Five men. Six oars. 3000 miles

The Scotsman, July 2021

It speaks volumes about the British obsession with a particular brand of humour that, despite the vast stretches of open sea, muscular thirty-foot Atlantic swells, sunburn, sores, sleep-deprivation, seasickness and suffering (lots and lots of suffering) that awaits the strapping lads showing us around their shiny new boat, what most people seem really, forensically interested in is not the buttock-clenchingly gruelling thought of propelling a fiberglass capsule no larger than a transit van one-and-a-half million oar strokes across an inhospitable ocean. It is the facilities. Or rather, the distinct lack thereof. So let’s get this out of the way early shall we.

It’s yellow and it’s plastic and it has, for my money, the easiest gig on the boat.

The Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge is billed as the world’s toughest row. In early December, crew members from around thirty global teams will cast off from San Sebastián de La Gomera on the coast of Spain’s Canary Islands, sculling for two hours then sleeping for two, on constant twenty-four-hour rotation, for between forty and one hundred days, until they reach Nelson’s Dockyard English Harbour in Antigua some three thousand miles West. Hopefully, in first place. They will carry (or desalinate) everything they need to sustain them on their journey, sleep and wait out bad weather folded into one of the boat’s two cramped cabins (cabins that, for buoyancy reasons, must be sealed shut whenever they are in use) and will, on occasion, be bobbing around atop a body of water that is over five miles deep. And I know that sounds like a lot of fun, but as I discovered when I visited the only Scottish crew in this year’s race (Five in a Row) at North Berwick harbour this bright morning, for them there is a deeper and far more personal reason behind this particularly flagellant pleasure cruise.

Rett Syndrome is a rare post-natal neurological disorder that affects brain development in children, resulting in severe and destructive mental and physical disabilities. Speaking, walking, eating, even breathing is impacted, whilst the parts of the brain that control consciousness and awareness remain largely undamaged, often locking young minds into young bodies they cannot control. In a particularly ugly twist, Rett is disproportionately fond of little girls. It is, and I choose this word carefully: heartbreaking. There is no known cure, at least not yet, but what can be managed is the health and wellbeing of the children and the families who suffer, as treatments, therapies, and hopefully a cure are developed. Ross McKinney, one of the five crew members putting the juniors of the North Berwick rowing club through their paces on the rowing machine, has a young daughter, Eliza, who suffers from Rett. Reverse Rett is the charity for whom the team are raising both money and awareness.

‘If it looks like a mid-life crisis and sounds like a mid-life crisis…’ Duncan Hughes is a head and shoulder taller than the rest of the crew; tanned, team-spirited, and terminally optimistic (and half a lifetime ago we went to school together). He doesn’t get a chance to finish his thought though, as one of his three young boys bounds up, tugging impatiently at his shorts. ‘We know you have money for ice cream!’

His ‘nope’ is accompanied by warm laughter and punctuated with a kick to the rear that sends the boy skittering and giggling away onto the beach. (They will try again three times in the next thirty minutes, using a variety of tactics, and eventually, sorry Hannah, they will wear him down.)

When the two of us were boys ourselves, some twenty-five years ago, Duncan was a vegetarian, as he still is today. This was a rare thing for a thirteen-year-old rugby player in East Lothian, and something he decided for himself was important — a fact I did not know until this moment.

‘Imagine a rugby club dinner where you are the only vegetarian. A lukewarm Linda McCartney lasagne being slow clapped in on a silver platter in front of the entire bar, and then a bill for forty quid!’ And yet it is a feature of the man that this, for him, is a fond and entertaining memory. I suspect this stands him, and his associates, in good stead for dealing philosophically with two months of his cacophonous dehydrated mung bean emissions. Which brings us smoothly to food. How, on earth, to feed five calorifically deficient rowers for ten ravenous weeks, with no fridge, cooker, sink, utensils, or support?

‘Freeze dried…it’s pretty good actually’ says Ian Baird, another of the crew, as he throws me a crinkled foil brick. A good thing too, as they’re going to have to eat a hell of a lot of it. Each man will need to consume approximately ten thousand calories, and around ten litres of water per day (which, if the solar powered desalinator fails, will need to be hand pumped; an agonising and laborious process). The hold will be packed — literally, to the gunwales — with vacuum sealed silver sachets of the stuff: protein, carbohydrate, sugar…and noisome arguments in waiting.

‘You eat the first thing you grab, and to begin with it’ll be jammed into the cabins too. We’ll have to squeeze in there with it until we’ve chomped our way through it!’ Adds Ian, gleefully.

The trip itself does not weigh anchor for some two hundred days, but already the crew are pushing themselves with punishing, and of course often socially distanced training, including brutal sets of two hours on - one hour off - two hours on (and if you’ve ever used a rowing machine I defy you not to wince at the very idea of that) as well as regular sponsorship rallying; glad-handing with everyone from sea scouts to venture capitalists. And no wonder, because it’s an expensive business. The boat itself costs in the mid five-figures, and that doesn’t begin to account for the entry fees, food, equipment, or the logistics of actually transporting crew and craft to the Canaries.

In an effort to broach the sensitive subject of finance, I ask Duncan how they found the boat. Surely, I thought, there must be no shortage of jaded, tattered-bottomed adventurers just desperate to get shot of the bloody things? But apparently not.

‘Hen’s teeth. We hunted and hunted, then one day I recognised three guys on the beach eating fish suppers. The Maclean brothers: Scottish ocean rowers, record-breakers. I ran over, got to talking with them and offered to buy their boat…they said yes, and we’ve had three offers for it already.’

So, the boat is expensive, and the accommodations cramped (and stifling, and windowless). The physical challenge is unrelentingly arduous, and the food is a little samey. You make the water yourself, puke yourself blind (did I mention that?) torture your bottom and relieve the monotony by jamming it into a bucket. Nonetheless, the lot of them look energised, elated, primed…near giddy with the thought of testing themselves, of doing something outside of the normal sphere of existence. But perhaps that is because there is more at stake here than just adventure, machismo, and a near palpable competitive spirit.

Perhaps that is because of Eliza.

Follow thier progress or support the team here: https://www.fiveinarow.co.uk/personal