80 days at sea
A rower who lectures in MTU is set to complete her record breaking bid to be the first Irish woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
After beginning her journey in Gran Canaria, Canary Islands on 6 December 2021, Dr Karen Weekes is due to finish her journey, arriving in Barbados today, 24 February, at approximately 12pm Barbados time after a lengthy 80 days at sea.
Karen will be welcomed into a bustling Bridgetown in Barbados as crowds will gather to cheer the Irishwoman on as she arrives into the port.
30 of her friends, family and colleagues flew over to Barbados at the weekend to witness and celebrate her achievement.
In true Bajan style, a welcome party will be organised to celebrate Karen’s arrival to Barbados and her achievement of becoming the first Irish female to row any ocean solo and the 20th female in the world to row an ocean solo. She has been a lecturer at MTU since 2004 on the Health and Leisure degree. With a PhD in sport psychology, Dr Weekes has worked extensively with both elite and non-elite athletes, specialising within the endurance genre.
Endurance exploits have been a passion for Dr Weekes for all her life and has included both water and land-based journeys, including cycling solo across Canada and circumnavigating Ireland by Kayak and climbing Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya in Africa.
She said: “I’ve done a lot of endurance journeys before this, so this (was) really the next logical step for me - a feat of endurance to try and push myself mentally and physically further.”
Her journey across the Atlantic was documented on social media through the #SHECANDO2021 campaign.
Through this campaign, Dr Weekes aims to encourage females to push themselves outside their comfort zones. Furthermore, she aims to bring awareness of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, specifically gender equality and ocean conservation and sustainability.
Speaking about her motivations behind starting the #SHECANDO2021 campaign, she said: “When I was cycling across Canada, I was looking up other female solo cyclists who had crossed Canada.
“I thought I would relate better to seeing how a female coped with it. There really wasn’t many. I think having somebody who has done it before makes it easier for other women so my plan, as part of the SHECANDO campaign, is to provide a platform for other girls and women to do things that push them outside their comfort zone,” she concluded.