For 50 days, Captain Pete Rowlands will row for two hours and sleep for two hours, carving a path through raging seas in a race that tests the absolute limits of human endurance.
He will do it alongside three friends, in a fragile vessel only 6ft wide.
The epic voyage could see them smash a record that has held firm for more than a century. But win or lose, it will represent a true victory for Capt Rowlands – who is taking on the challenge in memory of his teenage son, who died of meningitis two years ago.
Team Hesco are putting the finishing touches to their preparations for the "Commando Joe" challenge. There are fewer than 100 days to go until they set off from New York bound for Falmouth to raise £100,000 for the Meningitis Trust, in a race that will see teams from around the world try to beat the trans-atlantic crossing time set by two Norwegian immigrants in 1896.
Capt Rowlands, of Long Riston in East Yorkshire, will be joined in the Woodvale Ocean Fours Atlantic Challenge by three fellow Commandos: long-time friend and Long Riston neighbour Capt Mark Waterson, mine disposal expert Charlie Martell, of Gloucestershire, and Staff Sergeant Ben Fouracre, of Wiltshire. The attempt is being sponsored by Hesco Bastion, a UK supplier of force protection equipment to military organisations worldwide.
The Army friends have been spurred on by the tragic death last year of Gareth Rowlands, 16, son of Territorial Army Quartermaster and crew member Captain Rowlands.
A boarder at Mount St Mary's College at Spinkhill, near Sheffield, he died suddenly from meningitis hours after complaining of a headache.
Capt Rowlands said: "He was sports-mad, and would have loved to have done this alongside me. We shared a spirit of adventure."
The trained Royal Marine Commandos have seen action in some of the toughest parts of the world. Capt Rowlands, Capt Waterson and Mr Macmillan fought in the Falklands conflict and they all served together in Northern Ireland.
Their three years of fundraising, planning and sheer hard work will come to a head on June 10 when Commando Joe – rowing under the name of Team Hesco – stake their claim in the Shepherds Ocean Fours Rowing Race. It is the second in a series of three "extreme" challenges – they have already raced to the North Pole in a record-breaking time.
"I hope we'll get a better reception than the two Norwegians who made that first crossing," said Capt Rowlands. "When they touched land in the Scilly Isles, nobody believed they had arrived from New York – so they got back in the boat again and rowed on to France, where they arrived – and were believed – five days later!"
The steamship they took back to New York, ran out of coal and the captain gave an order for their rowing boat to be jettisoned. It was – but with them inside it. They rowed back to New York, where they faded into obscurity. Their record remains unscathed.
Unlike those early pioneers, Mount Spirit is bristling with a variety of equipment to make the crossing easier, including a fresh water maker, GPS navigation and satellite phones.
"We've also wired in an iPod to a music system on deck to alleviate some of the monotony of the voyage," Capt Rowlands said. "If the iPod is completely full, we've worked out that if we beat the record, we shouldn't have to listen to the same song twice!"
He added: "It's amazing what the human body can do. This will be hard, hellishly hard, but it's for a cause that matters so much, and I'll be doing it with true friends. If you fall out with someone you have got nowhere to go. We will start out as friends and finish as friends."
Mount Spirit will be formally launched on April 6 at St Katherine's Dock, London, in the presence of Falklands veteran and charity campaigner Simon Weston, before the team heads to Weymouth for a week of testing the boat.
Then it will be shipped to New York for the start of the race on June 10.
Dave.Mark@ypn.co.uk