Rowing: Transatlantic marathon man misses his moggy

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Transatlantic hard man Matt Goodman just wants to come home to his cat.

As soon as Goodman and fellow Auckland policeman Steve Westlake arrived in Barbados to win the race yesterday, the hungry rowers were taken to a swanky restaurant and allowed to eat their fill of Caribbean fish and ice cream.

They spent a couple of hours under a cold shower and soaked in a freshwater pool to wash off 42 days of Atlantic sea salt.

But there was one thing that Goodman still yearned for - the company of his tabby, Squeak.

"When I come back, I'm heading straight from the airport to my cat. I really missed him at sea," said the Papakura constable, who had never been out of New Zealand before this ocean jaunt.

It's not that Goodman is sick of the sight of Westlake, his sole companion for the past six weeks at sea. The pair are already discussing when they will get back in a rowing boat together, which will be on calmer waters. They will row as a double sculls crew at the national championships in March.

"We had a great time together - there were a lot of laughs," Goodman said.

"In the last couple of days, when we realised that the race record had slipped away, we felt like we were coming last instead of first.

"Even though in the headwinds we felt like we were going nowhere, we still gave each other a bit of lip and had a laugh - just enjoying the last little leg together. Now we'll go to the surf beaches together."

The New Zealanders still have some race-related work to do, barracking for the Kiwi women's crew, Jude Ellis and Steph Brown, who have another week at sea. They are chasing down the Belgians for what would be a remarkable third place overall.

Westlake and Goodman, a crew thrown together at the 11th hour, were thrilled to achieve their primary goal - to win the race, and win it well. Their nearest rivals, Australian doctors Patrick Weinrauch and Paul McCarty, were still three days from landfall when the New Zealanders crossed the line.

But the New Zealanders remained disappointed about falling almost 24 hours short of breaking the race record. It was set in 1996 by the man who organised the campaign, Rob Hamill, and Phil Stubbs, who had intended tackling this race with Westlake but was killed in a plane crash in 1998.

Said Hamill from Barbados: "In some ways it's nice that the record has remained intact, keeping Phil's name in a place of honour."

At the halfway point of the 3000-nautical mile crossing, Westlake and Goodman were six days ahead of record pace. But they were slowed by headwinds.

"We did everything we physically could to go fast, but the weather was against us almost all the way," Goodman said. "I guess it leaves us with some unfinished business."

Goodman admitted he could take another shot at the record. The next race is in two years, and Hamill is already talking of his team entering up to four boats.

"We just need time to recover," Goodman said. "Our backsides are really tender, and they're half the size of what we started with.

"Never having been overseas before, I couldn't get used to the 40-degree heat. I'm a hairy individual and I've got a lot of rashes."

The New Zealanders rowed a near-perfect course from Tenerife and were always the strongest crew in the 35-boat fleet.

"At the start, there were some really athletic guys who hadn't worked on their boats, and then there were some really good boats with older guys on them," Goodman said.

"For the first couple of weeks, it looked like the Australians were ahead of us. But we were doing more miles each day, just heading on a different course."