After 139 days at sea, three Scottish brothers have set a new world record by completing the first and fastest unsupported row across the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n
Ewan, Jamie and Lachlan McClean rowed more than 14,000 kilometres from Lima, Peru, to Cairns, becoming the first team ever to complete the full crossing from South America to Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The previous record of 159 days had been set in 2014 by Russian rower Fedor Konyukhov.<\/p>\n
Ewan told the ABC the trip was “pretty overwhelming” upon arrival on Australian shores.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We’re still got our sea legs, so yeah, wobbling all over the place to be honest, but very happy to be ashore,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The brothers broke multiple records.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n
The brothers took on the challenge to raise funds for clean water projects in Madagascar, raising more than 795,000 pounds ($1.64m) so far to help 40,000 people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This caught the attention of many celebrities, including Mark Wahlberg, who spoke with the trio while they were at sea.<\/p>\n
Bad weather changes plans<\/p>\n
The trip was not all smooth sailing.<\/p>\n
Bad weather meant the brothers could not finish at their planned destination, Sydney.<\/p>\n
“The last couple of weeks have been really hard,” Jamie said.<\/p>\n
“Our expectations being crushed when we thought we were going to arrive and then getting hit by storm after storm, just getting knocked back, getting thrown north.<\/p>\n
“To have to break the news to them [family] that, unfortunately, the weather’s turned against us and we’re going to be out here for a lot longer than we anticipated. That was really, really hard.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The brothers were raising funds for clean water projects in Madagascar.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n
The brothers battled seasickness, injuries, extreme weather, a broken water maker, a faulty auto-helm, and dwindling food supplies.<\/p>\n
Lachlan experienced a terrifying man-overboard incident during a night shift, when his brother Ewan quickly managed to rescue him.<\/p>\n
“A side-on wave came in out of nowhere. I had like a couple of seconds to react and it just hit me,” Lachlan said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Took me right off my feet. I kind of hit the life-lines on the starboard side, basically did like a backwards somersault into the water.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
The brothers survived on freshly caught fish and freeze-dried meals prepared by Jamie, which they ran out of on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The brothers lived on freshly caught fish.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Celebrations in Cairns<\/p>\n
The brothers arrived to celebrations.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Celebrations were underway as the brothers arrived in Cairns, with dozens of friends and family from the UK \u2014 including their mother, Sheila \u2014 joining in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s honestly so hard to describe \u2026 it’s just extremely admirable what they are doing, and they make it look like it’s just another day in the office,” their friend Isla Dolling said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Crowds gathered to welcome the trio.\u00a0 (ABC News: Christopher Testa)<\/p>\n
The brothers’ boat, Rose Emily, named after the sister they never knew, is believed to be the fastest and lightest ocean rowing boat ever built, created with ocean rowing legend Mark Slats.<\/p>\n
The trio had previously broken three world records on an Atlantic row in 2019.<\/p>\n
“Ocean rowing has given us new-found appreciation for things we used to take for granted \u2014 like going for a shower, lying in bed, or simply leaning on something stationary,” Jamie said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“While I might miss the routine, the solitude, the sunsets, and sunrises, right now I’m just very glad to be back on land with my friends and family, who I’ve missed so much.”<\/p>\n
After nearly five months at sea, the brothers will have a well-deserved rest before attending an event at Sydney’s Maritime Museum next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 139 days at sea, three Scottish brothers have set a new world record by completing the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,10881,76617,76612,20049,76611,76613,44,25009,7441,76615,76614,17330,5994,76610,588,670,76616,1720],"class_list":["post-106794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-charity","tag-clean-water-projects","tag-ewan-maclean","tag-human-interest","tag-jamie-maclean","tag-lachlan-maclean","tag-news","tag-pacific-ocean","tag-peru","tag-raising-funds-for-clean-water-projects-in-madagascar","tag-rowers","tag-rowing","tag-scotland","tag-scottish-brothers","tag-sport","tag-sydney","tag-the-maclean-foundation","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}