Thomas Cremona’s record row across the Atlantic is not likely to be broken by this year’s attempt. But his feeling is only one of relief that the competing crew is safe after their boat – the same one that he was on last year – capsized.

“I can only think how lucky I was our boat did not capsize and that they made it onto the life raft and were rescued,” he said.

This time last year, Mr Cremona, a leukaemia survivor, and the first Maltese to row across the Atlantic, was inching close to breaking the record aboard the 11-metre Sara G.

After a gruelling 34 days at sea covering 5,098 kilometres, the crew smashed the mid-Atlantic world record by 10 hours in a Row4Cancer campaign that aimed to prove there was life after cancer.

Mr Cremona has been closely following this year’s Atlantic Odyssey challenge. The crew has the same captain but has experienced a tougher crossing in terms of weather throughout the voyage from Morocco to Barbados.

The vessel overturned on Monday, 27 days into its journey and 520 miles from its destination.

“Unfortunately, these things do happen,” Mr Cremona said. From experience he knows it would not have been easy.

“It could have been quite a scary experience,” he said, adding that it was likely a towering wave hit the boat from the side.

“They were probably not prepared for it,” he added, pointing out that he had come close to capsizing four times last year.

“The boat is designed to flip back, thanks to its safety measures, but it did not correct itself, so something must have gone wrong.”