![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/whale-encounter-VERTICLE-SWNS.jpg\")
SWNS \/ Get Busy Rowing team<\/p>\n SWNS \/ Get Busy Rowing team<\/p>\n
Incredible footage shows a team of rowers coming face to face with a whale in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n
The 4-man team encountered the animal midway through their 3,000-mile (4,800km) adventure to raise money for charity.<\/p>\n
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
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
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
\u201cIt was the most surreal moment of my life,\u201d Elliot exclaimed.<\/p>\n
\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
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
\u00a0<\/p>\n
ALSO WATCH: Seal Flops onto Photographer\u2019s Boat to Escape Hunting Orca Pod\u2013She Captured it All on Camera<\/a><\/p>\n So far, the team has raised nearly \u00a312,000<\/a> ($15,000) for the Matt Hampson Foundation, which inspires and supports young people seriously injured while playing sports. Their 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 SHARE THE EXCITEMENT With Boaters On Social Media\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SWNS \/ Get Busy Rowing team Incredible footage shows a team of rowers coming face to face with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[5695,111,139,69,11599,18245,147,88,34322,28975,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-238780","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-marine-life","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-ocean","13":"tag-sailing","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-surprise","16":"tag-top-videos","17":"tag-whales","18":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}