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When I first heard they were gonna do the row
you hear it and you're like, probably not possible.
They explain what it is and you just think what the hell is this?
The world's toughest rowing race,
3,000 miles long, across the Atlantic.
From the Canary Islands to the Caribbean.
30 teams taking part, one of the world's toughest endurance events.
I think my first reaction was a little bit horrified.
You're off your chops. It's not gonna happen.
We were like, they're not gonna be able to do it.
When you're 1,000 miles from land, helicopters can't come and get you.
Sleep deprivation, unpredictable storms, anything could happen.
I honestly thought it was a joke for six months. (LAUGHS)
And I was a little bit alarmed at how small the boat was.
Was expecting it to be a bit bigger.
They'll be fine.
I mean, it's a rowing race that fewer than 400 people have attempted.
Compare that to over 4,000 who climbed Everest.
You're dealing with sea sickness, with a harsh environment,
and you can't just stop at the end of the day.
That's what makes it tougher than any other sport.
Beyond physical extremes, that mental challenge
of going over and over again and keeping your hopes up,
have them go down and reprioritise
and thinking 'why did I not just stay at home?'
Have you guys actually got any rowing experience?
We have absolutely no rowing experience.
I've got a little bit of rowing experience.
Carry on.
Wittering on about this...
You've done one 24 hour row.
MUSIC: "Blackbird" by Martyn Bennett
# What a voice... #
LACHLAN: I think it's kind of a desire to take on a challenge
that would really push your limits.
A bit of that exists in everyone.
Who's taller right now?
It's in some ways very primal.
That was definitely the initial attraction to it.
Pushing your boundaries and seeing what you're capable of, really.
You guys?
Yeah, I don't know. I think...
(LAUGHS)
I'm gonna probably rephrase that cos that was a bit shite.
An experience that will stay with you forever,
and it will completely change your perspective on...
..on everything.
When you first hear about one of these challenges,
you can't really get your head around it.
I mean, your initial thoughts are like, is that even possible?
Use your legs, Jamie. Use your legs.
If you tell someone,
"Oh, I'm gonna row across the Atlantic"
people are like, "You're an absolute nutcase. What's your experience?"
- None. - Yeah.
- Oh, right. Very good. - Good luck.
We had no idea that like people like us could potentially go
and do something like that.
You'd always think it would be an elite athlete
or someone who is completely bonkers.
So then the idea of doing something like this together, wow,
wouldn't that be incredible.
So excited, excited to get on the water.
Finally.
EWAN: Gonna be pretty small,
spending 40 to 50 days, not much space to move around.
Pretty rocky for doing the Atlantic.
The Atlantic's known for being quite still, though, isn't it?
Hold it, hold it there.
Yeah, it's there.
Pretty tight.
Yeah, the first time we went out,
we were pretty crap at rowing.
Kind of felt like a bunch of plums, to be honest.
We didn't have a clue, didn't have a clue what we were doing.
ALL: # And I'll be in Scotland afore you #
How do we even put the oars into the... into the oar locks
and like, how do we get the rudder on?
Like, how do you even steer this thing? Like, who are these guys?
There's no way they're gonna be able to row across an ocean.
# Loch Lomond #
Lachlan's wise beyond his years, for sure.
He's wise, he's wise.
Wiser than the two of us.
He does smell quite a lot, though.
Lachlan, the youngest.
He's brawn, but also brains.
He's studying philosophy, and he thinks, d'you know.
Part of my motivation
was probably to prove myself, like in the family.
Initially, like Jamie and I
were keen to do it,
and then Ewan found out about it.
There's no way I was gonna let them do it without me.
- Usually break your... - Slosh it.
I would describe Ewan as small and feisty.
Small and feisty?
Punches above his weight.
Ewan, the oldest. He's an engineer.
He's incredibly inventive.
So if there are any problems, I think it'll fall to Ewan.
I'm very kind of small
compared to what your average kind of rower would look like.
He would say, "Yeah, I'm gonna row across the Atlantic."
And people would kind of laugh at him, like...
..are you sure?
(LAUGHS)
Definitely, part of it is wanting
to kind of prove to yourself and to other people
you can do this kind of thing.
No, I'm good. Thank you.
Oh. Shouldn't have pressed that?
Jamie is a perfectionist above anyone that I've probably ever met.
Can be kind of frustrating at some points
where you're like, can you just hurry up?
I take my time when doing things, I like to do a good job.
Jamie, he's studying architecture.
Even from an... a small boy, he would terrify my wife and I,
you know, climbing trees
or jumping off cliffs into the sea and things like that.
When you're old
and decrepit and you're sitting in your wee cottage...
Yeah.
..and you're looking back and you think...
What you laughing at?
I'm trying to get all deep here, Ewan.
A wee cottage, what?
Well, I didn't know what to...
# UPBEAT FOLK
I think generally, they're very chaotic. They approach things...
That's so true!
They've always had such brilliant and hilarious grand ideas.
It was unexpected,
but when you actually think about it, it was very Maclean.
They'd happily be out,
you know, skinning animals at the age of six.
They're wired differently to how other human beings are wired.
They're such adventurous guys,
and they have nine lives,
and they'll land on their feet.
How would you describe the Macleans?
Mad.
To prepare for rowing an ocean from no experience at all
is quite a big undertaking.
We had Angus Collins, an ocean rowing coach,
train us for a couple of days.
ANGUS: ..forward position and then try and straighten your...
LACHLAN: Are you holding it always in your neutral position?
Yeah, I've hardly got any pickup with my hip.
Today, we went a bit more technical and did some para anchor drills
to kind of see how technical they were.
And they picked it up straight away.
You can tell they're brothers that have been
in the wild, in the wilderness for quite a long time,
and they've got transferable skills
that they've been able to take into ocean rowing, but...
