Rowing The Atlantic Solo - Stu Morton - #001

Stu Morton is an ex-Marine and endurance athlete who is planning to row solo from Mainland Europe to Mainland South America, solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Find out how far 1.5 million oar strokes gets you, why gaining 30kgs is sometimes ok and why he's going to be mostly naked. Check out everything I recommend from books to products and help support the podcast at no extra cost to you by shopping through this link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Episodes You Might Enjoy: This Is How To Master Your Life - David Goggins - #577: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Goggins⁠⁠⁠ How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs - Dr Jordan Peterson - #712: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Peterson⁠⁠⁠ The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain - Dr Andrew Huberman - #700: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Huberma Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Chris Williamson?

  So, Mr Stuart Morton, welcome.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  You alright, how are you doing?

• 0:09Chris Williamson?

  Very good, thank you, how are you?

• 0:10Speaker 01

  Good.

• 0:10Chris Williamson?

  Fantastic. So we've known each other for nearly a year now, through Reebok Tyneside and a few other bits and pieces as well. And since I met you, you've had an idea that I think is probably one of the maddest things I've ever heard. It's the sort of story that you hear about in the news, but you never actually know anyone who's going to go ahead and do it. So I guess in short, what's your next three months gonna look like? What are you doing?

• 0:35Speaker 01

  I'm gonna row, a wooden rowing boat from Portugal to Venezuela, which has actually never been done before by anybody solo. It's been done by a team of five guys before, but never done by someone on their own. So it'll be like a world first.

• 0:51Chris Williamson?

  So you're rowing across the Atlantic Ocean?

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:54Chris Williamson?

  On your own?

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, from mainland Europe to mainland South America. Which is important because there's a race that exists where people go from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean. So it takes in sort of 80% of the Atlantic Ocean. And it's, long story short, it's 20 grand to enter. And there's more kudos attached to go from mainland Europe to mainland South America. It's about 1,000 miles longer than the race. So that's the reason for choosing that. And then also the fact that no one's ever done it before, so there's not many things left that no one's ever done before. Especially in exploration and stuff, and adventures.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  So it was one of those like last things to grab and it just sort of built, as it evolved, it's sort of built into what it is now. The initial intention was to just row the Atlantic.

• 1:50Chris Williamson?

  Is that in any way possible?

• 1:53Speaker 01

  Say again?

• 1:53Chris Williamson?

  In any way possible, from whatever bit to whatever bit, so to speak.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  And being kind of naive to it, I was just like, well, I wanna row the Atlantic, what's the most common form of doing that? And then I'll try that. And then looking into it and peeling back the layers, you sort of figure out... What's on offer? Mm hmm. Um, and then through a bit of sort of bucking against the rules and sort of not wanting to conform. Mm hmm. I ended up getting my own, my own route. So basically, there's this company called Atlantic Campaigns. Mm hmm. Who run the Taliska Whiskey Atlantic Challenge, and it's the sort of, um, the standard bearer, if you like, in ocean rowing. Mm hmm. Um, and it's twenty thousand pounds to enter that race. Mm hmm. Is that solo as well?

