AS AN Atlantic rowing race enters its final stages, two former Sedbergh School boys and their crewmates are in the lead by 40 nautical miles.

This morning (Thursday) the Four Oarsmen were just 162 nautical miles off the finish at English Harbour, Antigua.

Their blistered hands have already rowed 2,481 miles in gruelling two-hours-on/two-hours-off shifts, since leaving the Canary Islands on December 14.

Sedbergh-educated George Biggar's late mother, Anne Fisher, was a well-known Dalton-in-Furness lawyer. She lost her battle with mental illness in 2011. George and team mates Peter Robinson, Stuart Watts and Sedbergh-educated Dicky Taylor have raised more than £230,000 for mental health charity Mind and Spinal Research.

A friend of the rowers, Natasha Kende, said they were on track to complete the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge tomorrow night (Friday) or Saturday morning - five or six days ahead of the 35-day world record.

"We can't count on anything till it's happened because anything could happen," she said, "but in terms of what they are on track for it's very exciting."