had more mundane problems. Due to to spend three days at sea, rowing up Cardigan Bay, they got nowhere – with conditions against them, the would-be Atlantic voyagers discovered they had rowed on the same spot for six hours. It proved a frustrating but valuable lesson – tossed by unfavourable winds and tides, certain crews in the 1997 race spent two weeks going backwards.

How do they stay positive? "There are only so many people who have actually rowed an ocean," says Andrew. "We know a bit about rowing and expeditions, and there are no real technical requirements – as opposed to climbing Everest." The couple do have excellent rowing credentials: Andrew has won gold at the British National Rowing Championships and Debra was part of the British Dragon Boat racing team They even met at a regatta. "We wanted to do a big adventure together before we settled down," says Debra.

Faced with such a daunting trip, the Veals have nevertheless managed to keep the race in perspective. Since agreeing to take part three years ago, they have got married, moved house twice, Andrew has had three different jobs and Debra started her own company. They may have had moulds taken of their bottoms to prevent piles and have had sheepskin covers custom-designed for their seats, but the couple still claim that the race has only been a "six-month obsession".

So, they are relaxed about the rowing and Troika is fully prepared. But there is one rower who understands more than most that the real battle will be fought in the mind, not in the rowlocks. Jim Shekhdar famously completed a single-handed crossing of the Pacific last year, and competed in the 1997 Atlantic race. "When you eventually get out there the reality of the loneliness of your situation is a shock. After two or three days of seeing nothing but the sea you start to think you really are on your own," says Shekhdar. "You have to be self-reliant and it is wonderful!" He survived his time with Atlantic race-partner David Jackson thanks to a strict regime, mind games, good books and a short-wave radio. Shekhdar believes that in extreme situations humans are disposed to block out the bad times. "After 270 days at sea [crossing the Pacific] I could only recall the good moments. But looking back at my log, there were times when I was resigned to packing it all in."

To try to avoid such moments, Debra and Andrew have fitted Troika with a MP3 player, complete with speakers on deck. Not that they'll need to shut one another up with a bit of music: "We have got such a fantastic working relationship," says Debra. "We have a great understanding of each other and each other's limitations – I think this is such an advantage over other crews." But can a relationship, let alone a marriage, withstand such isolation? Andrew is adamant: "Before we got into this we'd never had an argument and we haven't really had one since. But if you're out on the boat and you have a disagreement, you're not going to say, 'OK, have it your way'. You would see it through." Debra is quick to back up her crewmate: "Even in the few times we have disagreed about the boat, minutes later we'd be laughing about it. We can't afford to be in the situation where we let things like that carry on."

And far from believing that they're sailing into a marital storm, Debra and Andrew think they have as good a chance as any of winning the Ward Evans Atlantic Rowing Challenge. "Because Andrew's rowing with a woman, most people assume that we are only in it for the experience. They couldn't be more wrong and it only makes me more determined."

At last, they admit a few fears. Andrew's aren't specific: "They are about failing to finish – not about drowning or dying or anything like that." Debra's are more the stuff of the lonely mariner: "When it is completely pitch black all around and it's rough, you feel the swell coming and you hear the roar of the waves and you are just rowing along in the dark, alone, waiting... I imagine that will be quite daunting." But the final words belong to Shekhdar: "Something unexpected will happen – I planned my routes perfectly, but forgot to pack a tin opener." He then adds a couple of thoughts to sober up even the foolhardiest mariner. "You have got to be lucky to finish. Barbados is a very small target..."