..they've got a long way to get to the start line yet,
let alone the end.
For me, I was working full time,
and then would often be up till like two in the morning,
like sending out emails or like trying to think about things,
and then you've got to fit in like a two and a half hour gym session.
It's very full on.
Mother Maclean is on the oars.
I reckon she's better than Jamie.
I think Jamie needs to take the bench.
Escape.
Yeah.
Lessening. Posture.
It might make you live a little bit longer.
Here is the main deck, where all the action happens,
all the rowing, all the eating.
Two car batteries, essentially.
If we lost power, we wouldn't be able to run the autohelm,
so we wouldn't be able to keep our course,
we'd have to manually steer, wouldn't be able to charge anything.
Navigation, and then, of course, water making, that would be
an absolute nightmare.
And then these are
homemade foot straps.
I think they're wakeboarding foot straps.
Chopped-up wetsuit for a heel cup.
The rowing seats move on scooter wheels.
Our mum helps make them.
This is the reality of the rear cabin.
Pretty cosy.
The master suite.
You could lie sideways.
You could lie on your back.
You could hug yourself.
Alongside our training, we'll be fundraising for our two charities,
Feedback Madagascar, and Children 1st.
This includes the money that we have raised for our Ocean Rowing boat,
which we'll sell after we've done the race.
Who is the best rower?
Definitely me.
(ALL LAUGH)
Have you seen Titanic?
You feel like each day you're working
towards something that'll also make some sort of impact,
something that you totally believe in.
Family and close friends,
that's like the most important thing there is really
and they'll always be there and you can rely on them for anything.
It's been absolutely phenomenal, the amount of support we've had.
Mum and Dad in particular have been really supportive.
We've involved them quite a lot.
It's incredibly humbling, them just believing in you,
supporting you, to allow this
sort of what was a dream become a reality.
We're very lucky.
A sponsor sent us out to Chamonix
to train with an endurance athlete called Chloë Lanthier.
She trains some of kind of the top athletes in the world.
We sort of arrived, and she taught us how to walk again, really.
Narrow. Bit wider, wider.
Narrow, a bit wider.
We're working the toe flexors
to increase rigidity in the plantar fascia,
techniques that they're not going to have foot issues on the boat.
Preparing for an ocean row,
it's not one dimensional, you know, it's a real holistic approach
all the way through from your physical preparation,
your skills preparation,
your technical preparation, your mental preparation.
Unlike many other events, the biggest challenges out there
is the mental side of things,
because you cannot just, you know, quit.
It's 5.30 in the morning.
We're sitting at the top of...
What's the hill?
CHLOE: Planpraz.
- Montpraz. - Planpraz.
LACHLAN AND EWAN: Planpraz.
Chloë, she's a really inspiring lady,
cos her philosophy is, any anxiety or fear you have,
take every measure you can do to prepare
for that fear or anxiety.
Our biggest fear, I guess one of us going overboard.
Coming out on a night shift
and finding there's nobody on the oars.
When we were training in the boat at the end of the session,
jump overboard and swim after the boat for 10 minutes,
and then swap and the other one rows and the other one swims.
Man overboard!
But It's doing things like that, I think, like you've in many ways,
prepared for it and practised it.
EWAN: It was actually Chloë who advised us not to go against
our lightweight body types
and to stick with what we had.
We were all very, very lean.
So like, I was like... I was like 68 grams when I started.
68?
(ALL LAUGH)
He had to have all his own kit.
So like teeny little oars,
teeny, teeny little seat.
Compared to some of the other teams,
we were definitely way lighter.
(ALL LAUGH)
- Right, get the giggles out. - Get a grip.
Compared to some of the other teams, I mean, we were way lighter.
I mean, me, particularly,
I was like 68 kilograms.
So they're nearly, like, double my weight.
He'll have much more power than I'd ever be able to put out.
But it does mean as well, they have to carry
way more food to be able to sustain themselves.
So it was a very different tactic to what the other teams do.
Knowing that, you know, in a month's time or whatever,
I was literally gonna be pushing off into the Atlantic, I'm thinking,
if I'm not physically up to that,
I could be not only putting myself like in danger,
I could be putting Jamie and Lachlan in danger.
That was a huge motivation.
My biggest concern for Ewan is pushing himself beyond his means.
No.
Pushing like, your physical, like...
- Yeah. - ..limits.
Yeah, overdoing it.
OK, yeah.
This is a Broar speed record attempt,
going for nine knots.
We're ready, boys.
Carrying everything with you, you're fully self sufficient.
You need to know everything about that boat
and your teammates before you go.
You need to be super well prepared.
We're somewhat apprehensive.
These are our three children in one...
Eggs in one basket, you know,
but they're determined.
The way they tackled this has been unbelievable.
They've learnt so much.
They've trained so hard.
By crossing the Atlantic,
we'll be the first three brothers to row any ocean.
7.7.
8.2.
There are five different classes. Solo, pairs, trio, fours and fives.
We're racing against trios.
Three person crews.
One in particular, All Oar Nothing,
they're very competitive, three strong guys.
Experienced doing Iron Mans and other endurance events.
8.4.
They've all, all three of them, got a really good understanding
of what they need to do on the boat, but now, it's just time in the water.
It's repetition, getting into a routine,
knowing who's gonna do what job.
We've been putting as much as we can into it.
It's been full time every day.
We haven't had social lives for the last eight months.
Oh, yeah!
8.9!
Get up at three, four in the morning and drive to the boat,
go out on the boat, do a few hours' rowing,
and then go back and do your kind of normal day
whilst sleep deprived.
9.5!
Come on, we'll get 10!
It's going to be unforgettable, for good or for bad.
At some moments, I think beautiful.
At some moments, pretty dark and scary.
I've had some experiences that I wouldn't wish on the worst enemy.