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, they, they take on solo entries, pairs, threes, fours. Um, I think they might have done a five, but I think four is actually the highest they do. Um, and basically, I looked at what you get for the twenty grand. Mm hmm. Now, I'm not putting it down at all. It's a fantastic organisation, it does great things, but for someone that doesn't come from a particular background. Mm hmm. Twenty grand's like quite a bit of cash just to find to enter a race, especially when you spend upwards of seventy grand. Mm hmm. To buy the boat and the kit and all the stuff that you need. Yeah. Um, so I, I basically about seven years ago, um, I'll, I'll set the scene. So about seven years ago.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Bring yourself in a little bit for me, man, just a little bit closer, yeah. Um, it's, I was living in London, uh, working in private security, um, and basically got invited to a dinner party. Um, and one of the girls at the dinner party was a film director. Right. So I'd asked if she'd worked on anything recently and she'd just finished a film on a guy called Charlie Pitcher. Right. Um, who'd rode the Atlantic on his own, um, independently. So I watched that film and was sort of transfixed by it. Everyone else at the dinner party didn't really wanna, you know, think about doing that. Yeah. Um, I think I was the only guy. I don't think there's anyone that really thinks about doing that, right? Yeah. Like I say, it's the sort of thing that you hear other people talk about, but the. Yeah. I don't know, it just doesn't.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  For me, that's exactly how it was. So, but it, you know, like most things, the curiosity got the better of me and I sort of, I emailed Charlie. Um, to find out the ins and outs of ocean rowing and how someone goes about that. Um, planning that sort of thing. Um, so he sent me all the links to the Taliska race and through that I figured out how much it was going to cost and all that sort of stuff. So I had set aside a bit of time to save for it. Mm hmm. Um, and then, like I said, in, in researching more about ocean rowing, I came across other people that have done independent rows. Right. So it's a whole community, right? Yeah, it's huge. Once you sort of scratch the li- like the layers away. Absolutely. Over the last, over the last year, just seeing stuff that you like on Instagram, there's guys rowing all over the place.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, and it's almost like, it's like when people get into training, like we've never been exposed to like gym life before. And then as soon as they start, they're sort of, yeah. And they pick up all the, the lingo and all that sort of stuff. So it's a definitely like a subculture that people pick up on. And ocean rowing is that way as well, but more people have climbed Everest than have rowed the Atlantic. Um, and then again, if you look at the Pacific or the Indian Ocean, the numbers are even smaller again. So it's about, that's a thousand and a bit, one and a half thousand, is it maybe? At the moment, I think the figure stands at about five hundred. Yeah. But the Taliska race, um, it's grown in popularity. So this year, um, the race is actually happening as we speak. Um, and I think there's seventy five people in the race. It's getting exponential.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so maybe fifty people will complete it. There's already been some dropouts and stuff. No way. Yeah, a couple of rescues and this, that and the other. So. And that's quite humbling to see from my position. Like I'm setting off in three weeks and I'm seeing people giving up. But as well as that, there's a guy called Damian Brown, who's a former rugby player. Mm hmm. And he's basically setting an example of, of how to tackle an ocean row, like, um. He's got the format. Yeah, and, and he thinks like kind of the way I like to think about things. So if you take an event or something that happens to you in your life, you can react to it one of two ways. But that doesn't change the, the fact that that event has occurred. Mm hmm. So you can lose your temper or you can laugh it off, but the event's still there to deal with.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  So it doesn't really matter how you react to something. You're there and you've got to get on with it. Mm hmm. But there's a few, you know, and the time's gone by, there are people that have sort of, for whatever reason, withdrawn from the race. Um. And I'm I'm starting to to change my like initial reaction to that like my initial reaction on hearing that sort of news would be that I couldn't hack it and it wasn't for them and all this sort of stuff but a few of them have raised safety concerns that they perhaps didn't think about in the lead up to the road. And there's so much that goes into the planning.

• 6:32Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  That I totally understand that from their position, they might have got to a point where they hadn't really considered what they were getting themselves into.

• 6:39Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  I know that sounds daft because it's rowing an ocean, but it it I think it's easy to get caught up in the hype and sort of find yourself in a position you don't really wanna be.

• 6:49Chris Williamson?

  Were prepared for.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:50Chris Williamson?

  So so tell us about your background. What's what's your what's your background?

• 6:53Speaker 01

  So basically, I I grew up in a really like sort of transient lifestyle. So my father was in the Armed Forces.

• 7:00Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Um I was born in Germany and then ended up living all over the place. Um and then when I was eighteen, I joined the Marines on a dare. Um did that for a bit. Yeah. So basically, there was a TV programme on while we're at school and everyone was talking about this TV programme and sort of would they fancy doing it and all that sort of stuff. And again, another situation where I think I was the only person that wanted to.

• 7:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Um and then later that day, I was stood in the queue for some food at school. And I overheard two lads talking about the fact I wanted to give it a go.

• 7:32Chris Williamson?

  Right. How old how old how old are you?

• 7:34Speaker 01

  I was like seventeen or eighteen.

• 7:35Chris Williamson?

  Right, okay.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Um so it's like A levels.

• 7:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Um and then I overheard someone saying they didn't think I could do it. And not being sort of that academically minded.

• 7:44Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  And not knowing what I wanted to do if I got to university and all that sort of stuff. I just decided to run it by a old man first, saying when they drop out of school and join the Marines, what do you think? And he was like, yeah, go for it.

