‘Major Mick’ launches one more year of fundraising in homemade Tintanic boat

Army veteran “Major Mick” Stanley has launched a “final” summer of fundraising in his homemade Tintanic rowing boat – a year after saying his previous effort would be his last.

Michael Stanley, 84, was seen off by the Duke of Richmond as he set off on the first leg of his sixth year of rowing the tin boat at Chichester Yacht Club.

His previous efforts have taken him as far afield as Paris, across the Solent and to Scotland, meeting the King and Government leaders along the way.

In 2023 he won the JustGiving award and by end of 2024 had raised £88,000 by completing 480 miles in the 6ft vessel.

This year he plans to row the north end of the Isle of Wight in stages from the Needles to Bembridge.

He previously supported Children on the Edge, a Chichester-based charity which supported an orphanage near Kyiv, Ukraine, but this has now closed as many of the children have been taken in by family members and the rest by the Romanian care system.

Mr Stanley, from Chichester, West Sussex, has decided to dedicate this year’s fundraising to local St Wilfrid’s Hospice.

Declaring for a second year in a row that it would be his final year, he said: “This will be the final shout. I think my wife is bored with sharing the car with me and Tintanic as when we are going along she can’t see me and it’s rattling around like a pea in a pod.

“I think my wife will be quite happy when it’s finished.”

He added: “So far I have travelled 480 miles and this year I hope to complete the 500 and I have been lucky to raise £88,000 for charity and if I could raise another £12,000 that would be the cherry on the cake.

“My real enjoyment is talking to people and having fun.”

And on the state of the Tintanic, which is the second incarnation of his boat after the first developed too many leaks, he said: “It’s remarkably good, I have to take it out of the water from time to time to stop the leaks, apart from that it’s bearing up well.”

Charles Gordon-Lennox, 11th Duke of Richmond, said: “It’s an amazing achievement, look at him getting in and out of that boat, it’s incredible.

“I hope I am like that at 84 and to have rowed all those miles and be so fit, he’ll live forever, I think.”