Crossing the Atlantic Ocean in 2020 wasn't enough for Edinburgh brothers Ewan, Jamie and Lachlan MacLean. Later this year, they plan to cover about three times that distance and row across the Pacific.
Setting sail from Lima, Peru, in early April (weather dependent), the brothers will attempt to become the first trio to reach Sydney via a human-powered boat, unsupported and non-stop, all in the name of charity while They are looking to raise funds. £1 million for drinking water projects under the MacLean Foundation.
With around 70 kilograms of oats to feed in the morning and more than 2,000 meals (mostly freeze-dried homemade meals) as well as a multi-million pound craft, the MacLeans are pulling out all the stops in their bid to create history.
Along the way, they will face numerous challenges, including typhoons, lack of sleep, exhaustion, sharks, and the threat of billfish. But for the trio, there's no better feeling than taking on these mammoth challenges with their (literally) brothers in arms.
“When we were kids we used to beat each other up,” says Ewan. 'Lachlan is a bit younger and has incredible grip strength, but Jamie and I had this swing in the garden and we used to fix him on it. We were terrible. But that's just kids growing up.
“I think we have always had similar interests in sport, we always got along in many ways and we may not have felt any different from other brothers.
Jamie, Lachlan and Ewan reach the end point of their 2020 Atlantic sailing
The brothers helped design the new boat for its latest challenge with teams from across Europe.
'There was a time, before the Atlantic, when I was working down south, just outside Bristol, Jamie at university, Lachlan in Edinburgh, and I felt like I only saw them once or twice during the year. Then the Atlántico gave us the opportunity to do a project together.
'It's a big, all-encompassing adventure for many reasons. But you have to put your heart and soul into it for a long time before you start rowing. It's working together to do things like this, working with our partners, forming those relationships, the training, being all in this together and it certainly brought us together.
'It's a benefit that the three of us are here. We just take a majority vote and we're very good at just saying, “two of us want to do that, so that's what we're doing.”
Although the brothers are six years apart, oldest to youngest, Lachlan adds that there is no one else he would rather cross the ocean with, saying: “We all have our own close friends, I have one I like.” to do bicycle routes. But ocean rowing is something unique. The social element is probably the most intense part.
'The boat is only 30 feet long, so you're so close that you really have to know that you can be in this together and get through it. Having that non-abrasive attitude and being able to move on is key.'
Now as they prepare for their second ocean crossing, the trio learned numerous lessons from that Atlantic trip that they can put into practice this time.
Using the same technology used in the construction of Formula 1 cars and airplane wings, a lot of thought (and money) has gone into creating the carbon fiber boat that will be the brothers' home for, with luck, approximately four months.
The new boat will weigh around 280kg on its own, less than half that of the old boat.
Ewan, a former Dyson engineer, explains: “It's an all-carbon fiber boat, the hull of which was produced by a world-class sailing racing manufacturer in Germany, then shipped to the Netherlands and then we went out and helped Attach the rowing deck to the rest of the boat.
«The last ship carried just over a ton without cargo. Obviously, we had much less for that trip (over the Atlantic), for 50 or 60 days of food.
'This time we are preparing for more than 150 days, but this boat only weighs about 280 kg. It's very lightweight, because of the manufacturing process, where the sections are made in these huge pressurized ovens, where you can basically bond the carbon layers together in a way that you couldn't do at room temperature. It means it is very, very strong and very light.”
While many observers will be aware of the challenges and dangers, including typhoons and sharks, one of the less obvious tasks the brothers will have to tackle is the formation of barnacles on the hull of their ship.
To avoid this, they plan to have to go overboard every seven to ten days and use a “giant windshield wiper” to clean them and allow maximum speed.
One thing in particular comes to Jamie's mind. He says: 'We did it (clean up) twice in the Atlantic because we only had the conditions for it a couple of times. It's very disconcerting. You see sharks circling the boat; We saw a couple that were quite large. You get in the water and all you can hear in your head is the Jaws theme tune as you try to remove these barnacles.
“The Pacific is also known for having many more species of sharks, there are certainly white sharks and hammerhead sharks, so we'll have that to think about.”
Not only will there be barnacles living on the hull of the boat, but the small fish that follow in their wake also pose an additional threat from billfish.
There have been cases in the past with these predatory fishing boats, but the MacLeans have taken the extra precaution of placing a Kevlar mat on the floor of their cabins to ensure there are no emergencies.
The brothers admit that they couldn't imagine doing this challenge with anyone else.
“The danger posed by billfish is quite common,” says Ewan. 'The billfish try to harpoon the small fish that accumulate below and end up passing through the boat.
'The year we did in the Atlantic, there was a team where one of the guys was sleeping and a marlin's fang went through his legs and that could have been fatal. Fiberglass will be a little less impervious to a marlin impact. In critical areas of the boat, we have thicker parts of carbon, so we shouldn't see a fish being able to penetrate through them.
“But in the cockpits we have a double layer, that is, four layers of carbon with a 10 cm cavity, so we should not see any marlin passing through us.” But we're looking at a Kevlar mat, so even if it went through those layers, there would be a little more resistance.”
The essence of it all is to raise money for clean water projects and complete this last challenge safely.
With rougher waters forecast, the brothers have undergone capsize training in different conditions to ensure they are equipped to handle such an event should it occur.
Lachlan, however, hints that the most important lesson he learned from the Atlantic dispute was the mindset needed to complete the challenge at hand. No matter how strong the bond, relationships are tested on the open sea.
“Some lessons have been learned from that first trip,” he says. “A lot of teams go on these trips and there are a lot of fights. There have been some horrendous stories: there was once a couple who crossed the Atlantic and, in the middle of the ocean as an example of lack of sleep making decision making terrible, one One of them told the other that he had been having an affair with his wife.
On their voyage across the Atlantic, the MacLeans used musical instruments to pass the time and maintain morale.
'Coming out last, he made it clear to us how important it is to have that shared goal in terms of team dynamics. How important it is to have an aligned understanding of what we are doing and why we are doing it, what the priorities are.
'This one, for us, number 1 is getting to the other side safely. Safety is the most important thing for us. In second place is raising £1 million for drinking water projects. So all the decisions we've made about the crossover, those are our guiding principles.
'We would love to do this as peace and quiet, you and the stars, the whales, 150 days without connection to anyone. But since our priority is fundraising, sharing the story as much as we can is really important. We have a Starlink, cameras, a drone and two DSLRs, so we will create whatever means we can to hopefully help us reach our goal.
Jamie adds: 'We're best friends. We trust each other more than anyone else and that's incredibly important when your life literally depends on it. Even if you just want to spend 150 days with people, you have to get along pretty well.'