“WITH a heavy heart, I’ve made the decision to stop this challenge and bring A Great British Odyssey to an end.”

That was the statement from rower Angus Collins on August 2 as he called an end to his solo challenge to circumnavigate the British Isles in his Cornish-built rowing boat Goosander.

The rower - who was making the trip to break a record, but also to raise vital funds for a men’s mental health charity - admitted defeat via an Instagram statement.

“Yesterday, I broke. Not in the way you might expect at sea - with waves or winds or currents - but in the quiet, crushing way only the mind can unravel. I spent much of the day in tears. Not fresh tears, but ones I’ve been holding back since almost the moment I set foot on Goosander. They’ve been building with every stretch of coastline, every storm, every hour along in the vast, grey silence.”

His attempt to be the first person in history to row solo and unsupported around mainland Great Britain was dogged from the start by weather events which hindered progress.

The award-winning rower spent days in Dartmouth waiting for a good weather window, only to be stranded later in Boscastle on the North Cornwall coast with no way to continue onwards; the wind direction making any stopover or anchoring around Bude, the next stop, impossible.

His boat, built in Millbrook, was transported from Boscastle to Carlisle on July 28 in the hope of restarting the attempt from the north of Oban, in an area where they had predicted the most reliable amount of weather heading out through the Sound of Mull.

A fault with his onboard water maker impeded any further progress with Storm Floris putting pay to the challenge once and for all, with Angus ending his challenge back in Oban on the west coast of Scotland.

A passionate mental health advocate after suffering severe mental health issues for a number of years, Angus is continuing with his pledge to raise money for his chosen charity James’ Place. Just before announcing the end of his rowing endeavour, the half-way mark in the fundraising had been hit. The current total stands at £126,743.

The rower added: “After more than a decade of rowing across the world’s oceans - chasing records, isolation, and maybe even answers - I’ve come to understand something I never allowed myself to before. Healing doesn’t happen alone in the middle of the sea. It happens at home, surrounded by the people who love you.

“That might seem obvious to some, but for me, it’s a hard-won and deeply personal truth. One that has come at a cost, but one I will carry forward with pride.”

With the imminent arrival of Storm Floris his boat Goosander was due to be taken out of the water at Oban. He added: “This might be the end of the expedition, but it is not the end of the journey.”

Donations can be made to via Just Giving: www.justgiving.com/page/gbodyssey.