Tom Hanks’ Cast Away spurs on Atlantic rower in £40k charity trip

A rower crossing the Atlantic for charity with a university friend has turned to Tom Hanks’ Cast Away for tips.

Olly Rathbone and George Attfield, who met at Nottingham Trent University playing rugby, have been training for the 3,000 mile journey for the last three years.

The pair are setting off on 12 December, from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, and heading across the pond to Antigua.

“I may have watched Cast Away about seven times so I can learn from Tom Hanks,” Olly, from Sevenoaks, in Kent, said.

George and Olly are hoping the trip, part of the World’s Toughest Row race, will raise £40,000 for the British Heart Foundation.

The plan is to arrive in Antigua in their 7.5m (24.6ft) carbon fibre boat, called Pacemaker, about 40 days after setting off.

Throughout that time they will largely be living on a diet of powdered food – though they will pack a fishing rod.

At no point during the journey will either of them get more than two hours sleep at a time.

While one is rowing the other will be eating, sleeping or doing maintenance on the boat.

Olly, 30, was “absolutely” confident he and George would still be friends after spending so much time together.

“It will be testing at times but there’s no-one I’d rather be doing this with,” the medical devices sales rep said.

After not shaving for 40 days their girlfriends may not recognise them.

Olly said: “I think they’re going to be making us get in the shower before we go out for a nice meal.”

George, a 29-year-old carpenter, from Harpenden, in Hertfordshire, said he was craving to go on “extraordinary and unmatched adventure”.

“I want to continue to discover the limits of my physical and mental endurance,” he said.

“When Olly put this idea forward to me, it was an offer I couldn’t turn down.”