A Scottish businessman who rowed 3,000 miles across the Atlantic has told of enduring blistering heat and massive 12 metre waves – which capsized his boat.
Robbie Laidlaw, from Gullane, East Lothian, set sail from La Gomera, an island off Tenerife where Christopher Columbus set sail for the New World, on 13 December with his boss Chris Mitchell.
They pair reached Nelson’s Dockyard, Antigua on 21 January after 38 days of sailing. Their 7.5 metre boat only carried basic medical, navigation, communications and survival equipment alongside enough food to sustain them for up to two months.
Along the way they converted seawater into drinking water and used buckets as toilets.
Boats in the World’s Toughest Row are still at sea, but Robbie and Chris came in fifth, with the boats ahead of them all crewed by four or five men.
During the journey they endured very heavy seas, blistering heat and capsized on day six. They had been experiencing waves of 10 to twelve metres, when Robbie saw a ‘monster wave’ which flipped them over.
Luckily, their boat is designed to be self-righting, but they did lose all power for several days, affecting their emergency positioning system and auto-helm, which keeps the boat on course.
It meant that, instead of two hours on and two hours off, both men had to work all the time – one to row, the other to manually steer the boat.
Underlying the mental challenge, both Robbie and Chris suffered hallucinations, which they had been trained to expect.
There were lighter moments on the journey, including regular visits from families of whales and pods of dolphins which would play with their oars.
They saw tuna jumping out of the water and flying fish every day – including one that landed in their boat.
In total, they made some one million strokes to complete the journey.
‘It was a fantastic, exhilarating and terrifying experience,’ said Robbie.
‘We knew it was going to be tough, but we’d prepared and trained well. We are also grateful for the support of our families.’
So far, the duo has raised over £150,000 for Hospitality Action, a charity for the hospitality sector, providing financial and mental health support.
‘The hospitality industry is built upon a strong community spirit, and this spirit was damaged during the pandemic with waves of redundancies sweeping the sector during 2019 and 2020,’ said Chris.
‘Hospitality Action supports people facing mental health challenges, which we understand the importance of. It’s why we wanted to support them on our Atlantic campaign.’
The pair had been training for two years in preparation for this challenge, rowing three times during the week, gym work, with longer rows at the weekend.
Their training also involved working with mindset coaches who normally train fighter pilots so, when things got tough, they were able to think clearly and stay safe.
Waiting for them at Nelson’s Dockyard were Chris’s wife and three children, and Robbie’s partner and their baby son, only born in November last year.
To donate visit https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/spiritofhospitality
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