UK swimming teacher, 21, becomes youngest female to row solo across Atlantic

A part-time swimming teacher became the youngest woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

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Jasmine Harrison, 21, of Thirsk, also tends bar when she is not teaching, The Guardian reported.

Harrison began her journey in December when she left La Gomera in the Canary Islands in the 2020 Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. It took her 70 days, 3 hours, 48 minutes to reach Antigua, the BBC reported. She rowed in two-hour stretches and rested for two hours after each segment, the network reported.

The previous record had been held by Ohio native Katie Spotz of the United States, who was 22 when she crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 2010 between Jan. 3 and March 14,

After her arrival on the Caribbean island, Harrison said the experience was “everything (I had) wanted it to be.”

Harrison said she was most looking forward to eating.

“Food. Definitely food,” Harrison said, according to The Guardian.

Harrison wrote on Twitter that during her journey she had a “near collision with a drilling ship, two capsizes, lots of peanut butter and Nutella consumed.”

Harrison wrote on her website that she was inspired to take part in the challenge when she saw the 2018 race finish while teaching swimming in the Caribbean.

“It wasn’t just watching and holding the flares at Nelson’s Dockyard for a race finish that inspired me,” Harrison wrote. “It was also talking to a family member of a lad that had just completed who told me just how much of an amazing thing it was.

“I didn’t say, ‘Not a chance I would do that,’ it was more a fact of ‘Why not do it?’”

Harrison told the BBC that the trip was a mix of “good and bad memories.” She injured her elbow two days before the finish when her boat capsized, but enjoyed the chance to reflect on her own.

“There’s nothing like it, actually getting away from everything,” Harrison told the BBC. “Social media, bad news, from literally everything.”

Cox Media Group