Three Scottish brothers have set a new record for rowing nonstop across the world\u2019s largest ocean, arriving in Australia to the tune of bagpipes and a fresh pizza after 140 days at sea.<\/p>\n
Jamie, Ewan and Lachlan Maclean covered more than 14,000km from Peru to Cairns, where they became the first team to finish the full crossing just before midday on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Violent storms, including one that swept a brother overboard, forced them to make detours and nixed plans for a Friday arrival in a quest that has raised more than $1.64m (\u00a3796,998).<\/p>\n
The money they raised will fund projects that provide clean water to 40,000 people living in Madagascar through the brothers\u2019 charity \u2013 the Maclean Foundation.<\/p>\n
Emotional scenes played out as they rowed into the Cairns Marlin Marina playing the bagpipes and waving the Scottish, Australian and British flags.<\/p>\n
The Maclean brothers step on to shore in Cairns. Photograph: Nuno Avendano\/AAP<\/p>\n
The trio was embraced by more than 50 friends and family from the UK \u2013 including their mother, Sheila, \u2013 as they set foot on the pier before enjoying a freshly baked margherita pizza.<\/p>\n
In the hours before their arrival, eldest brother Ewan uploaded a video calling the marina ahead of their approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have pizza and beer? I repeat, do you have pizza and beer? Over.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince April 12th, our lives have been on this boat,\u201d he captioned the post.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll we\u2019ve known is constant rowing, only breaking for a broken sleep in a cramped cabin, a daily emptying of our thoughts into our ship\u2019s log and to eat, clean and fix broken things.<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow, our bodies will limp on to shore, and the pain will wash away as we are hugged by our friends and family in Cairns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will miss life at sea, but we can\u2019t bloody wait.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fuelling up on fruit after months on the water. Photograph: Nuno Avendano\/AAP<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old described the journey as the hardest thing he has ever done and one he could not have contemplated without his siblings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve shed tears of joy and laughed till our cheeks hurt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd at times we\u2019ve cried with sadness and with fear, but our spirits have been lifted, time and time again, by the support of so many rallying behind us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018We seriously thought we might run out of food.\u2019 Photograph: Nuno Avendano\/AAP<\/p>\n
Middle brother Jamie, 31, said things began to look dire towards the end.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe seriously thought we might run out of food,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite how exhausted we were, we had to step up a gear and make it before supplies ran out, but now we get to eat proper food.<\/p>\n
\u201cOcean rowing has given us newfound appreciation for things we used to take for granted \u2013 like going for a shower, lying in bed, or simply leaning on something stationary.\u201d<\/p>\n
The previous record for the fastest full, unassisted, nonstop Pacific row was 160 days, set by Russian solo rower Fyodor Konyukhov in 2014.<\/p>\n
The Maclean brothers completed the journey in 139 days, five hours and 52 minutes.<\/p>\n
The brothers have also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from sponsorships with whisky distilleries such as Rare Whisky 101 and Talisker, paying tribute to their father\u2019s background as a whisky expert.<\/p>\n
Supporters of the trio include movie stars Ewan McGregor and Mark Wahlberg and Flea from the band Red Hot Chili Peppers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three Scottish brothers have set a new record for rowing nonstop across the world\u2019s largest ocean, arriving in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-102772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}