In 1996 BT promoted Simon to events manger Simon said "the job itself was an adventure I was travelling all over the world, I and fellow BT employee Neil Hitt signed up for the 1997 Pt St Charles Atlantic Rowing race we met Alan Rudge who was Deputy CEO of BT, for 2 guys like us to meet the number 2 man in the company was unbelievable, at the 25 minute meeting Mr. Rudge agreed to sponsor Neil and I, two months later the phone rang, it was Alan Rudge calling to tell me that Cellnet were going to be the title sponsor of our row and gave me the phone number of who I had to call. The Cellnet Atlantic Challenger was about to be built".
 

In the event Simon and Neil did not row together, Simon said "Neil was a rower and keen on training we had different ideas on this subject and we went our separate ways, I got George Rock to join me on Cellnet Atlantic Challenger we were well funded, more so than Neil, who beat us across in Hospicecare it just goes to prove that funding is not everything".

In February 27 2003 Simon left Kalbarri (Western Australia) to row solo across the Indian Ocean.
On June 15 2003 he finished his row with crossed the line of longitude north of Mauritius 108 days after he set off from Australia.

In his latest diary Simon writes: "I can't put it into words at the moment, how I feel, and I think it's going to take a while. I can't believe this is it, that the whole thing is about to pass into history. It's been absolutely awesome."

 Simon Chalk is a Managing Director of a property development company  Woodvale Ltd. based in Newton Abbot, Devon.
Woodvale Events is a subsidiary company of Woodvale Ltd and was set up by Simon Chalk to run his own personal ocean rowing projects.
In 2003 Woodvale Events Ltd. became the title sponsor of the Atlantic Rowing race organized by Challenge Business and in January 2004 bought ocean rowing races from Challenge Business.