Rowers Dan Darley and Rich Dewire broke the two-man million metre world record last month as part of their preparation for the 2005 Atlantic Rowing Race. Their record-breaking row began on the morning of Sunday 6th November at 10:15am in St Katherine's Docks in London. The initial pace was around 2:00 splits - too fast but the intention was to build up a safety margin to allow for some inevitable fading in the last day or two. The first 12 hours went by pretty quickly but from about midnight on the first day the rowing began to get quite tough and the one to two hour long shifts that each rower was doing became more and more difficult to get through. Daybreak on day two brought some relief as the sun lifted spirits and the two went through the first third after about 23 hours. The pair made fair progress during the day to go through halfway at around 8pm that evening, averaging c. 2:06 after about 34 hours of rowing. The second night proved to be something of an ordeal - the combination of lack of sleep and fatigue really starting to take its toll - so it was with some relief that Dan and Rich greeted dawn on day three.At least now with the bulk of the distance covered the end seemed almost in sight, even though the pair had continued to slow down - with the two thirds point being reached just inside days. The last day dragged on a bit until in the early hours of Wednesday the distance finally dropped below 100k to go, and then finally at 10:32am that day Rich rowed the last few strokes to complete the full distance in three days 17 minutes and five seconds - some four and a half hours inside the previous record.The pair have now started the 2005 Atlantic Rowing Race. Having beaten the erg record set by a Kiwi team that won the 2003 Atlantic Race the two men are confident they are well placed to do well in this years race. You can follow their progress at http://www.atlanticprince.com.