Row4Charity mum Jackie Hellier

At 20, Matt is the youngest of the four-man Row4Charity crew currently grappling with the elements in the middle of the Indian Ocean Rowing Race 2009.

Win or not, the lads have done themselves and Bexhill proud but it's obviously a worry for any mother to have her boy so many thousands of miles away and up against potential danger competing in a record-breaking challenge.

Jackie, of Manor Road, admits she tries not to think too hard about what Matt might be facing alongside team-mates Nick and Phil McCorry and Ian Allen.

Matt was the last of the four to get onboard with the plan to raise money to take part in the international race, and funds for The Stroke Association at the same time, and Jackie remembers she assumed the venture would never get off the ground.

"To be honest I didn't think they would get it together - I really didn't. In my mind it wasn't going to happen, so I didn't even think about it.

"But then they got there - they went out and got the money, and they went at it.

"Matt put his heart and soul into organising fundraising events and everything, and then I knew...When my son feels he is going to do something, he is going to do it.

"He is very strong-willed, although you wouldn't think so because he is such a gentle giant, but when he gets something in his head, it is there.

"If people start talking to me about it, I get very tearful and I don't like to know because it's all too much. I know he is on the Indian Ocean but I am blanking it - that's how I keep myself together really, I don't think about it too much...I just think they are out there, they are in the boat and rowing - just like they normally do for their regatta. They are just out at a regatta."

Jackie has not been following the daily progress on the IOR website too closely but husband Danny has been glued to it morning and night and so she knows something of what has been happening out there as the Bexhill Trust Challenger heads towards Mauritius some 200 miles ahead of their nearest rivals in the four crew class.

There has been a problem with communication because the team has power for the satellite phone but not enough for an internet connection, and Matt has also called on all his resources to deal with fixing the rudder, automated steering and water machine as well as the trauma of losing all his underwear overboard while trying to give it a wash.

"I did speak to him and said - I can't wait for you to come home. He said - Mum, I am on my way home, and I can't wait to come back and see you."

Crew family and friends will be flying out on June 17 to Mauritius to wait for Row4Charity to reach the end of the race, more than 3,000 miles and approximately 65 days after they left Geraldton in Western Australia.

The boys have been living on soup and food in plastic bags which has to be boiled up, and Jackie thinks they will soon be down to living on Pot Noodles to fuel their two hours on, two hours off gruelling regime of rowing.

"He said they are basically exhausted but they know they are coming home - and that's what's willing them on."