Bill Taylor, a former firefighter from Selsey, West Sussex, in the United Kingdom, is set to row across the Indian Ocean in early June to raise £500,000 (Ksh83 million in current exchange rates) for charity in honour of his late friend.
The journey, which he plans to start in Exmouth, Western Australia, and end in Mombasa, will cover 5,500 miles (8,800 kilometres), and he aims to complete it in 100 days.
According to the BBC, Taylor will be undertaking the arduous journey to raise awareness about early-onset dementia and funds for its research in honour of his friend, who passed away in 2022 after living with Parkinson’s disease dementia.
In addition to dementia research, the money he raises will also benefit a mental health charity supporting veterans and those in the armed forces.
“I’m not smart enough to do the research myself, and I don’t have a lot of money to give to research and charity, but I could do something like this (row) to try and raise awareness and raise money for people that are doing real good stuff,” he told the PA news agency.
Crediting his friend for encouraging him to take up rowing, this will not be the first time Taylor has traversed the Indian Ocean—or any other ocean, for that matter.
Reportedly, he has rowed across the ocean once before, three times across the Atlantic Ocean and once across the Pacific Ocean from California to Hawaii.
However, he will not take on the journey alone, as he has assembled a crew of three, comprising two men and two women, who will row in pairs in a 29ft by 5ft carbon fibre boat.
According to Taylor, the gender parity was intentional, stating, "It's quite the levelling platform, the ocean, so it was nice to represent the girls and guys getting on well together and achieving something together."
The plan is to have two people rowing for two hours and breaking for two hours interchangeably continuously for 100 days.
In the UK, it is estimated that 982,000 people live with dementia, with more than one-third going without a diagnosis, according to the Alzheimer’s Society.
Taylor's friend was diagnosed at 34, which he noted allowed the two to have very honest discussions about what it meant for him.
"It struck me that this disease is so prolific. It's horrific. It robs people of the person they are," Taylor stated.
