Sometime today, two British sailors are expected to row their boat under the Golden Gate, completing a six-month-long journey from Japan across the Pacific.

Napans Wayne Lackey, owner of Wine Country Helicopters, and Gary Wooton, a wine maker and pilot, are among those who have been cheering them on as the duo fulfill their quest to become the first men to row a boat across the North Pacific Ocean.

On Sunday, Lackey and Wooton and a photographer were aboard Lackey’s helicopter to drop emergency food supplies to the two men — Mick Dawson and Chris Martin — as the two rowed toward the California coast aboard Bojangles, a 23-foot long boat outfitted with a GPS navigation system, solar panels and other electronic equipment.

UPDATE: Dawson and Martin crossed under the Golden Gate Bridge just before 8:30 a.m. today.

Dawson, 45, a professional sailor and Bojangles’ captain from Lincolnshire, and Martin, 28, a marketing project manager in London, had launched their boat from Choshi Marina west of Tokyo. But after 5,000 miles, during which Dawson and Martin experienced high seas, searing and freezing temperatures, rotating currents and winds that kept them off course and extended the trip, the team was running out of food and surviving on small rations.

After figuring out the logistics, Andrew Morris, a friend of Dawson’s who is monitoring the trip from England called Lackey with the unusual query. Lackey, who had participated in search missions in the past, immediately began to prepare for the private offshore flight about 120 miles west of Jenner.

“The ocean can be quite unforgiving,” Lackey said. “Anything you can do to help.”

Lackey enlisted Wooton, a friend, to prepare waterproof packages that were to be dropped from Lackey’s helicopter. Wooton and Lackey’s wife, Mary Lou, shopped for supplies the men had requested through Morris, mainly non-perishable food items.

As Mary Lou Lackey looked for high-protein and high-carbohydrate foods at various Napa stores, she and her husband decided to include a cooler filled with foods the men most likely had not had in months, including bananas and apples, cheese, milk, orange juice, a couple of donuts and a few beers.

Wooton packaged the items into four buoyant bundles — by tying each of them to a life jacket and a marine line purchased at a Napa store.

On Sunday, Mary Lou stopped by the McDonald’s near Soscol and Imola Avenues to pick up the last items — two hamburgers and two servings of French fries — which Dawson and Martin had included on the list.

“We thought they were kidding,” she said, adding the men probably did not think that could be done. “But we wanted to try to do it.”

On Sunday, Wayne Lackey got fuel at Santa Rosa Airport, before he, Wooton and Sandra Cannon, a Sausalito-based photographer, set out westward toward the Bojangles in his Bell Jet Ranger helicopter .

Finding the boat, a speck on the ocean from the air, was easier than expected. The weather was clear, the swells low. Dawson shot an orange smoke flare as soon as the helicopter approached their location.

As the helicopter hovered 30 feet over the water, Wooton dropped the four packages as the men retrieved them with boat hooks.

Soon enough they were opening the boxes, Lackey said.

In his blog, Martin, who wrote from the Bojangles since May, said that the deliveries had left them feeling “like Father Christmas had turned up many times over.”

The two hamburgers, French fries and donuts were particularly appreciated.

“Andrew Morris and Wayne, I want to have your babies, you are truly wonderful people,” Martin wrote, adding the stash of food could have lasted six months.

On Thursday, in a satellite interview from the Bojangles west of Point Reyes, Dawson said he expects the Bojangles will cross the Golden Gate by lunchtime Friday. Relatives and friends from England are already in San Francisco to welcome them at the Golden Gate Yacht Club.

“I think we’ve just about done it,” Dawson said. “It’s a coastal row, but compared to what we’re used to it’s quite easy.”

A former Royal Marine, Dawson said he appreciated Wayne Lackey’s skills as a pilot.

“And most importantly, he brought tea,” Dawson said. “We were out of stock. It’s an English thing.”

For information on the Golden Gate Endeavour project, check http://www.goldengateendeavour.com