• 7:54Chris Williamson?

  I guess with his background, that would have been.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so did that. Um left the Marines, got into private security, uh did that for a few years. Um and yeah, just I think you can tell from that background, I've always been a fan of like challenges and figuring out who I am and how I react to like stressful environments and sort of extreme situations. Um and I just feel like it's been a few years since that's happened. So the road's sort of come on a good time now.

• 8:20Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Um.

• 8:21Chris Williamson?

  So this has been a concept in your mind for about seven years.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think six or seven years. See, the two thousand and ten or eleven, I watched that, that video at the dinner party.

• 8:30Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  And since then, it's just sort of evolved. But obviously, with the amount of money involved, um, and obviously with the age I was, like buying houses and, you know, getting a car and all that stuff.

• 8:40Chris Williamson?

  Settled, yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Seventy grand is like hard to come by when you're doing all that stuff.

• 8:43Chris Williamson?

  Seventy, seventy thousand pounds is the cost.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  I've probably spent so far about seventy thousand. I say so far because there's still more stuff to get.

• 8:49Chris Williamson?

  For sure.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's just, it's little things, like there's probably a kit list with two or three hundred items on that you need to do the run.

• 8:57Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  And most of the items cost a couple of hundred quid, so you can, you know, gather from that how much stuff.

• 9:02Chris Williamson?

  And in, in amongst that is a boat.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  In amongst that's a boat, yeah.

• 9:05Chris Williamson?

  Is it a boat?

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Either or, like it's a rowing boat or a vessel, because other things, I think because of the stuff attached to it, it gets called a vessel, because it's got like a radio and a GPS.

• 9:13Chris Williamson?

  I got you.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  It's basically a wooden rowing boat with a cabin sleeping.

• 9:17Chris Williamson?

  Oh my god.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  So it's pretty good.

• 9:19Chris Williamson?

  So you've got, you've gone through the Marines, you've gone through your private security, you've come out the other side now.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:24Chris Williamson?

  Um, I've seen you just over the last year, I've seen you run coast to coast of Hadrian's Wall.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was, um, so that, that wasn't really a big thing for us. I know that's, that sounds really big headed. And it's not meant to sound that way at all.

• 9:38Chris Williamson?

  It was the equivalent of somewhere in the region, three marathons back to back in twenty four hours.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Exactly what, well, it, it's actually three twenty eight mile runs back to back. So I'll set the scene again. Josh, Rose and I did a run in November just off the cuff to see how like fit we thought we were. And it was a trail run in Wulla, which was twenty eight miles.

• 9:56Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  And then we literally finished it and ten minutes afterwards, we're talking about people that do ultra marathons and stuff like that.

• 10:02Chris Williamson?

  Which is one hundred, one hundred and oh.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  I think ultra's anything over a marathon, to be honest, yeah. So people will do a fifty K and call it an ultra.

• 10:09Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Or they'll do a hundred K and call it ultra, whatever.

• 10:11Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Um, so Josh and I were basically saying, do you reckon you could do that back to back? And I was like, I don't know. And then just off sort of Googling and flying around Facebook and stuff, I found two guys that had ran Hadrian's Wall and it was eighty four miles. And it just jumped into my head that that's pretty much there back again and there again of the run we just did.

• 10:33Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Which was the biggest distance either of us have had, had ever done.

• 10:36Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  I think up to that point.

• 10:38Chris Williamson?

  And only ten minutes after, you were already looking for the best.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I just jokingly said to him, what do you reckon about doing this? And he was like, yeah, that sounds pretty good. And then I've always been a fan of, if you tell people about it, then it's happening.

• 10:49Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  So I think we posted it on Instagram. That day, um, and then to sort of train towards it.

• 10:55Chris Williamson?

  That external capability coming in a little bit there.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's just sort of like, I think it's good to test yourself now and again on stuff that you don't know you might be able to do. Otherwise, it isn't a challenge. Too many people these days do like a marathon, which, no offence to anyone that's proud of what they've done, but it's not hard to run twenty six miles, no matter what your background is.

• 11:12Chris Williamson?

  But even if the training, I suppose with the training for a marathon, I've seen some of the training protocols and people are working up towards twenty miles, like ten and twenty mile runs beforehand. Unless something goes wrong, the, the race is all right, you've already run it, which is, which is the point of the training, right? The point of the training is that you should be able to complete the run comfortably.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:31Chris Williamson?

