An Irish team of largely novice rowers has set a new world record for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic by a team of five rowers, rowing from the Canary Islands to Antigua in 33 days, 12 hours and 38 minutes.
Tom Nolan, Shane Culleton, Derek McMullen and brothers Gearoid and Diarmuid Ó Briain from Wicklow, crossed the finish line of the The Talisker Whisky Atlantic Rowing Challenge at around 8.30pm local time yesterday evening (12.30am Irish time).
Rowing under a team name, 'Row Hard or Go Home 5', they set off from La Gomera in the Canary Islands on the 12th December 2022.
They broke the previous record set by 'The Ocean 5' team, who completed the same race in 35 days 19 hours and 50 minutes in January 2020.
When the team were 34 nautical miles from shore they had posted a photo showing a rainbow in the background with the caption: "Lessons from the ocean: Every squall has a rainbow!!!"
"I think we found a rainbow in each other, through the hard times we backed each other up and I'm just so proud to be involved with four amazing individuals like these guys beside me, and I wouldn't row an ocean with anybody else," Diarmuid Ó Briain said, as they stood on the podium after the race.
When asked if the race was tough, his team-mate Tom Nolan said: "It certainly was, on Christmas Day and the day before and after, we were in big storms and missing our families."
There were emotional scenes when they were greeted by family and friends as they climbed off the boat that had been their home for over a month.
Speaking to RTÉ News, Gearoid Ó Briain said: "People told us that food and lots of different things [would be missed], but the thing that we missed the most by far was our families."
Mr Ó Briain said that save for one member of the team, Shane Culleton, who "had done some coastal rowing", the rest of the team "had never rowed before".
"That was a big challenge because the teams ahead of us were a mix of professional rowers and endurance athletes," he said.
He credits their trainer John Belton for putting them on a training programme two years ago, which led them from "having no experience being able to battle it out with those top teams".
However their relative inexperience was not their biggest challenge. Mr Ó Briain said that came on day three of the race.
"The solar panels on our boat, the main one, the primary one which faces West and gathers the most heat energy, it failed, so we couldn't generate water and we had to shut the boat down, so we lost communication, navigation, (we had) no water generation and we couldn't steer the boat automatically, the way it's designed (to be steered)", Mr Ó Briain said.
He said that crew member Derek McMullen, whose day job involves servicing CT scanners and MRI machine, then had to rewire the boat.
"It involves moving electronics, drilling holes and all the while there was still three people rowing, and one person pumping water to keep us going," Mr Ó Briain said.
"It took about three days to get us back up to full systems on the boat and we never fully recovered in terms of our ability to generate power, but we had enough to keep going," he said.
The team could be heard singing 'The Wild Rover' as they approached Nelson's Dockyard in Antigua, and Mr Ó Briain explained how this had become a kind of accidental anthem for the team.
"The ocean environment was really inhospitable, between the sun, the UV and the salt water," and this not only challenged the rowers, but the music playing equipment they had brought with them.
"We started with three speakers and we ended with half a speaker," he laughed, "we very quickly learned that signing was a good antidote to some of the darker times."
"Unfortunately we knew about three songs, Happy Birthday, Wild Rover and one or two others so Wild Rover became a big hit on the crossing and the guys were learning the lyrics in the middle of the night," he recalled.
"We hadn't planned on singing when we arrived but three was just huge energy and that's what came out," Mr Ó Briain said.
'Row Hard or Go Home 5' was the first team of five to cross the finish line, and finished the race fifth over all.
There are two other Irish teams competing, including a second team rowing under the 'Row Hard or Go Home' banner.
Four-person team, 'Row Hard or Go Home 4' moved into 10th place overall today and are hoping to cross the finish line in the early hours of Tuesday.
Together the two 'Row Hard or Go Home' teams are raising money for the RNLI and the Laura Lynn Children's Hospice.
Mr Ó Briain said that because their sponsors got them on the water, all of the money donated by the public is going directly to those charities.
"Our target was €30,000 and when I woke up this morning it was €46,000," he said.
Solo Irish rower Jamie Carr, rowing under the name 'Nothing Ventured' is placing second in the solo race, and 31st overall with just under 1,000 nautical miles to go.
The overall winners of the race was four-person Spanish team 'Ocean Cats' who finished the race in 31 days, 17 hours and 8 minutes.
