Since our last ocean rowing roundup, one crew has restarted their Pacific crossing and two new boats have taken to the Indian Ocean.
Pacific Ocean
The MacLean Brothers (UK): Ewan, Jamie, and Lachlan McLean are rowing from Peru to Australia. Five weeks into their journey, they have covered approximately 5,000km of the 14,000km and settled into a good daily routine, even if it is a little monotonous and draining.
The trio has rowed an ocean together before. In 2020, they broke the speed record for a trio crossing the Atlantic. Now they are hoping to do the same on our biggest ocean.
In the last week, they have struggled with the heat. Although they are making good progress, the combination of rising temperatures and exhaustion from constant rowing has started to impact their motivation. They are also struggling with their steering. The majority of the time, they use an autopilot, but theirs is starting to act up.
The autopilot’s compass seems to forget which way is north. This adjusts the rudder accordingly and starts sending them in loops. So they have to switch to manual steering while the autopilot readjusts.
A big day for the trio came on May 17. It was their 35th day on the water. In 2020, they completed their Atlantic row in just over 35 days, but now they have almost two-thirds of their journey to go. On social media, they admit they are in “uncharted waters” as a team.
Seas the Day (UK): Jess Rowe and Miriam Payne have restarted their Pacific crossing from Peru to Sydney. Initially, the pair set off in April but had to abandon their attempt after just 480km. Their rudder broke in difficult weather, and the duo decided to head back to shore, fix the boat, and start again.
Less than a month later, they are back on the water for their 14,000km journey, rowing at least 15 hours a day. Over the last few weeks, they have had a number of power issues. They thought the heavy cloud cover had affected their solar-powered batteries, but now it has brightened up, and the problems remain.
They are manually steering the boat and will soon have to start manually pumping their water if the issues persist.
Indian Ocean
Ocean Revival (UK): This four-man crew of Matthew Mason, Jake Mattock, Matthew Inglesby, and Mathew Hemmings is trying to row 8,500km from Australia to Tanzania.
Ocean Revival has been taking on ocean challenges for the last few years. In 2021, they became the first to row from New York to London. Since then, they have crossed the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and even did a long Arctic row. Now they are taking on the Indian Ocean. The crew members change for each journey. The only consistent member is Mason; Inglesby has also rowed with the team before.
The foursome started on May 15 and has covered 8% of the total distance. The first few days were “no joke,” they admitted. “You train for it, plan for it, prep your body and your mind…but nothing quite hits like the reality of sleep deprivation, 35°C+ heat, and two-hour rowing shifts that seemingly never end. There’s no easing in!”
Untamed (BG, NL, CN, UA): A second team of four rowers has set off across the Indian Ocean from the west coast of Australia to Kenya. The rowers are Evgeny Sudyr from Ukraine, Liu Yong from China, Ralph Tuijn from the Netherlands, and Stefan Ivanov from Bulgaria.
They started on May 17 and have covered just 4% of the 9,000km so far. They hope to finish in 75 days. The Indian Ocean is known for its powerful currents and unpredictable weather. It is taken on far less than the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, which makes it even more surprising that two independent teams are attempting to row from Australia to Africa at the same time.
Photo: Team Untamed
The team is hoping their collective experience will give them an edge as they attempt to cross it.
Tujin, who owns and is captaining the boat, is an experienced adventurer. He has made 12 ocean crossings and spent 958 days at sea. Ivanov has made successful crossings of the Atlantic, Southern, and part of the Arctic Ocean, and Yong has rowed the Atlantic. Though Sudyr has not rowed an ocean before, he has taken on several endurance challenges.
A few days into their journey, the team has shared very few details, but their tracker shows they are making good progress.
