Andrew Osbourne from Rutland will row the Atlantic following the death of his daughter, Amy

A 57-year-old dad is rowing across the Atlantic in a bid to help screen 1,000 school children for heart conditions.

Andrew Osborne will make the 3,000-mile journey alone in a six-metre-long boat, where he will eat, sleep and row for three months.

During that time, the Rutlander will have no face-to-face or phone contact with others, and his nearest human companions will be on the International Space Station as it passes overhead.

Andrew came up with the challenge after losing his 25-year-old daughter, Amy, to an undiagnosed heart condition.

She had seemed in good health but her heart was affected by an electrical fault and she died in her sleep in 2018.

Andrew said: “When we lost Amy, her sisters, Sophie and Jess, raised £60,000, which paid for 501 children to be tested for the same condition.

“I wanted to do something, and had the idea that I would sail the Atlantic - but it was pointed out to me that sounded like a holiday. So, ‘sailing’ became ‘rowing’.

“My aim is to raise £100,000, which will allow 1,000 children to be tested.”

Of the 501 children screened as a result of his daughters’ fundraising efforts, six were found to have an undiagnosed heart condition similar to Amy’s.

Twelve young people with heart conditions die each week in the UK, and 80 per cent of these are undiagnosed.

Andrew is a keen sailor but admits his rowing experience had been more-or-less limited to the River Nene while a pupil at Oundle School.

To prepare for his challenge, he has rowed his boat off the east coast of England. He has also been building his fitness, and talking to former Olympic rower James Cracknell, who rowed the Atlantic 16 years ago with television presenter Ben Fogle.

“James told me that if had I asked for a tip before he set off, he would have said ‘being physically fit’ but if I’d asked him a couple of thousand miles in, he would said ‘the ability to cope mentally’.”

While Andrew will have solar power for audio books, those who have rowed the Atlantic say they soon settled for silence.

One of the pleasures of being at sea that Andrew is looking forward to is stargazing into a pitch-black sky free of light pollution, and seeing whales, which have a curious tendency to follow boats.

But Andrew has been warned about marlins, a fish with a spear-like snout similar to a swordfish.

He said: “The previous owner of the boat told me he had just got comfortable in the cabin when this knife-like object suddenly poked through the wall.

“His immediate reaction was to pull it out - it had snapped off the marlin - but that left a hole in the side of the boat with the Atlantic coming in. He quickly turned around what was in his hand and plugged the hole with it.”

In addition to holes in the hull, capsizing is a concern. The boats’ previous owner capsized seven times on their Atlantic crossing.

Bad weather could also scupper the challenge, as happened to Rutlander Sarah Outen, who came up against a hurricane during her 2015 Atlantic row.

Andrew will leave from the Canary Islands, off Africa, in mid-December, with the exact departure date dependent on a favourable weather forecast. He should reach Antigua in the Caribbean in late March.

“Everything on board the boat will be tepid,” he explained. “My most important piece of equipment converts sea water to drinking water but there’s no way to get anything properly cold.

“By the time I reach Antigua, I’ll be craving a cold beer. Or, if my navigation is off, I’ll have a daiquiri in Cuba.”

Andrew will have to row naked to avoid sores caused by clothes rubbing sea salt against his skin, and will sit on a soft, wool cushion, again to avoid the salt chafing.

He will burn 5,000 calories a day, surviving on freeze-dried meals rehydrated using water boiled on a portable stove.

Andrew’s ‘treats’ will be Nutella - because it is so calorific - and wine gums, a favourite sweet to provide energy and a bit of flavour.

Before the challenge he will put on a stone-and-a-half, and afterwards he will have lost about one-fifth of his body weight.

“I’m told, after two weeks, I won’t care what the freeze-dried meals are because they’ll all taste the same by then,” he said.

Because he cannot stand up on the boat while at sea, let alone walk around, his calf muscles are likely to have wasted so badly, when he reaches dry land standing will be tricky for a fortnight.

If successful, Andrew, who runs a property business, will join only about 90 people to have rowed the Atlantic. More people have been into space.

“My family think I’m nuts - but they have known that for a long time,” he laughed. “The question is, what would Amy think?

“She would be worried about me, and she would be waiting there to have a beer with me at the end. In fact, she would most likely tell me it was my round!”

Andrew’s challenge has already attracted nearly £40,000 in donations for Cardiac Risk in the Young (Cry), a charity which screens the hearts of people aged 14 to 35. The money will be ring-fenced to screen pupils at state schools in Rutland and Leicestershire. To donate to 'Row for Amy' click here.

Adding a further £40,000 in support is MHR, a firm specialising in human resources, payroll and finance, which is also publicising ‘Row for Amy’ and sending volunteers into local schools to raise awareness of the charity and cardiac conditions affecting young people.

Jessica Mills, chairman at MHR said: “With Andrew’s ties to the Rutland area, MHR, as an East Midlands-based business, feels very close to the cause and we are proud to contribute to such a valiant fundraising activity.”