It's going to challenge us in ways we haven't been challenged before.
It's gonna be pretty eye opening.
In some ways it's a really simple thing,
but it's immensely difficult at the same time.
It's gonna be tough.
That it?
Woo!
Everyone that has supported us and got us thus far,
letting those people down and letting the charities down,
that's a huge kind of worry.
I think you can worry about it, though, but you can also use it
as a means of pushing you on.
Outsider opinions and stuff like that,
like, on one hand, you can worry about that
and let it negatively impact you,
or you can use it in a positive manner, like, y'know what, no...
Y'know, there's so many people who've believed in us,
so many people who've supported us over the past year that, like,
we're not gonna let them down.
We'll go out there and do as best as we can.
How long is it until you guys go now?
Uh, so we...
Oh, heck, it's three days.
We leave in three days.
OK.
See you on the other side.
Deal. If we're lucky!
Need to get our toothbrushes and...
Yeah, we do.
We need toilet roll. We don't have any toilet roll.
- Toilet roll and... - I thought...
- ..tools. - Do we not?
There is no way that these boys are going to organise themselves
to be ready to cross the Atlantic safely.
Bit of a rogue baggage drop,
got seven hold baggages.
90% really excited.
10% it's pretty terrifying.
It's... it's still not really sunk in.
It's quite easy at the moment to just like, pop off and get a coffee,
or, like, use the toilet,
or all these things you don't even think about.
Mum's been out here for the last nearly a week now.
She's delayed her flight so she could help us out last minute,
doing all sorts, helping out with things on the boat,
helping out with lunches,
running about, getting stuff all over La Gomera.
Our competitors were intimidatingly professional.
Some of the other teams are like huge, like, ex military teams.
These guys have been like, pumping iron for months, clearly.
And we were like, oh God, like, these guys do look huge.
So maybe we've absolutely bottled it.
(CHEERING & APPLAUSE)
It's paramount to be prepared when it comes to the start line.
I think that puts you in a much better place, you know, mentally.
Was there anything you could've prepared a bit better?
I don't think so, I think we were one of the most organised...
- (ALL LAUGH) - ..teams on the start line.
They like to approach things without much planning.
They really just wing everything they do.
I've already got two blisters.
We didn't actually get our autohelm working until the start line.
We were very disorganised, an absolute shambles.
We were pretty stressed out at the beginning of the race, for sure.
Countless things that we had to try and get ready for.
There were so many bits of equipment that we just simply couldn't afford
until that very last minute.
There was definitely a feeling towards us
that we were like this shambolic ceilidh band
setting off to do something we probably shouldn't be doing,
not helped by the fact that we were like, drilling holes in the deck
like minutes before the starter gun.
We were in the boat, the race had started,
the five person teams had started, then the fours, then the trios.
It was like, halfway through,
we were checking through and then it was like,
we don't have any toilet roll.
EWAN: We made the mistake of sending Lachlan up
to go and buy loo roll,
and he disappears,
comes back with four rolls of loo roll.
So this could be 60 days at sea.
I was under considerable stress at this point.
Come on, hurry up.
We did it in sort of our style,
which is late, slightly shambolic,
but managed to somehow pull it together at the end.
You've had so much of a build up.
You've gone through so much to get to that start line.
In many ways, leaving the dock was a huge relief.
So you're emotional, it's quite an overwhelming feeling.
By that point, finally, you know, as ready as we were ever going to be.
(STARTING HORN)
Prior to the race,
we didn't have the time to be able to worry about it,
and we just kind of threw ourselves in head first
and just embraced whatever came our way.
You've got so much adrenaline pumping through your body.
I mean, we just rowed and rowed
for, like, the first 24 hours, if not longer.
It's this kind of baptism
of will and waves,
and you just... you've never seen anything like it.
Woo!
It's currently ten past five on the first night.
It's been a bit of a rough one, bit of a quick start.
And yeah, some pretty strong waves.
I, at one point,
managed to get totally taken off my seat
and thrown halfway up the boat, which was pretty exciting.
Couple bruises to show for it.
Going in the right direction,
but it was really pretty rough, pretty choppy,
and I remember a point where I was sat down on the deck
looking across, having just been vomiting over the side
cos of the sea sickness,
catching Jamie's eye, and he was in the exact same position.
And I know we were both thinking the same thing of...
'We have only just started this, what have we signed up for? Oh dear.'
Beginning of the race, the first 24 hours,
quite scary, cos we just weren't used to it at all.
How could so many people say it was like a life changing experience?
Cos in this moment, I'm scared
and I don't wanna be here.
And if it's gonna be like this for the next potentially 40 to 60 days...
Nah, no thank you.
Got off to a good start yesterday.
Went quite far south,
got in some decent wind.
Enjoying surfing a little bit.
First experience of that.
Yeehaw!
I spewed, Ewan spewed.
La kept it steady.
Somehow, miraculously,
we are in the lead.
No one saw that coming, not even us.
- Ooh! - Oh, Jesus!
Let it go.
Fly, fishy, fly!
We were experiencing some battery issues,
so we didn't have enough power to make water,
so we're probably all a little bit dehydrated.
Had to crack into some of the emergency rations.
And then also couldn't use the autohelm
so we were hand steering all night last night,
which meant that, yeah, our course wasn't great.
This spot is notorious for things going wrong
and if things... as and when things do go wrong, which will happen,
you can't just call up the support yacht.
You need to take everything with you when you're out there
and if things break, you need to, you know,
you need to adapt and overcome, you know.
When it came to, like, electronics and any of that going wrong,
having Ewan there to kind of just know what,
understand what the problem was,
and be able to kind of address it was pretty crucial.
I don't think I would have trusted Jamie or Lachlan
with any of the technical elements.
Are you pressing anything, Jamie?
