During the joyful times, the girls sang pop songs loudly in the wet wavy night or ate noodles they had brought from China and made with cold water.

The biggest take-away from the trip is about life attitude, Li said. "Everything will be all right in the end. If not, it's not the end."

Meng Yajie and Liang Mintian, majoring in English and finance respectively, graduated from the university last year.

The four received one year of training before the competition in which they rowed around the clock with two-hour interval shifts in a boat measuring less than four square meters, relying only on supplies on board and a solar-powered seawater desalinizing device. They received earthquake and tsunami alerts during the trip.

Teams in the race supported different charity missions. Kung Fu Cha-Cha hoped to raise funds for a project to send teachers to Chinese rural areas.

Kung Fu Cha-Cha, which got its name from gongfucha, or the way people drink tea in places such as Shantou and Chaozhou in Guangdong province, and Chinese kung fu, is sponsored by the Li Ka Shing Foundation.

Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing issued a video with messages of encouragement on Jan 9 and another video in which he called the team when they were 690 kilometers from their destination.

The foundation is expected to donate more than HK$8 billion ($1.03 billion) for the development of Shantou University this year, and the foundation pledged last year to provide HK$2 billion more to the university in the coming eight years.

Sheng Wuhan contributed to this story.