 Around the time former US Marine Evan Stratton was discovering he missed the camaraderie he’d found in the service, he attended a fundraising gala in 2018 – and his life took a new course. He heard the story of Fight Oar Die – an all-American, all-military-veteran rowing team that competes in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge annually. “I’m hearing about these four veterans who are going to get in a boat and row the Atlantic Ocean. My eyes lit up, like yes, I want to do this.”
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 Powell resident and former U.S. Navy Lt. Carl Christensen on Thursday joined three other veterans on a high-tech rowboat in the Canary Islands and began rowing 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean towards English Harbour, Antigua.
They call themselves Fight Oar Die — a play on Roman poet Virgil’s “Fight or Die” proverb — to compete in the world’s toughest rowing race called the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge to raise awareness about veterans’ health and well-being, according to a news release.  Fight Oar Die, a team of four US military veterans, has just embarked on a mission to row a mind-boggling distance across the Atlantic Ocean in support of their fellow veterans.
I long believed that the Iditarod was the most extreme test of human endurance on the planet. That opinion was likely due to the unnecessarily number of times I watched Iron Will, but the point is that I believed an eight-day race covering an impressive 352-miles in Alaska was the pinnacle of human achievement.  A Park County Search and Rescue volunteer and Powell resident embarked Thursday on a row across the Atlantic Ocean with other veterans.
Carl Christensen left the Canary Islands, just off the coast of the African continent, as part of Fight Oar Die. As many people prepare the holidays, one Colorado native is spending them at sea. Evan Stratton is from Denver and served in the Marines. Last Thursday, he began a 3,000-mile journey across the Atlantic — in a 28-foot boat — for the annual Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge.
Read More   More people have climbed Mount Everest than have rowed across the Atlantic, the Fight Oar Die website roars its defiance.
Fight Oar Die, an all-veteran rowing team, will be one of 33 teams to attempt that crossing this year as part of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, a 3,000-nautical mile race from the Canary Islands to Antigua in the Caribbean, kicking off on Thursday. “It’s about motivating veterans to continue to be better and continue to live,” said Luke Holton, an Auke Bay resident and a former soldier, in a phone interview. “I’ve been out for 10 years, and it’s good to get back into that team environment where there’s one goal in mind.” Read Full Article Evan Stratton, and his three other crew members, set sail Thursday to row across the Atlantic Ocean — all 3,000 miles of it.
“We didn’t know each other seven months ago,” John Fannin, one of the crew members, said. All four of the men are U.S. Veterans. “More people have been and climbed Mount Everest and been in space than they’ve ever rowed an ocean,” Stratton said about the trans-Atlantic ocean row. They work in shifts, three hours rowing and three hours sleeping non-stop or days. “We’re shooting for 40 [days] but really just trying to get there in one piece,” Stratton said.  For the second year in a row, Mobile Bay has served as the training ground for a crew of military veterans preparing to row across the Atlantic. On Wednesday, the city showed how enthusiastic it was about the mission.
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