- No, do you want me to? - No, don't.
You're told so many times that, you know,
the first week is gonna be just hellish,
but I think you don't really know that until you're in it.
As expected,
we have been overtaken.
We've cut south in search of the wind,
hoping to find the trade winds in the next couple of days.
MICHELLE OBAMA: "Memorise the campus map
"and conquer whatever syllabi they wanted to throw my way."
Monday the 16th.
Pretty rough today.
# Let the river flow... #
As we start to get used to it, though,
we really start to enjoy ourselves a lot more.
Weather is with us.
Some nice big rollers.
They're lovely, aren't they, boys?
We like big seas.
We've hit 500 miles,
plus we're gonna have some shortbread.
# Da-da-da #
# Da-da-da! #
(THEY VOCALISE)
MUSIC: "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers
# And I would walk 500 miles
# And I would walk 500 more
# Just to be the man who walked... #
Scotland!
# ..to fall down at your door #
# SLOW GUITAR
When they were very small,
I think it was probably around Easter time,
and the weather was really bad.
And I was up north with them on their own.
And they were desperate to get out in the boat,
and they wanted to go out mackerel fishing and lobster potting.
And in the end, I gave in and let them go.
But they didn't have any mackerel cos the weather had been so bad.
So they took some tins of tuna with them.
And then I forgot, you know, I was sitting in the house reading,
and I thought, oh, they've been gone hours.
Jamie, I think by definition, we are sinking.
It is taking on water pretty fast.
What had happened, the outboard had broken down,
and they'd had to row all the way back.
And it had taken them about two hours to row back.
Ewan said, "Mum, that was so... that was so exciting.
"We nearly starved to death, and we had to eat the tuna
"so we didn't have anything to put in the lobster pots."
But for the rest of the week, with the stormy weather,
they didn't ask to go out again on their own.
I think they were a little bit frightened.
Go row, they said.
It'd be fun, they said.
The three of them are really mentally tough.
I'm pretty sure that the world can throw stuff at them,
and they'll just figure it out, they'll work it out between them.
Unusually talented and gifted family but not in a way that
would make you ever resent them, really, because they're so authentic,
and there's something just infectiously positive
about their company for that.
Wahey!
I think the key thing is that
they all get on so well together.
Shh...
Jamie, shut up.
What?
They each respect each other's talents.
Do not trust Ewan, not one bit.
Are you washing your hair in the shite bucket, Jamie? (LAUGHS)
It's an easy mistake to make.
But there's two buckets. We have two buckets.
I've not seen the second bu...
Is that...
He's literally hammering something.
He builds his own microphones.
How can he not understand?
This kind of... this kind of shit I had to deal with at sea.
If me and my siblings locked ourselves
in a cabin, sleeping side by side
in the middle of the Atlantic,
danger all around us, shitting next to each other,
we would kill ourselves.
Ewan! What are you doing?
You are useless.
Lachlan, he always does this thing where he says,
"Can you recognise that you're being an arsehole right now?"
(LAUGHS)
And so much of the time, it's true.
That's one point for Ewan! One point for Gryffindor!
I always look forward to hanging out with Jamie and Lachlan.
It's like super easy and it's always good fun.
From a very young age, we were outdoorsy.
Mum and Dad gave us a huge amount of freedom.
I think that all definitely fed into quite a unique upbringing.
Where we lived was an old farmhouse.
The back garden was a few fields
then it would open up into a forest, and then the hills.
Didn't have any game consoles.
We had a, like, a TV that was from like the 60s,
and it was, like, the size of a shoe box.
We kind of had to find other means of entertaining ourselves.
Building dens,
climbing trees, spears, making spears.
There was obviously a few... a few hiccups along the way.
Tried to make a petrol bomb.
Didn't go to plan.
Set myself on fire.
About seven years ago,
Mum and Dad unfortunately split up.
That was obviously difficult
particularly for Lachlan cos he was...
LACHLAN: Still at school, yeah. I was still at home.
You guys weren't at home anymore.
And then home for all of us was also sold.
And so it was kind of like a... it was like a double whammy.
Granny died as well that year. It was a really tough year.
You had a shocking Christmas, got dumped by your girlfriend.
Yeah, yeah.
I had a real tough time.
I shouldn't laugh at that, sorry.
Fuckin'... Cheers, man. Cheers for supporting us.
You either laugh about it or you cry about it.
When that started to kind of break down,
that was... that was like, I felt really lost for quite... quite a bit.
I think that's when I realised how important
Jamie and Lachlan were to me, to be honest.
And I think that really did bring us together
cos we definitely wanted to make sure
each other were OK going through that.
It had a big influence on our relationship.
Been a long night
and relatively frustrating day so far.
Wind's not quite what it was the last few days.
I think we're expecting to be going faster than we will be.
Still getting used to the sleep deprivation
and the routine of things.
Pretty relentless.
It's a very primal state where you are just acting
on those very, very basic needs
in Maslow's triangle, you know,
just keeping warm when you need to keep warm.
Eating when you need to eat.
You're not expending any... any kind of energy on any other level
of more kind of complex life.
We get up in the morning at 6am.
Lachlan's on the oars.
He wakes me up, the sun begins to rise.
Have porridge and then crack into our two-on, one-off routine.
When we weren't rowing, we pretty much always had something to do.
Either you were making water or you were preparing meals.
Maybe the batteries need checked, you need to clean the solar panels.
There was actually very little time spent just...
you'd have any time to yourself.
The hours preceding the night shifts.
We make our one hot meal of the day.
I've added significantly too much water.
We have 5,000 calories each per day, which seems to be doing the trick.
Midnight was when night shift began.
Got an average of four hours' sleep per day.
Nearly made it through another night.
Just gonna go and wake up Jimbo.
Jimmy, time to get up.
