A NORTH Yorkshire rowers once in a lifetime challenge to claim a place in the history books was nearly sunk when a massive 750 foot drilling ship narrowly missed smashing into her tiny boat.
Jasmine Harrison,21, is taking part in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic challenge to become the youngest woman to row alone across 3,000 miles of ocean.
Around 4am on Monday she was woken by a special alarm warning her another boat was nearby. When she checked she discovered it was the Stena Forth, a huge drilling ship which was on it's way to Surinam and heading straight towards her on a 240 degree collision course
Jasmine frantically started radioing the ship, getting her flares ready and desperately trying to row south out of the way. On her last radio call the ship finally answered and asked where she was. Her reply that she was literally underneath them, stirred the ship into action. They changed course with less than 0.2 nautical miles to go before a collision which would undoubtedly have ended the young rowers dreams of going into the record books and quite possibly left her fighting for survival in the ocean.
"It was scarily close," said Jasmine. "And was an absolutely massive ship. It literally came right at me, I must admit it was worrying. I had six minutes from the alarm sounding to when it was due to hit," she added.
The rower filmed the encounter talking herself through what she needed to do. "That helps keep me calm. They were going around 11 nm an hour and they were 0.2 nm away so it was very close. Eventually I pulled south and they pulled away as we were about to hit. I must admit that was the scariest moment I have had."
. Jasmine has done around 1,000 of the 3,000 miles after being at sea for around 36 days. Horrendous weather over Christmas and New Year meant she was at times being forced backwards but the weather has now changed and she is doing up to 55 miles a day.
The race winners, a pair, Row4Cancer, have already crossed the finishing line in Antigua completing the race in 32 days. Jasmine is not due to reach the finish until March but says she is determined to get there.
She's raising money for Shelter Box and the Blue Marine Foundation. Go to www.facebook.com/search/top?q=rudderly%20mad
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