Three Scottish brothers on Saturday embarked on a mammoth journey from Peru hoping to set a record time for rowing across the Pacific Ocean.
Ewan, Jamie and Lachlan MacLean set off in a carbon fiber dinghy from Lima, aiming to reach Sydney, Australia, 14,500km away in about four months.
The trio from Edinburgh, who previously rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, are hoping to raise more than US$1 million for clean water projects in Madagascar in the process.
Photo: AP
“We’re going to be rowing nonstop with no outside support, so we’ll be on our own,” Lachlan MacLean said before boarding.
They departed shortly after 4pm on Saturday after a brief ceremony during which the youngest brother, Jamie MacLean, played the bagpipes accompanied by the Peruvian Navy band.
“One of the real challenges is the sleep deprivation. You’re rowing through the day and through the night continuously and shifts,” eldest brother Ewan MacLean said. “It’s absolutely relentless.”
The brothers plan to sleep five to six hours every 24 hours and row 12 to 14 hours a day for 120 to 150 days.
“This project is all to raise money for clean water projects in Madagascar” through their charity, the MacLean Foundation, Lachlan MacLean said.
“Clean water is the most basic human need on the planet but 10 percent of people worldwide don’t have access to it,” they said on their Web site.
Only 14 percent of Madagascar’s rural population has access to a clean water source, they said.
“Ocean conservation and keeping our oceans clean, it’s all part of the same parcel,” Lachlan MacLean said.
The brothers broke three world records crossing the Atlantic Ocean in 2020, without ever having rowed professionally, raising more than US$260,000 for charity.
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