Somewhere between La Gomera and Antigua, four South Africans are proving that courage, friendship and purpose can move a boat faster than the current.
Atlantic Ocean (29 December 2025) – There is a point in any journey where you stop looking back at where you came from and start looking towards what’s still ahead, where every metre travelled becomes a reminder of why you started. South Africa’s Ocean Mavericks have reached that point. Fifteen days into the World’s Toughest Row, somewhere near the midpoint of the Atlantic, four ordinary men are doing something extraordinary.
On the 14th of December 2025, the Ocean Mavericks, Martin Hall, JP Briner, Angelo Wilkie-Page and Matt Botha, pushed off from La Gomera in the Canary Islands. Just four South Africans, their oars, their vessel Shayamanzi (which fittingly translates to “hit the water”), and 4,800 kilometres of open ocean between them and Antigua. No supply drops. No rescue boats on standby. Only their training, teamwork and a relentless two-hours-on, two-hours-off rhythm that continues 24 hours a day.
The first days were brutal. Seasickness, disorientation, and bruised bodies learning a new reality.
But then the shift happened, the moment their muscles remembered and their minds aligned. The Ocean Mavericks found their sea legs, and before long, they had passed the 1,000-nautical-mile mark. They celebrated by opening handwritten letters from home, small envelopes carrying a morale boost big enough to cut through the Atlantic winds. Spirits soared again when the crew hooked a dorado and turned their fresh catch into sushi, a rare feast out on the open water.
At the time of writing, the team has set a personal best of 88 nautical miles in 24 hours, placing them currently in third position. That ranking, however, isn’t the point. It never has been.
“Being out here, completely exposed to the power of the Ocean, has only reinforced why this cause matters,” the crew told Good Things, Guy, when we checked in with them. “You gain a deep respect for the sea when it becomes your entire world.”
Matt Botha added, “We may be in the middle of the Atlantic, but we certainly don’t feel alone. We are riding the waves of the support back home.”
That support is creating real impact. The Ocean Mavericks are rowing to raise funds and awareness for the Pondoland Conservation Trust, an organisation protecting the Wild Coast, a stretch of South Africa that remains one of our most biodiverse and culturally significant landscapes. As of now, they have raised R789,121, sitting at 43% of their target. And thanks to the This Day Foundation, every donation made before the end of the year will be matched up to R1 million, doubling the impact.
As the Ocean Mavericks move further from land and deeper into the blue, the horizon ahead carries something powerful: hope. Hope for conservation. Hope for connection. Hope that four South Africans in a tiny boat can ripple change all the way back to our shores. But even out on the Atlantic, they’re not alone. Every message, every rand donated and every voice cheering from the coastline becomes another oar in the water.
And with each stroke, they remind us that South Africans don’t just face the tide; we find a way to move with it, through it and beyond it.
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