TWO friends from Idle in Bradford are making their final preparations before rowing the Atlantic.

Chris Nicholl, 35, and James Tordoff, 31, have already packed off their boat to the start line in the Canary Islands.

And now the debutant rowers - team Hell Oar High Water - are putting the finishing touches to their effort to row 3,000 nautical miles to the Caribbean in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge next month.

The duo, who had never rowed before and had no knowledge of sailing, are flying to La Gomera on December 1 ready for the departure on December 12.

Chris said: “We’ve been putting on a bit of weight and are now taking it steady at the gym.

“We’re just waiting to get going.

“We have had no injuries, we’ve done very well, we haven’t been pushing ourselves to the point of breaking.”

He said they had got used to being at sea but now the test would be “whether you can do it day in day out”.

“We haven’t done seven weeks non-stop and haven’t trained on big rolling waves.

“We can’t wait, it’s been a long time coming.”

He said they had completed 120 hours at sea off Hartlepool to qualify for the race and they may use the time at La Gomera to do some final sea trials.

Their boat - called Persistence or Percy for short - was sent ahead by ship and arrived a week last Wednesday packed with all their equipment.

The boat will have to go through scrutineering before they take part. All their supplies will have to be taken out and inspected as will their equipment and the boat itself.

Chris and James will then have to repack it just the way they want it for the race.

They threw a leaving party on Friday to help raise more funds for their chosen Yorkshire-based charities: Centrepoint, which helps around 15,000 young homeless people a year, Bradford Hospital’s Charity Neonatal Unit, which provides specialist care to premature babies, and Automotive Industry Charity, Ben.

Chris, a graphic designer, chose Centrepoint because they do great work in the city and he experienced being homeless when he left home at 17. James said he had a nephew and cousins born prematurely which is why he had chosen BRI's neo-natal unit. And as a Vauxhall salesman for JCT, he was also well aware of the work of Ben.

Chris said their fundraising was coming along well but now it was all about ramping up their exposure in the race.

They are being backed by Leeds-based Pure Technology Group (ptg) and the duo also wanted to thank their other sponsors and partners.

In the race they will be up against 35 other teams which makes this year’s event the biggest ever ranging from solo rowers to teams of six.

The pair will be posting updates on Twitter and Facebook and will have their team updating social media with how they are getting on.

There will be a tracker on the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge so the public can follow how the duo’s progress.

Chris added: “We want the challenge for personal goals and give it our all.

“Whether it will be good enough compared to the others is another thing.

“The important thing is to finish.”