The Guinness Book of Records has certified a timber-hulled rowboat as the smallest of its kind to cross any ocean.
Puffin, a 40-year-old, 15ft-long ocean rowboat, was taken across the Atlantic by Ocean Rowing Society member Graham Walters in 100 days, and upon making landfall in St Barts in May, became the smallest boat in history to complete such a journey.
Mr Walters’s journey was staged to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the first attempt to cross the Atlantic in a rowboat in 1966, which ended in tragedy with the two crewmen, David Johnstone and John Hoare, lost at sea and Puffin found adrift by the Canadian coastguard.
Colin Mudie, who designed the £6,000 Puffin when it was first launched in the 60s, commented that, despite having had a “hard life”, the cold moulding hull, which features layered plywood strips, remained “in excellent condition”.
The Guinness Book of Records presented Mr Walters with a certificate for his feat during the Southampton Boat Show.