  But I think there's a difference in trying to complete an event which you've prepared for and trying to test yourself in a way that you can only prepare up to as well as you can do for.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:40Chris Williamson?

  Does that make sense?

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think also if you apply a timeframe to the marathon, then it becomes a challenge.

• 11:45Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  But for most people, they just want to do it and it's more possible than people think it is.

• 11:50Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  And I think there's loads of stuff in life that's like that. It's way more possible than you think. You just never, you haven't tried it before. And the run, the Hagerham's Wall run was definitely that, like, in February, we failed it. Well, I failed it because I got a shin, uh, uh, what do you call it? A stress fracture in my shin.

• 12:06Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Um, so that stopped us at about the sixty five mile point.

• 12:10Chris Williamson?

  Which is still.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Which is a long way.

• 12:12Chris Williamson?

  Absolutely. That's almost exactly double two marathons.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  And, um, so that was that. But then because of the kind, kind of people Josh and I are, we were like, well, we've got to go back and finish it.

• 12:23Chris Williamson?

  I think that day, the Instagram post that you put.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  It was the day after, I think.

• 12:28Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, upon announcing that it hadn't happened.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:31Chris Williamson?

  This pretty much straight after was the announcement, like, we're coming back for you, so to speak.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  And the date was good because it was, uh, the rerun was in August just gone. Um. And it basically for me was more of a test of like where I was physically and mentally because it, it was a tough test in that like you had to apply a bit of mental fortitude to get through it because it's a long way to run. Um, most people aren't happy driving that distance, but to run it, we set off at like four in the morning and finished at ten at night. And that's like coast to coast of the country. So it was quite a deal. Um, but also for me, it was good because on the run, I'm probably going to be working out for up to eighteen hours a day. And the run took around about the same time.

• 13:11Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  So the thought of getting up the next day and doing that all over again. It was more preparation than I gave you credit for, because I I could turn around and go, well, it's possible, but it's going to be bloody hard.

• 13:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  And to string a hundred days like that together is really going to be the test.

• 13:26Chris Williamson?

  So going back to the role.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 13:28Chris Williamson?

  You've you've got your prep, you've started to get towards it. So I mean, what's the next step? In terms of you've you've started to think about the idea, where do you go from there? You need to find a route, you need to find someone with specialist information.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that exactly that. It's sort of, it's like most ideas that, you know, you don't think you're going to be able to achieve. Just as soon as you start on the road, it just starts to evolve.

• 13:49Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  And I've never really been someone that like plans everything to an absolute T and then goes and executes it. I sort of, I trained myself up to a point where I think I've got all the skills I need to, you know, be able to take on the challenge, which involves the whole planning phase as well.

• 14:04Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Um, and then I'll just react to the situations as they as they come.

• 14:09Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  Um, and as I'm going down that road. So basically, like I said, I emailed the guy Charlie Pitcher, found out about costs and, you know, required courses and like the navigation that you need to like pick up and all that sort of stuff. Um, and then just slowly start going about doing it.

• 14:25Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Um, but the real sort of, the impetus was like injected into the the project back in twenty sixteen.

• 14:32Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Because a team of five guys had completed that route that I was on about, and three of them were friends of mine from the Marines.

• 14:37Chris Williamson?

  Right, no way.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I I called one of them up and just said, look, what's what's the score with this? How did you go about planning it? And he said, we just picked the route and did it.

• 14:44Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  So I basically, the same sketch as the run, I told everyone I was doing it. And it kind of like forces you into making it happen then.

• 14:51Chris Williamson?

  For sure.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  And also picking a date was important, um, because it's something to work toward and it's something that, like you're then accountable for, because people know you're, like, it's January, Stu Morton's going to be going off on his road.

• 15:03Chris Williamson?

  Absolutely, yeah. Well, Parkinson's law, the work expands to fill the time that's given for it. And if you just, at some point in the future, it would be five years, ten years, and then before you know it, you can't do it anymore.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 15:14Chris Williamson?

  So no, that's, I mean, so moving on to the actual row itself. Am I right in thinking I read that it's one point five million or strokes?

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Around that, yeah. I mean, it all depends on. Like the distance it takes me, but as a rule, it's gonna be about one and a half million horse rigs, yeah.

