IF YOU thought Christmas put a strain on family relationships, spare a thought for a mother and daughter about to spend three months at sea with only each other for company.

Sally and Sarah Kettle are set to become the first mother and daughter team to row 3,000 miles across the Atlantic. They will set off from the Canary Islands on January 20 and hope to reach Barbados 75 days later.

Mrs Kettle, 45, has not rowed on an ocean before and her 26-year-old daughter has one failed attempt behind her. However, they say that their biggest problem will simply be getting along.

“I would be lying if I said we weren’t worried about it,” Miss Kettle, a bank worker from Brighton, said last night. “But my Mum is very keen for me to be the skipper and for her to follow my orders, which should hopefully allay any tension in that respect.

“I’m sure we are going to have blazing rows. It is only natural. I just hope it will be worth it in the end.”

Mrs Kettle, who works as a gardener in Northampton, added: “It will probably be a bit stressful at times but we will always be mother and daughter. We’ll just have to ride it out.

“We get along very well. We often visit each other and go out shopping — just normal mother and daughter things.”

Experts said that the crossing would pose a bigger threat to family harmony than any shopping spree. “It is not like a trip to the shops,” Donald MacLeod, a psychologist specialising in relationship counselling, said. “The element of confinement and the prolonged aspect of the journey are pretty unusual. And they are likely to be very problematic because of the intensity. Mother-daughter relationships are extremely complex.”

He added: “If there are historical problems, they will come to the fore on a trip like this. They will have to work together very closely as a team. If things go wrong, that is when it is likely to get difficult.

“If one of them starts to fail, that will be very testing. If things are getting fraught, the best thing they can do is to keep the lines of communication flowing. It is extremely dangerous to stop communicating in a situation like that.”

Mrs Kettle started rowing only a year ago, when her daughter asked her to provide back-up for an earlier challenge.

Miss Kettle’s first attempt to row the Atlantic failed last October after her boyfriend and rowing partner, Marcus Thompson, who has epilepsy, became severely dehydrated from seasickness. The couple were helped back to port in La Gomera in the Canaries.

Mrs Kettle did not take his place in the end, but will now compete in the Ocean Rowing Society’s John Fairfax Regatta with her daughter this month.

The pair say that they have already raised £500,000 for epilepsy research and hope to double that total to fund a lasting fellowship at the Institute of Epileptology in southeast London.

“We are extremely lucky there was another organised event happening so soon,” Miss Kettle said. “Our boat is already prepared and ready for us when we return in early January and we shall have over two weeks to train at sea before the start of the race.

“The time I was at sea with Marcus has given me invaluable experience. I know my Mum and I are going to have an amazing experience.”

Mrs Kettle, who has three children and one grandson, added: “Sally and I have worked very hard during the past two months to increase our strength and fitness and learn new navigational skills.

“In addition to all the rowing we have done on and off the water, I have been sailing and taking courses in first aid and seamanship. I feel well prepared and am very excited.”

The pair will row to the Caribbean on the Calderdale, a 24ft marine ply rowing boat.

They are not the first rowers to risk family unity in the name of a transatlantic challenge. The British rower Debra Veal successfully completed her crossing in 2002 after her husband abandoned her at sea because he could not cope with the “nameless dread” welling up inside him.

He was airlifted from the boat after she found him curled up in the cabin trembling.

The Kettles will be relieved to note that the marriage survived the trauma.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Sarah Brown says 'no thanks' to veal at G8 - twice
• Stockton-on-Tees is obesity capital of Britain
• Stores blame poor sales on Murray factor