How excited are you?
You look pretty excited to me.
As the sun rose, you'd be full of excitement,
cos that was at least one more night shift had passed.
LACHLAN: After, I would say, about two weeks,
we finally got into the flow of our daily routine,
how much rest we were getting when we were resting.
So we just kind of got into the rhythm of things
and started to enjoy it way more.
You get into a routine and your body just adapts. It's amazing.
Getting into the patterns of the night shifts, I think
at no point do you enjoy them,
but you just kind of get more used to them.
Your body adapts to that.
I lost my last hair bobble.
It was a tough blow.
They have an ability to just really become immersed in getting flow
and focus on the task at hand.
Most people can't do that.
Most people would be too inside their own head.
The body just gets used to it.
You do get pains all over the place, but after 10 days,
they do kind of disappear.
You actually begin to forget that you're rowing.
Almost like meditation,
become focused on other small things, weather patterns, wind.
One safety precaution we took throughout
and we were very diligent with, was always clipping on.
The routine becomes, you wake up, you clip on, you row.
(PLAYS A HAUNTING MELODY)
I think we all have kind of an adventurous spirit.
The idea of a mundane lifestyle,
of just kind of going through the routine,
that terrifies us.
The distraction that you get with everyday life,
the anxiety of just stupid things that shouldn't play on your mind.
You just don't have any of those.
In that state, you just get to kind of review your life.
It's a very kind of spiritual experience in that way.
You're so used to just the three of you,
and your space on your world becomes this tiny little raft.
In the middle of the Atlantic you're closer to someone in space
than you are another person on land.
You're so far out of your comfort zone.
You've got those guys above you in the International Space Station.
The water beneath you is four miles deep.
It is just a bit of a... it's a bit of a mind bender.
# Changes that have come over me
# These last few days... #
You begin to reflect upon, like, your current situation,
your environment, what you're doing,
and something that was very, like, humbling for me,
and a motivation for me is to then sort of try and zoom out from that
and be like you've... we've chosen to be here.
We're incredibly lucky and privileged to be here.
There are people around the world
who don't have water in their day to day lives.
There are kids in Scotland who are abused
and suffer trauma from a young age.
So, like that for me would then sort of...
in my mind, I'd be OK, well, let's... let's get on with it then
and try and make a difference
to those people who aren't as fortunate as us.
Come on.
# I think about you all the time #
(JOINS IN) # Caledonia I'm calling you
# Now I'm going home
# And if I should become a stranger
# You know that it would make me more than sad
# Caledonia's been everything I've ever had #
Woo-woo!
So this is our final phone cable.
The other three have all died.
We're having to ration the usage of this last cable,
otherwise we'll be completely cut off.
Won't be able to check the race tracker, check the weather,
so we've made the decision to cut music for the rest of the crossing.
Probably get pretty good at singing by the end of it.
Maybe.
No music.
I've had to take to pretending to play the harmonica.
I don't play the harmonica.
(PLAYS HARMONICA)
Merry Christmas!
Lovely letter from Mum and Dad just wishing us...
..wishing us a Merry Christmas.
"Lala, life may be difficult, but it's the only thing worth living.
"Thinking of you at Christmas. Much love, Dad."
We're a very, very close family,
and we get on terribly well.
That's always been the case.
I was concerned,
but I knew that once they'd made their mind up,
they were gonna go and there was nothing we could do about it.
This is a line from the poem
"The waves of the sea have spoken to me,
"the wild birds have taught me,
"the music of many waters has been my master."
So I am the waves of the sea.
Mum's, oh, just so supportive.
I don't know how she put up with the three of us growing up, to be honest.
We were absolute nightmares.
I think we're still giving her a bloody headache, to be honest.
She's always struggled a bit with depression, unfortunately,
and I think maybe that's living with Dad,
cos he's such a big character,
that was maybe a bit of a pressure for Mum.
Like people would always go round, see Charlie.
We've been trying to get Mum as involved as possible
with the campaign, because we knew that
if there were too many unknowns for her,
it would be quite scary for her.
And I think it's actually worked.
The more we've got her involved,
the more she's understood the various safety nets that there are.
It's definitely given her something to work on.
We've been around to see her get into a much better place,
which is... that's been pretty amazing.
Something that was unexpected.
News just in.
Change course.
Steer for Antigua, baby!
Woo!
We've been kind of going fairly far south
to get down to the trade winds,
and we finally get to change our course for Antigua.
Done.
Name.
Antigua.
Symbol, danger area.
Water temperature.
Oh, it's hot.
Navigate to...
Bam! There it is.
It looks about halfway on this.
Just tucking into our... our dinner as the night shifts begin.
The night shift, the majority of it was very unenjoyable.
The piece of the day that you least look forward to.
If it was rough seas you knew you were in for a bit of a bash about,
getting thrown off your seat,
not knowing where anything's coming from,
just trying to keep the boat going.
You're constantly fighting with the urge to sleep, you know.
It's natural for our bodies to want to shut down it as it gets dark.
I've definitely got a strange thing with sleep walking.
We were changing around with having very frequent but very short rests.
And like, I think it was the changing around so much,
it really made us all quite exhausted.
And you kind of... you are falling asleep on the oars.
I hadn't kind of got used to it, and I remember I just woke up
and I was on the oars and I wasn't actually rowing.
I was just kind of like slumped over in the gunwales.
And I knew that, like, I hadn't been awake the whole time.
The thing that kind of confirmed that was that I wasn't clipped on.
It was a little bit of a wake up call.
The boats, they do turn over.
And if that does happen, and you're not clipped on,
then you are probably gonna die.
This new environment that we were in just seemed so alien to anything.
Six inches away from the water either side,
and the water seems like death.
At night, you're on your own.
You get hit by a squall or a rogue wave,
the boat spins a bit and it pushes it too far off course.