• 15:32Chris Williamson?

  Which just sounds like.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:34Chris Williamson?

  The sort of thing that would take you to space, or do you know what I mean? Like millions, millions of anything.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:38Chris Williamson?

  Millions of repetitions of anything just sounds absolutely insane.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's nuts. It's one of those weird things, like the closer you get to it, and the more people I know that have actually done the road, the more you realise that it's, it's everything you think it's gonna be. It's like incredibly monotonous and boring. And testing and all this. And you can have music and sort of films to keep you company and everything, but at the end of the day, there's, there's no getting away from the fact that you've just got, got to get on the horse and pull. And also, it's so much more different to anything I've done before, where on the run that Josh and I did, if we failed that, it was like, our friend Ben was driving a car next to us.

• 16:17Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  So we could jump in, or we could like get our iPhones out and call someone and they'd come pick us up. But this is not like.

• 16:24Chris Williamson?

  So what's the support structure that you've got?

• 16:26Speaker 01

  There's no support. It's completely unsupported. Um, in absolute emergency, I can set off one of the many beacons I've got on board. Um, and through the different coastal agencies around the world, they'll sort of try and affect the rescue. The majority of the time, these rescues are from passing ships, because there's quite a few shipping lanes on my route.

• 16:46Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  So, um, there is the opportunity to be rescued, but that's if you're in a, an emergency situation.

• 16:54Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Um, it wouldn't be looked upon very well if you set off your beacon just because you're a bit tired or whatever.

• 17:00Chris Williamson?

  Something like that, yeah, exactly.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Where you're feeling a bit sorry for yourself. Um, and then failing that, there's a life raft, a grab bag of emergency kit, and then the current to take me to the Caribbean.

• 17:10Chris Williamson?

  Bloody hell.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Which will take probably about a hundred and fifty days, maybe.

• 17:14Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Um, but someone's.

• 17:16Chris Williamson?

  That's, that's, that's definitely last resort.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's last resort, but it is a resort.

• 17:20Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, for sure. You've got to, I guess you've got to have planning for every eventuality. Like you said, there's a lot of things that could occur that you wouldn't know.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:27Chris Williamson?

  So when do you set off? What time of day and what date?

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Uh, well, it's all weather dependent. So you set like a general date that you're aiming at. Which for me is the eighteenth of January. Um, for no other reason, I've just plucked it out of the air.

• 17:40Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Um, and then through the, the weather reading guy, um, my friend Foxy. We're just gonna look at the weather around that week and see if it's a viable option.

• 17:49Chris Williamson?

  But generally, January is a good time, right?

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:53Chris Williamson?

  Because of something going on with currents.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Taliskeray sets off in December, um, and I'm gonna set off in January, basically for the same reason that the trade winds come from Africa towards South America.

• 18:03Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Um, they're at the strongest point at that time of the year. Um, and also the hurricane season stops in around November, December time. So if you set off, obviously after the hurricane season, it's gonna be.

• 18:14Chris Williamson?

  Do not want to be caught in the hurricane season, yeah, for sure. So you're gonna get an assist with the wind, right?

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah.

• 18:21Chris Williamson?

  Uh, at least a little bit.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's, um, not to get too much into it, but there's two classes of boats. There's the pure class and the concept class. Um, the concept class is basically like the newest design, which is an incredible design, and not to sound like I'm sort of like hating on it. Um, it is a phenomenally designed bit of kit and the people that make them, Rannick, are definitely the best boat builders out there. But it's widely known that they get huge wind assistance because they're designed for that. So the entrance to the cabin is at the front of the boat for the main cabin, whereas mine's at the back of the boat.

• 18:59Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  So as, as the wind comes over the back of the boat, it doesn't hit anything on mine. It just drifts off into the ocean.

• 19:05Chris Williamson?

  Whereas it's a flat surface.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it acts like a sail. Um, and because of that, Rannick have set these blistering fast paces across the ocean. Any other world records that held are currently held by Rannick boats.

• 19:17Chris Williamson?

  So is there now two classes of world records?

• 19:19Speaker 01

  So Guinness were like, well, that's not fair now. We have to have two classes. So I looked at who holds the record for Myrow. And it's an old fashioned pure class boat.

