BN members and recently-married couple Jooles and Ian Paillin-Dean are preparing to row the Atlantic as part of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge race. BN magazine caught up with them to find out more about it - and how you can help!
For Jooles, water has, quite literally, always been part of her life. Her first time on a boat was in her parents arms at just five days old. Since that time she has predominantly lived either on it—both her parents own and, until very recently, lived on Dutch Barges—or beside it. She and Ian currently live in a quirky old lock cottage on the banks of the river Soar along with two children, two cats, and at least five boats.
The seeds for the idea of rowing the Atlantic were sowed during her childhood, reading Imogen’s War and A Fighting Chance - the story of how Captain John Ridgeway and Sergeant Chay Blyth rowed across the Atlantic in a 20ft open boat.
Fast forward 15 or so years. There was disappointment after training hard to compete at the highly prestigious Henley Regatta in the lightweight women’s double when Jooles discovered the class had been removed for that year and if she and her partner wanted to complete they had to take on ‘heavyweight’ rowers who outweighed and out-stretched them. They failed to reach the final. Worse was to come when she tore an inch-long hole in her abdominal muscle which brought a halt to training for a while. During her forced break Jooles had time to reflect and made the decision to find a way to compete on a level playing field against all others regardless of gender, experience, size, strength or disability, subsequently finding a sport that ticked all those boxes - ocean rowing!
Jooles got to work and put a team together called 'The Transatlantic Trio’. For comfort reasons most ocean rowers will spend a significant amount of time at sea naked. Jooles was already used to a certain amount of nudity having posed for photographer friends and was aware of the Naturist world since her best friend is BN President Mark Bass, who had been trying to get her to come to an event for years. After Mark had taken some promotional shots for the Atlantic event (one of which made the cover of our British Naturism magazine) she swam nude at an event at Peterborough lido and came to BN’s Alton Towers weekend. At the latter, she rowed a solo half marathon solo, naked in the hotel reception area to raise awareness of the campaign (and loved the epic naked disco, fierce water volleyball contests and being part of the amazing Naturist community).
Shortly afterwards she took a trip with the team to watch the start of the 2019 in the small Canary island of La Gomera. Watching the race preparation, meeting the rowers, and learning the lie of the land was so vital to her and the team came back inspired, motivated and looking forward to being in the race the following year.
But it wasn’t to be. In December 2019, Jooles met up with her childhood sweetheart who had been hiding the fact from work and friends that he had been battling paraganglioma, an incurable cancer, for two years already and was quite depressed. Jooles knew she could not let him go through it by himself. The emotional attachment of first love meant they quickly formed a solid relationship with their respective children, bonding over games of Monopoly, escape rooms and crazy golf. They attended doctor and hospital appointments together, and even flew to Florida to attend an exhibition and give his son a holiday at Universal Studios. Her partner passed away in March. Just days later the world was turned upside down and the UK went into the first lockdown. Jooles had lost her partner and now her business because of CV-19. It took every ounce of energy to homeschool her two girls and to try and figure out a way to get back on track. Now a BN member, she turned to British Naturism and suggested running online aerobics classes. They were launched in July 2020 and soon became a staple in the BN online calendar. Later she became a licensed GroovX instructor and ran those classes - the first, and still the only - GroovX classes in the UK conducted in the nude!
Things were improving - helped by her involvement in the Naturist community - but living in isolation through the stress and trauma of a pandemic didn’t help. Still grieving, the team knew in their hearts that it wasn't sensible to take her out to sea for 50 or 60 days, and so decided she couldn’t participate. The Atlantic Challenge had been one of the only things keeping her going, something to look forward to and to achieve.
At the première of an ocean rowing documentary by a team of three record-breaking ladies called 'Pacific Terrific’ she had met one of the team, Cazz Lander, and was introduced to one of Cazz's close friends, Ian Dean. Though she didn’t know it, Ian referred to her as "The next Mrs Dean" for the following two years. They’d connected on social media and after a chance meeting in the supermarket they arranged to take the now famous ‘lockdown walk’ that everyone was doing as it was the only vaguely fun and legal activity that was allowed! Things moved quickly - helped by being forced to isolate together for three weeks - and before long Ian took his first baby steps into becoming a Naturist at another Peterborough Lido event, BN’s online events and a fabulous Alton Towers weekend.
Ian had also confessed he wanted to row an ocean too and Team ‘Stronger Twogether' was born. All they needed was £125,000 to buy an ocean rowing boat, pay the race fees, pay for shipping, food, safety equipment… They decided to get married in December to tie in a mini-moon to La Gomera to see the 2021 Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge race start and celebrate Jooles' 41st birthday. It might not have been a naked wedding, but they did manage a naked dance with a veil on the beach at sunrise.
How you can support Stronger Twogether!
The next few weeks are critical for the success of the project as Ian and Jooles need to raise the money required for the boat - they can’t train on her until fully paid for - equipment and other fees and purchases.
There are many ways to contribute via donations large and small. See the website for details.
Please note that whilst we are happy to promote this initiative by our members it is unconnected with British Naturism’s activities.