The autohelm that keeps us on our course
jams off in one direction,
then the boat would naturally turn side on to the waves and the wind.
Manically trying to
whisk, so one oar forward, one oar backwards,
to spin the boat back round.
The person in the rear cabin would have to wake up,
turn the boat manually to port.
You're genuinely scared for your life.
Not much wind.
Long old day on the oars,
grinding it out.
A sweaty slog.
There was a spell when we had very little wind,
and then a bit of wind against us.
And that was slog.
It's like rowing through treacle.
There were points where it was really difficult to get through that shift.
And it was more like trying to stay awake, I think,
that was the hardest points.
A cup of tea made by granny Roberts, best cup of tea around.
A Tunnock's tea cake.
Oh, no, Tunnock's wafer. Caramel wafer.
This is what I've had to put up with.
Fuck my life.
A lot of it is a long slog, and so lot of time just spent together,
and that enabled us to sort of have conversations
with one another I don't think we'd had before,
which was a really nice byproduct of the whole thing.
We spoke about so many things.
We spoke about kind of growing up.
We spoke about what we wanted to do, aspirations for the future.
We were much more open about chatting about Mum and Dad at sea,
and I think that's given us a new, um... perspective.
We would endlessly talk about our hopes and dreams for the future.
Nice, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I like to that think we're pretty good at talking about our feelings.
The chances are they're probably gonna understand
how you're rationalising something,
or how you're processing something
much better than most other people,
cos they just know you very well,
but they also probably are processing it in a similar way themselves.
The whole macho male type thing,
it's always difficult to try and dig a little deeper
and be honest with people.
It's so important to talk about these things,
otherwise you're bottling things up, it becomes kind of a bit toxic.
Something that I'd always worried about at school, the pressures
of sort of need to do well at school so you can get to university,
you need to go to university
so you can get a good job and start a career,
and then work away at that career for the rest of your life.
That was something I'd always in the back of my mind worried about
cos I never really knew what I wanted to do.
Hogmanay plans, Ewan?
We've brought a special blend with us,
so I'm gonna have a dram,
and then I'll probably nudge Jamie to get his pipes out.
And then I think we'll probably do some rowing.
I'm getting pretty into the rowing recently,
so probably do a bit of that.
(THEY CHEER)
(WAVES CRASH)
The weather took a turn.
The waves seemed to get bigger and bigger
and the wind got stronger and stronger.
I was genuinely scared.
EWAN: A challenge like this, it's not just a physical challenge at all.
There's just so many hurdles that you face.
The row, it takes you way further
than you ever thought that you could go before.
Just because you have no choice.
We knew it was extremely stressful for our loved ones,
and so we tried to speak to them as regularly as possible out at sea.
Thankfully, we had sat phones so we could call home.
(WIND HOWLS)
This is not great!
At least it's not raining at the moment. I hate this shite.
And you're constantly on edge.
It's like you're constantly in this survival mode
where it's like fight or flight.
I think it would have been so easy to just go,
"This isn't... this isn't possible. We can't continue like this."
But yeah, we kind of kept at it.
We've got half a day of... being on the beam with rain.
Morale's not very high.
Lala...
..is not feeling too good.
Oh, dear.
We had a two day period
when both Jamie and I went down with some kind of...
I think it was a bacterial problem.
Feeling rough as a badger's arse.
That was probably when we got first worried about them.
And you could tell, I think they were very weak.
Jamie was on the phone, I was speaking to him,
and he did just sound pretty delirious.
Just spewing last night, rough night,
and then no energy this morning.
How you doing?
I'm doing alright.
Tough day but... getting there.
Tough day.
Ewan's... grinding away as always.
Ewan, I remember him saying when we were at sea,
people doubting the fact that he could do it as well as us
sort of spurred him on to prove those people wrong.
I'm definitely proud of Ewan for stepping up in those two days.
Took a lot.
I've been working for the last five years down south
and was at university for five years before that
so I'd been away from home for quite a long time, to be honest.
It wasn't like we weren't friendly.
We would just see each other maybe at Christmas
and maybe once in summer
for a week here and there.
We sort of led our separate lives.
When you've obviously grown up together,
and when you go away,
you kind of... I dunno, you do realise
kind of the sibling banter that you kind of... you kind of miss.
JAMIE: You jealous of Lala's short shorts?
Working in a corporate setting,
I think you don't necessarily get the same purpose.
If it's something you've created
and you're building up with, you know, people that you love,
you'll always be more motivated by that.
The nicest thing about the whole challenge
is that we've been almost forced to sort of work together
and spend this time together,
which has resulted in us just becoming like the best of mates.
It's all looking up because Jamie...
We have a poo!
..he's finally passed.
I never thought I would be metres away from my brother having a shit
and be so happy about it.
(EXCLAIMS)
When being on a very, very small boat, on a very big ocean,
there's a lot of dangers.
Sleep deprivation, sores, you know,
boat can roll around
and so, you know, it is the world's toughest row.
We all had these apps.
I remember most nights waking in the middle of the night,
and putting it on, seeing where they were,
you know, seeing if it was still afloat.
The row is very...
in many ways, it's a very selfish thing to do
because you've had this incredible support
of your friends and family to get to the start line,
then you go off and do this thing
that puts them all in a very difficult situation,
puts them through an incredible amount of stress.
EWAN: Started to realise in calls with Mum
that she was... she just didn't seem right.
I don't know what it was.
We were all pretty worried that we'd maybe
put so much stress on Mum that, you know,
it'd done some real harm, to be honest.
You've got these long nights of rowing
and you kind of think about these things.
Um...
I'm not gonna lie. It was pretty tough.
I think that was the main thing that would bring morale down.
I think we were just gutted that we'd brought this on Mum, potentially.
Fuck me.