• 19:27Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  So I only thought it's fair if I'm gonna try and beat the, like, the record that already stands.

• 19:32Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Then I've got to do it in a pure class boat.

• 19:35Chris Williamson?

  You've been, so the route that you're doing has never been done before.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 19:39Chris Williamson?

  And that would, so irrelevant of which side it was in, which boat you were in.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:43Chris Williamson?

  You're gonna be.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Well, specifically for. Country to country, I'll be the first person.

• 19:47Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  But for continent to continent.

• 19:49Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  That someone's done it before.

• 19:50Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Um, and the guy's called Seenhoff, a Norwegian, that set it in ninety six days.

• 19:56Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  And so if I beat ninety six days, I get the record, as well as being the first person to go from Portugal to Venezuela. And the first British person and all those sort of.

• 20:05Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, all the sub, all the sub ones as well.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  First man.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  So that's very good.

• 20:10Chris Williamson?

  I mean, it's just, it it just boggles the mind really to sort of think about this sort of stuff. Like, I can't, I can't imagine. What the experience is going to be like to go across. So you, I mean, what's the estimated time? You're hopefully setting off January eighteenth.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:24Chris Williamson?

  A morning, a morning thing? Is it the sort of thing where you're going to be able to have anyone to see you off other than a support crew like?

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, um, Foxy, uh, the weather ridden guy, he's going to come out to Portugal with me.

• 20:34Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  And then my friend Pierre is gonna help me drive the boat down.

• 20:38Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Um, and then those two, basically, I want as little time as possible in the marina and Portugal.

• 20:43Chris Williamson?

  Right, why is that?

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Just like as a mental thing, I think it's way better to like say goodbyes to everyone at home.

• 20:48Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Drive down, put the boat to water, jump in.

• 20:51Chris Williamson?

  Your journey almost begins as you set off in the car.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah.

• 20:53Chris Williamson?

  The UK.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, and also, you know, like I said, because we're guessing the weather and all that sort of stuff, you don't want to miss your weather window. So if I dilly-dally when I get down there.

• 21:02Chris Williamson?

  For sure.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  A two day, like, delay might end up being a four week delay, which I can't really afford.

• 21:07Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  So for me, I just want to get the boat in the water and set off. Plus, it isn't like a challenge that. I've ended up doing that I don't want to do. Like, I've been, this, like, a dream of mine for six or seven years, so I'm, like, championing it a bit to get out there and. Test myself and all that sort of good stuff.

• 21:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Um, and I think, like, the solitude's something I'm going to enjoy, like, the, the adventure side of it, that, you know, putting yourself at the mercy of something you can't control. Isn't something people do very much these days.

• 21:34Chris Williamson?

  Absolutely not.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Um, and I think that's where the test comes from, is that I, I'm not in control of my environment and I can only react to it.

• 21:41Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  So it's much the same as like when we're in operations in the marines, like, it's a good test of who you are and what you're about. Especially in this world where people are so bothered about sort of money and status and celebrity and all that sort of stuff.

• 21:54Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Like that stuff doesn't really impress me. I like any idols I have, you know, they've got the work done and then they get the plaudits for it rather than telling people what they're gonna do and expecting some sort of.

• 22:05Chris Williamson?

  For sure. I mean, you know, a lot of people I think would be primarily chasing the titles and the they want to do it the quickest, they want to do it the fastest, the best and and get the most renowned out of it.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  For me, their bonuses, the the true test is the test itself.

• 22:21Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Um. And if it takes me a hundred and twenty days, I'm not really bothered. The the records like a nice to have for the sponsors and stuff like that. It's something that they can sing about and say that they were involved with. But for me, I I don't really care about that. It's nice to know that. You know, you've you've earned something and you've achieved it because you outworked the other guy and all that sort of stuff. But for me, the the big test is. Can I deal with what's thrown at me? Like, the conditions will probably be different to the other guys as well. And the distance is so vast that. You can't do the exact same route anyway.

• 22:54Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  So the parameters of like, well, he did it in this time and he did it in that time, they're hard to sort of, you know.

• 23:00Chris Williamson?

  There's no direct comparison, right?

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you can't create like that level playing field where it's like a football match where there's two goals in ninety minutes and off you go.

• 23:07Chris Williamson?

  For sure.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Um. So, yeah, it's just, it's a weird one because the records mean a lot in the build up, you know, getting funding and sponsorship and all that. But. When it comes down to it, like getting from A to B safely is number one.

