'I had a small cut... then a shark appeared'

Zara Lachlan, 21, is spending Christmas at sea

A university student rowing from Europe to South America has finished the first half of her stamina-sapping adventure - despite facing major challenges.

Zara Lachlan, 21, from Cambridge, is spending Christmas at sea as she aims to become the youngest person, and first woman, to row solo across the Atlantic.

The Loughborough University physics student recently encountered a shark and had to use a flare when her tiny boat was almost hit by a tanker.

Ms Lachlan, who hopes to become a technical officer in the Army next year, is making good time and has been rowing more than 16 hours a day as she heads towards her destination - the coast of French Guiana.

Zara is carrying all the supplies she needs in her boat, including the meals and snacks she needs each day – which she is eating cold

Ms Lachlan has already covered more than 2,050 miles (3300km) of her record-breaking 4000-mile (6400-km) solo and unsupported row across the Atlantic.

So far, the journey has been hampered by injuries, a broken oar, vicious weather that caused her boat to roll, damage to some of her communications equipment, encounters with orcas and sharks – and a near collision.

She said: "I had a small cut that just bled a lot.

"I'm fine, but when I was washing it off in the sea a couple of minutes later a shark appeared, which was pretty cool.

"It hung around for quite a while - about an hour. It was not a great white shark as it was brown, so you could call it a 'great brown shark'!"

Near miss

Within the same 24 hours, she had another scary encounter while it was still dark.

She said: "I had a very large ship not turning on its radio and heading straight towards me.

"I could see on the AIS [automatic identification system] where they were going to go and it was directly towards me, so I got on the radio and I used a white flare, but they still didn't reply.

"They missed me by 0.1 of a mile (160m), which is nothing.

"It's ridiculous. I'm really angry at them because I can't do anything about that. So I'm very grateful that I'm OK."