(WIND HOWLS)
Didn't really know what happened, but it all just kind of fell apart.
Big squall came in,
came onto beam side,
got absolutely soaked.
Couldn't really row,
and then realised one of our batteries had somehow dropped
and the autopilot was breaking.
We had the weather turned, the weather was against us
with torrential rain, high winds, big waves.
Boys!
Battery's not really working.
Autopilot has broken.
Ewan's trying to fix both in the cabin.
It just very quickly becomes quite overwhelming.
As soon as all these things happen at the same time,
you begin to question if you're gonna be able to make it to the end.
You're out in the middle of the Atlantic
and you've not had sleep for days and days and days,
your ability to problem solve does become slightly compromised.
OK, I've got the top bolt.
Which one?
Top bolt.
Fuck sake.
LACHLAN: So what have you guys achieved?
If you don't have enough power,
then you can't produce enough water,
and that's kind of your lifeline,
that's the one thing you need, cos you need it to hydrate your meals,
and obviously you need it to drink.
We were rapidly going through our ballast,
our kind of spare water supply,
which we carried on board in our wet rations.
The enjoyable experience that we'd been hoping for
was slowly slipping away.
Feeling a bit down today.
I think the, uh, the scale of the challenge
is starting to set in,
and it seems pretty... pretty overwhelming.
We'd spent so much time focusing on our physical preparation and safety,
but we'd never considered
that the biggest risk was our equipment failing on us.
We got hit by this incredibly hard tropical rain.
It just flattens the ocean, but it's really strong wind at the same time.
And then it just stopped.
The squall passed over us and we were in the eye of the storm,
and then Lachlan shouted to us.
All of us saw a butterfly
just float on past,
and we kind of looked at it and looked at each other.
LACHLAN: All the different things that were going on,
the weather, the technical failures.
Last thing you expect to see in the middle of an ocean.
And then it just kind of drifted off.
And then, like two minutes later,
squall's back on,
it's incredibly heavy rain.
The most surreal experience.
How on earth could a butterfly get there?
When our granny died,
we were all very close with our granny,
but I remember the few days after,
a butterfly lingered around our house
and it was there for about a week.
We were kind of superstitiously thinking it was the spirit of Granny
coming to say hello.
Even though it felt like everything had started to go wrong,
I don't think it's good to dwell on these things too long.
Keep moving forward.
That was always our dad's philosophy.
Just keep moving forward.
It demands you to push yourself
beyond what you thought you could ever achieve.
Being brothers
was definitely our biggest strength.
Chopped our chopping board up
and made a plate
which the autopilot mounts on to
so hopefully that should reinforce
the Fibreglass below.
Thankfully, Ewan was able to fix the autohelm,
which was absolutely crucial.
A lot of teams don't really do any work on the boat themselves.
They get the boat builders to do that,
and we were there before the race,
drilling into the top of the cabin and stuff,
which shocked a lot of teams.
But the thing all of this
that we probably knew the boat a lot better than most other teams.
So when we were at sea and things did go wrong,
we knew how to deal with it, especially Ewan.
One battery down,
which means we can't make enough water on our water maker
so poor Lala, on his break.
Just pumping away!
Got the hand pump out.
You're in the middle of the Atlantic, you've got no choice.
You've got literally no choice.
So there's no point getting stressed about it.
You've just gotta do it. And that's it.
We have not seen a boat now
for like, 20 days.
Like, more.
When there's big weather like this, you can do a bit of surfing.
Woo!
Everything they approach, it doesn't faze them.
They're just looking forward to the challenge, the positives of it.
If there's gonna be three of my pals that were going to be setting off,
if I had to choose them, I would have picked them.
We were like, what the fuck are they...
Like, what are they doing?
They were doing it while playing bagpipes!
They're making everyone look bad.
(PLAYS "SCOTLAND THE BRAVE" ON BAGPIPES)
Trenching your gushing entrails bright like onie ditch
and, O, what a glorious sicht.
Warm-reekin',
rich.
But if ye wish her grateful prayer,
gie her... a mango.
Come at me!
This thing that we'd put so much energy into getting to that point,
if we weren't enjoying it, like, what was the point?
Lachlan has crafted with his own bare hands this flapjack
using our porridge
and a couple left over bits and bobs.
Oh, my God, that's so good.
I'm so bored of... (LAUGHS)
..the other snacks we've got.
That is amazing!
Silly Sausage 2.
Doing well on the water.
Doing us proud.
We were the fastest boat over the last four hours.
Average of two knots.
We are also hoping to go for a hundred mile day.
The most miles we've clocked in a day thus far has been 84
so we're gonna really give it beans...
I was checking the app in the morning as it updated and realising,
hold on, they're in the lead.
Anything's possible here and they could do this.
We decided by that point that we wanted to win the trio.
We just put, I guess,
put a little bit of pressure on ourselves to dig deep.
# DRAMATIC
There was never a disparity of one of us going,
"we need to keep pushing, we need to keep pushing,"
and one of us being totally on a different page.
I think that really comes from being brothers.
We were all thinking the same thing at the same time.
This is backbreaking stuff.
They were like pretty much flying.
It looked like they did a quarter in about two days,
and they just couldn't be stopped.
We'd got news from our weather router
we were about to get some really fast, like a really fast spell.
They referred to it as a sleigh ride.
In these little ocean rowing boats, the weather you get,
you can't really chase weather patterns.
You can't go fast enough. You're hit with whatever you're hit with.
But our weather router came in, which was so invaluable,
you could say, in two days' time, you're gonna
have to row really hard for two days straight.
That, mentally, let us plan for what we had to expect.
We were loving it. That was the funnest part.
Almost surfing, almost.
Clocking up the miles.
We got the furthest rowed in 24 hours for a trio.
