Ollie Phillips was used to digging deep during his rugby career, one that included captaining England Sevens and being named World Rugby Sevens Player of the Year in 2009. Yet nothing he did in that sport, nothing he has done in all manner of endurance charity challenges since retiring from rugby in 2013, can compare to his latest project: rowing 3,000 nautical miles across the stormy and unpredictable Atlantic Ocean.

“I’ve sailed round the world, I’ve swum the Channel, I’ve cycled across America, all that sort of stuff,” says Phillips, 43. “But this feels very, very different.

“I think it’s the relentless nature of it… even when I sailed round the world, you could come up on deck and you’d be on the same tack, the same direction, the same sail pattern, so you could basically lie down again for the four hours you’re on watch. For this challenge, first, I’ve got two hours and second, I have to row. If I don’t row, we don’t move.”

Just to be clear, Phillips and his three crew mates will row two hours on, two hours off – non-stop for about 40 days. That is 480 shifts. Even without the enormous exertion of rowing on open ocean, that sleep pattern alone is brutal.

Thames the breaks: Phillips’s previous rowing experience amounted to the odd session on an ergo

The challenge is known appropriately as The World’s Toughest Row and involves getting from La Gomera in the Canary Islands to the Caribbean island of Antigua. Some 40 boats will set off, all being well, on Friday 12 December and some great causes will benefit (see below).

Phillips’s fellow crew are seasoned adventurers: Julian Evans and Stuart Kershaw he met when taking part in two world record attempts on Everest; both they and Tom Clowes, the fourth member of Team Seas Life, have summited that iconic peak.

To be eligible for the row, teams must do a minimum of 125 hours on open water, together as a crew. With the team only taking shape in January, and everyone having unforgiving work schedules, that was a challenge in itself. Often, they would get down to their base in Weymouth late on a Friday and start rowing at night, not finishing until 6am on the Monday morning. Not that Phillips dresses that up as ideal preparation.

“We were rowing and practising in the spring and summer in the UK in glorious weather. I remember one two-dayer when we pulled up in Durdle Door (a famous landmark in Dorset) and went for a swim, and then on to the pub. It was amazing but very different to what we’re going to be doing. I just don’t think anything really prepares you for the challenge.

Oarsome foursome: the team trained out of Weymouth

“I’ve sailed the Atlantic three times, I know how miserable it can get. So I know it will kick off, I know it will be dangerous. Nothing that we’ve done will prepare us for the weather that we will face.”

It’s reckoned that the rowers will need to consume 6,000 calories a day, a target that Phillips thinks might be beyond him. He has put on weight in readiness for the inevitable pound-shedding to come.

“I weigh 104 kilos at the moment. My playing weight was about 95, 96, so I’m about a stone heavier than I would be normally. And I’m probably going to come back the lightest I’ve ever been. They reckon you lose between 12 and 20 kilos. And the volume that I need to consume, I don’t think I’ll be able to consume that level of food. I think I’ll be closer to the 20 kilos than the 12 kilos. So I might end up at 84 to 86 kilos, which I’ve not been since I was a teenager.”

Damian Browne, the former second-row who played for Connacht, Northampton and Brive among others, rowed across the Atlantic solo in 2018. He told Rugby World that on the first day there was a headwind that necessitated deploying his power anchor to prevent him going backwards. He failed to do this properly and after nine hours of rowing was further from his destination than he had been at the start.

The Irishman also recounted how his steering, operated manually with his foot, broke and he was forced to steer with the oars for over 2,000 nautical miles. He was at sea for 112 days.

Happily, Team Seas Life has an Autohelm (GPS steering), but Phillips admits to two main concerns. “The biggest risk is that you get rolled (over) in high seas. These boats are pretty formidable – if you get hit by a cargo ship they’ll probably bounce. The only way you can actually sink is if you leave the hatches open and they fill with water.

‘The biggest risk is getting rolled in high seas,’ says Phillips

“The second biggest risk is marlin attacks. Every three or four days, if you don’t jump into the ocean and get underneath and scrub the hull, to get all the plankton and whatever else has built up off the hull of the boat, then smaller fish start to accumulate. If smaller fish accumulate, tuna start to accumulate because they feed off each other.

“And if tuna accumulate, the marlin go for the tuna. They spear at the tuna and can puncture the hull of the boat. Last year one vessel had seven marlin attacks. That can be dangerous because you’ve got a hole in your boat but also you could be lying down and a marlin’s bill comes through into your leg.”

What with the waves, up to 20 feet high, and the sleep deprivation, the fear of capsizing or being struck by a ship, the threat of marlin attacks or attracting sharks while cleaning the hull, and above all the gargantuan effort required to row a boat across the world’s second-largest ocean, you can only have the utmost respect for anyone taking on this challenge.

And some fantastic causes will benefit, including three particularly close to Phillips’s heart: My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, which funds research into Motor Neurone Disease; Phillips’s local primary school, Shiplake Primary; and The Clocktower Foundation, a charity that helps wounded Special Forces heroes and their families rebuild and recover.

The Matt Hampson Foundation is one of the beneficiaries

So many people and companies have contributed to the project, from the likes of Barwood Capital and Karma Resorts, to Runwood Homes and Spire Healthcare, and the hope is that collectively the intrepid expedition might raise a million pounds in fundraising – a stupendous figure. If you want to make a donation, see the link at the foot of this article.

The safety checks are being done, the preparation is nearly complete. Phillips is excited and nervous and every emotion in between. He will keep in touch with his wife Lucy and young family via Starlink and is already visualising the moment when he reaches land in Antigua and they’re there to meet him. “It makes me emotional just thinking about it,” he says.

While he wants that day to come as soon as possible, he and his team-mates are not chasing any time targets. Not at the outset, anyway.

“It’s about finishing it and finishing it safely. And still being friends at the end of it. That’s the primary focus,” he says. “At the end of the day, the ocean is an unforgiving place. If you don’t look after yourself, and don’t look after each other, it will find you out and that can be fatal. I’m confident that we will be diligent and supportive of each other but there is that risk. There’s always that risk. You’re in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in an 8-metre boat.

Raising a million? Team Seas Life depart on 12 December with the good wishes of the rugby community

“A friend of mine is Alex Payne, the presenter. I used to joke with him that ‘where there is pleasure there is always Payne’. That slogan resonates with this. You’ve got to be grateful for the opportunity of being able to do this. And if you can be grateful and seek pleasure in pain, then you’re probably winning.

“This is the greatest test I’ve faced. Just because, while I’ve put myself into some dark places, I’ve never had to do that on such a scale as this. That’s why it’s called the World’s Toughest Row. There’s a beauty and an excitement in that but there’s also a real big challenge.”

To help Team Seas Life make a difference, please donate at justgiving.com/crowdfunding/oliver-phillips-2