Home for 6 weeks or more the boat is built for function, not comfort. Each team will use broadly identical boats based on the same, tried and tested, design. About 24 ft long and with a 6.3 ft beam they are not big but provide adequate storage space, sleeping quarters, and room to prepare meals. Fully laden it will weigh 750kg or more.

Rich and Dan purchased their boat in November 2004 from John Searson who raced it in the original 1997 race. Since then the boat has made two more successful crossings in the 2001 and 2004 races.

There are some pictures of the boat in its previous guises on John Peck and Fraser Dodds' website, the team who rowed it in 2004