They were just absolutely flying up. Thought, 'this is epic'.
This is so windy.
We are absolutely flying along.
250 miles to go.
This is the final, final, big treat that we've saved ourselves.
I've gone for the waffle pancake technique,
stack 'em all together.
Very special moment.
Next stop, Antigua!
Woo!
Lovely, eh?
Like home.
Just like home.
We knew that our mum was arriving on the 16th,
so there was a window in which we had to arrive
or we would miss her.
It was important for her to see us coming in.
We're all deeply, deeply superstitious, especially at sea.
We didn't allow ourselves to admit
that we were kind of potentially gonna do quite well,
because that would jinx it.
You're excited to be going fast,
and you feel good when you're going fast,
but then also you're conscious that it is the most dangerous time.
There are freak stories of people
getting just a couple of hundred miles from Antigua
and freak wave hits them, they capsize, they can't right the boat.
They have to get rescued. Everything's over.
Even though you're due to get in in like, three or four days' time
you're like, anything could happen.
At one point, we did nearly capsize.
A big wave hit us side on in the middle of the night.
We had a few issues
in the night, probably the closest we've come to rolling the boat.
It was a bit of a rude awakening, but thankfully, it wasn't any worse,
and we just kept on going.
Ewan's doing a poo.
What a beautiful evening for a giant...
And here's Antigua, baby!
And then let's zoom this out a little bit.
Oh, baby!
We'll probably all be farting about a hundred times a day.
Thursday, the 16th of January.
We are racing out for our final day.
For the sun to pop over the horizon and then
we should be able to see Antigua for the first time.
Last sunrise before arrival.
JAMIE: You see this sort of... it just seems like a smudge
on the horizon,
and you kind of have to really focus your eyes,
and you're like, is that...?
I can't see anything!
- Oh shit, yeah. - It's really thin!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...
And you check it on a map and there's definitely something there.
Woo!
Oh, you can, you definitely can! (WHOOPS)
Seeing land for the first time was another huge moment.
- Nearly there! - Woo!
Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo!
It's quite a weird,
disconnected feeling,
because it's just something that you've been so alien to.
It's not just the 35 days you've been at sea.
For 12 months, it's the only thing that's on your mind.
It was completely overwhelming when we when we turned that corner
and saw hundreds of people with flares going.
(CHEERING & APPLAUSE)
LACHLAN: I could see loads of little figures standing up there,
and I was thinking, they can't be here for us.
And so I thought,
I'll give it a wave, see if they respond.
And they're all waving back, and I'm like, what!
I mean, that was pretty special. I don't think I'll forget that.
(CHEERING & APPLAUSE)
Completely overwhelming when we turned
that corner and saw sort of hundreds of people with flares going.
It was so disconnected
from anything I've ever experienced, but at the same time,
like completely you're in ecstasy.
It's just a...
it's a hugely overwhelming experience.
(CHEERING & APPLAUSE)
All the huge amount of work that it takes to manifest that.
I was stunned.
It's amazing, like, what they achieved.
And I think the way in which they achieved it as well,
I think that was recognised,
you know, not just by myself, but everyone in the sport.
They are so determined in everything they do in life.
But I don't think any of us
expected for them to do so phenomenally well.
JAMIE: The row gave us a huge amount of purpose.
Gives you new confidence you didn't know you had,
new self esteem.
A year and a half ago, I would say,
each of us, I think probably had something to prove.
And then by the end of the process,
I think that had kind of dissipated,
and it was more just like doing something together.
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen...
It has been magical and also hellish.
Uncomparable to anything else really.
It's a pretty phenomenal experience.
# UPBEAT FOLK
Mum came up and we gave her a big hug
and very, very special moment.
Time at sea gave us time to reflect upon Mum and Dad
and really give us a new appreciation for our upbringing,
how fortunate we've been, how great parents they both were.
I'm very proud of them,
and I think it's also changed their lives forever.
It was an amazing achievement, and I'm so proud of them, really.
The bond between them is unbreakable now.
They just wanted to do an adventure as three brothers.
That was why people wanted to help them
and why it was so successful, I think.
Certainly weren't the most prepared in any way.
But when people spent a bit of time with them,
they realised, actually, these are three people I'd back.
I used to think I'd be able to row the Atlantic
until they did it, and then I was like,
I definitely can't row the Atlantic.
It's uninspired me.
- Yeah. - (BOTH LAUGH)
The Maclean brothers have never been early for anything in history,
yet they became the fastest three brothers to row across the Atlantic.
Seeing Mum at the finish line was...
it was a relief for us, I think.
The pressure had been kind of somewhat decompressed at that point.
And this is a print that was inspired
by the boys rowing across the Atlantic.
Thankfully, now she's a much more positive person.
It's so much nicer to see Mum kind of happy again.
MUSIC: "Blackbird" by Martyn Bennett
The reaction is very often like, that's, I can't imagine
anything worse than spending that amount of time with my siblings.
I think that's a shame, a real shame.
We've got each other's back, like, more than anyone else.
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
What do my brothers mean to me?
They mean a huge amount to me.
# But if I had wings like that swallow high
# I would clasp in... #
Moments can be so much more magical
when you share them with other people.
And so sharing them with my brothers was just, you know,
what could get better than that?
So what's next for the Maclean Brothers?
(MUSIC INTENSIFIES)
# What a voice, what a voice
# What a voice
# I hear
# It's like the voice
# Of my Willy dear #
Some guys just sort of...
..half their body weight looked like they'd been at sea for years.
Well, Jamie jumped off the boat
looking like he'd popped down the shop
and then they were straight on the having drinks.
And I think they had to...
Jamie had to carry me home.
(LAUGHS) Which is pathetic!
I definitely missed Jamie and Ewan probably the most
when I stayed on in Antigua.
I thought I'd be sick of them.
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