• 23:20Chris Williamson?

  I think that's what that's what grabs attention, isn't it?

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:23Chris Williamson?

  That this is potentially going to be a world record.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Um, yeah.

• 23:26Chris Williamson?

  But as you say, that for you is sort of below secondary.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:30Chris Williamson?

  Um.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  It will be cool. I mean, like the the whole ego side of things, it'd be nice to be the first person to have ever done anything because you you'll never leave that record.

• 23:40Chris Williamson?

  Absolutely.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Um. Whereas if you're obviously the fastest, you're the fastest until someone beats you.

• 23:44Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. And the next fastest.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. And with the way the the boats are going as well, it'll come to a point where the pure class boats no longer are are no longer built.

• 23:53Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Or they're too old to be recycled.

• 23:55Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  So it's only concept class boats. So then it would be nice to be the last person to have done something and all that sort of thing.

• 24:02Chris Williamson?

  Sure.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Um, but definitely I'm open to the thought of after the first one's done, maybe doing it again in a concept boat or.

• 24:09Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  You know, but I've obviously got to do it first and see if I like it.

• 24:12Chris Williamson?

  Let's get the first one out of the way, yeah, for sure. So you're going to set off January eighteenth. And then I'm writing saying that you don't actually steer. Is that right? It's GPS that uh that does the the majority of the steering in terms of direction for the weather.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  So you can have what's called an auto helm, um and it basically attaches to the rudder. And it's a digital steering device. So you type in your bearing to the GPS and then. You can get it done automatically or you can sync it yourself as well. You'll put the bearing into the auto helm.

• 24:43Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  And then it basically steers for you.

• 24:45Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm. And you just get on and you just pull.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you just pull. But if that breaks, you then go to foot steering or hand steering.

• 24:52Chris Williamson?

  Oh my god.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Which is as bad as it sounds.

• 24:54Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, whilst whilst also trying to.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  To pull your oars, yeah, and you're constantly like.

• 24:59Chris Williamson?

  Readjust.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Adjusting it and sort of making sure you're on the right bearing.

• 25:02Chris Williamson?

  So have you have you set your course now? Do you know?

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I I went through it with um Foxy. Um, we sort of sat down the other week. Um, spent about eight hours picking the the course.

• 25:14Chris Williamson?

  So you've only done it only done it recently?

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean.

• 25:17Chris Williamson?

  You've had a lot of good idea for a long time.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Everyone knows that I'm going from Portugal to Venezuela, so it's pretty obvious.

• 25:23Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  I just head west.

• 25:24Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Um, but the intricacies of sort of getting out of Portugal and like breaking away from the land. So you you can afford to get your head down without like drifting into anything.

• 25:34Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  So the first sort of day will be, the first week's gonna be hell, because.

• 25:39Chris Williamson?

  Why's that?

• 25:39Speaker 01

  You're adjusting to everything. Um, it's the first week where you're like aware of what the routine is gonna be like. It's the first week where your body's getting used to that workload. Um, all your hand, like the blisters and stuff in your hands are gonna form and all that sort of thing. Like you can train them to a certain extent. And like the nice comfort confines of a gym and what have you, but when you actually get on it, you can't really train for an ocean row unless. On the ocean.

• 26:04Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, for sure. So you've you've touched on it there, so I'm gonna segue off.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:07Chris Williamson?

  Just take us through your training, take us through what the training has consisted of.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Um, I think that's always a hard question to answer because there's a, you know, chunk of society that trains all the time. And they have goals outside of these big projects. So I I I train most days and have done since I was sixteen or seventeen. Um, but the row specific stuff, I knew I had to get fat, I knew I had to get strong, and I knew I had to have a pretty good engine. Uh, luckily I've had a good engine for a while, um, so that kind of took care of itself.

• 26:39Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  And that run was like confirmation of that.

• 26:42Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Um.

• 26:44Chris Williamson?

  How about getting fat?

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Getting fat's been really weird, really weird. It's gone really well, um, but it's been really strange. Obviously, most people that train are training to achieve a goal, whether it be looking good or be nice when you're look. Looking good when you're naked and all that sort of stuff. Um, and I've had to do the opposite of that.

