{"id":523983,"date":"2026-01-18T00:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T00:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/523983\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T00:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T00:50:10","slug":"rowing-teams-breathtaking-face-to-face-with-whale-caught-on-film-while-crossing-atlantic-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/523983\/","title":{"rendered":"Rowing Team\u2019s Breathtaking Face-to-Face with Whale Caught on Film While Crossing Atlantic (WATCH)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-228312\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/whale-encounter-VERTICLE-SWNS.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1410\"\/>SWNS \/ Get Busy Rowing team<\/p>\n<p>Incredible footage shows a team of rowers coming face to face with a whale in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n<p>The 4-man team encountered the animal midway through their 3,000-mile (4,800km) adventure to raise money for charity.<\/p>\n<p>SWNS news reported that the men were suddenly surrounded by a pod of four or five whales surfacing and diving alongside their boat.<\/p>\n<p>The video shows one of the mammals breaching right next to the side of their boat\u2014and the \u2018Get Busy Rowing\u2019 team feared their vessel could be struck.<\/p>\n<p>Three of the rowers, Will Towning, Greg Collins, and Chris Betts, are from England, and the fourth member, Elliot Collins, lives in Connecticut.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was the most surreal moment of my life,\u201d Elliot exclaimed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was unbelievable,\u201d said one of the members. \u201cAll I just heard was \u2018whale, whale, whale, whale\u2019, and then I got out of the cabin just in time to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The team are competing in the World\u2019s Toughest Row, which is a transatlantic unassisted rowing race from the Canary Islands (off the coast of Africa) to Antigua in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>ALSO WATCH:<\/strong> <a title=\"Seal Flops onto Photographer\u2019s Boat to Escape Hunting Orca Pod\u2013She Captured it All on Camera\" href=\"https:\/\/www.goodnewsnetwork.org\/seal-flops-onto-photographers-boat-to-escape-hunting-orca-pod-she-captured-it-all-on-camera\/\" rel=\"bookmark noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Seal Flops onto Photographer\u2019s Boat to Escape Hunting Orca Pod\u2013She Captured it All on Camera<\/a><\/p>\n<p>So far, the team has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justgiving.com\/page\/hambo-atlantic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">raised nearly \u00a312,000<\/a> ($15,000) for the Matt Hampson Foundation, which inspires and supports young people seriously injured while playing sports. Their <a href=\"https:\/\/matthampsonfoundation.org\/what-we-do\/the-get-busy-living-centre\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Get Busy Living center<\/a> in rural Leicestershire was opened in 2018 by ex-rugby player Matt Hampson, who himself experienced a life-changing injury in 2005.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SHARE THE EXCITEMENT With Boaters On Social Media\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SWNS \/ Get Busy Rowing team Incredible footage shows a team of rowers coming face to face with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":523984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7052,936,38573,159,22672,52245,67,132,68,12793,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-523983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-marine-life","9":"tag-ocean","10":"tag-sailing","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-surprise","13":"tag-top-videos","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-whales","18":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115913360899498673","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}