Please help to bring Michael home.

This is a fundraiser to support the repatriation of Michael Holt from Cape Verde, to his family in the UK.

Michael passed away whilst rowing solo across the Atlantic Ocean from Gran Canaria to Barbados.

As a type 1 diabetic, this was both ground breaking, and incredibly inspiring.

It also brought with it an increased element of risk. He took considerable measures to limit any issues (a 12v fridge built into his boat for his insulin, automatic blood monitoring in his arm, 24 hour telephone support, etc), but the risk was such, that he was uninsurable. When you operate in the most extreme end of the possible, this is common.

Michael knew all of this, but as his friends and family will attest, he was passionate, and stubborn as a mule - rowing an ocean solo was something that gave him drive and focus. This was something he wanted to do.

Around 700 miles into his crossing, Michael stopped communicating with his land support team. A search and rescue operation found him deceased in his cabin, and he was towed to Cape Verde.

Now the family need to get Michael home. It's not particularly simple and it's an expensive operation. The full extent of the costs is not known at this stage, however if there happens to be a surplus, then these funds will be donated to the charities that Michael was supporting.

---

The Man in the Arena

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."