• 27:03Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  I've had to eat for a purpose, which goes against everything that like I and people I stay with like stand for. So that's been really weird, but um, it's it's doing, I'm getting better at it now because I know that it's gonna like.

• 27:19Chris Williamson?

  Getting better at being fat?

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I'm getting better at putting a few in and not being that bothered by it, because I know it's gonna like serve me well when the the time comes, but.

• 27:28Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  No, it is, it's really weird.

• 27:30Chris Williamson?

  And how about how about strength? So this will probably, I'm gonna guess that this will be the heaviest you've ever been?

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, a hundred and twelve kilos at the moment.

• 27:36Chris Williamson?

  From?

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Eighty-five in August.

• 27:39Chris Williamson?

  Oh, my god.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  So that's quite a, quite a gain.

• 27:42Chris Williamson?

  Very sharp.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  And it's not like, you know, obviously you can judge for yourself, but a lot of people have said that I'm carrying it pretty well, like I don't look like.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Um, but I think that comes from the strength training that I've been doing, so I've added bulk as well as fat. Um, definitely with my top off and stuff, I'd look flabby and I've got curves where I don't want them and all that sort of stuff. But, um, working with Tim Briggs, who does We Dominate Nutrition, we were like, well, the first part. The first part, uh, part of getting fat is just eating more than you need to burn off.

• 28:15Chris Williamson?

  I can't, I can't believe that.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:17Chris Williamson?

  Like, how to get fat dot doc.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:18Chris Williamson?

  Has been emailed over at some point.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  So we just overloaded on carbs and like eight. A diet where my body got all the nutrition it needed.

• 28:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Like, so a lot of the stuff that Lauren cooks, I'll do the same as her. And then on top of that has been like pizzas and ice cream and chocolate.

• 28:34Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Whatever you wanna do to get calories up. Um, and then recently, maybe three or four weeks ago, we switched to like a keto diet.

• 28:42Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Um, so the idea is that my body now is gonna be better at burning fat. Um, and the transition happens now rather than on the road.

• 28:51Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  So I've already experienced sort of like headaches and.

• 28:54Chris Williamson?

  Are you, would you say you've dropped into ketosis now then?

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Um, I'd probably say so, yeah.

• 28:59Chris Williamson?

  On the cusp, in and out.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  I'm feeling better on it now.

• 29:01Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Um, I did get sort of quite a few headaches and was feeling like dreary and a bit hungover in the mornings and stuff. Um, and then also, yeah, I've just, you know, it's been nicer on the fat-based diet rather than like the carby sugary stuff, because it makes you feel awful.

• 29:19Chris Williamson?

  Really?

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, and now I'm coming out with the transition as well. It feels, I'm feeling a lot more energetic and sort of healthier, if that makes sense.

• 29:25Chris Williamson?

  I think that's, I mean, for a lot of, a lot of people who have had to suffer the pain of a fat and protein diet, that's for most people really uncomfortable.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 29:35Chris Williamson?

  They don't like the fact that they don't have that starch, that kind of bulky, satiated feeling that you get that comes along with having carbs.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 29:42Chris Williamson?

  Um, so that's the, that's the diet side. So in terms of training, what have you been doing to prepare? A lot of time on a Concept Two, I'm gonna guess.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, there is that. I mean, it doesn't really cross over that much to ocean rowing, so.

• 29:53Chris Williamson?

  Really?

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, so in a two-hour set on a Concept Two, I can pull thirty kilometres, which is a good pace. But then when I first got my boat, I rode it from the Tyne Bridge to the Royal Keys, which is eight miles, and it took me two hours.

• 30:06Chris Williamson?

  Oh, wow.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  So the weight of the boat, how slow she goes in the water and all that sort of stuff, like, it makes it so much different to the Concept Two. But you're not gonna do any damage being on a Concept Two, so it's the nearest you can get to it without getting on the boat, so. Um, a lot of two-hour sets, one-hour sets, rode through the night one time, did like seventy K in one sitting.

• 30:27Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Um, that was at, at the gym at CrossFit Tyne Side.

• 30:31Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Uh, and then most of the time it's just sort of general prepared fitness with Lauren. So training most days together in the mornings, and we're just doing like CrossFit-y sort of stuff, so a lot of functional movements and sort of.

• 30:44Chris Williamson?

  I thought, I honestly, I honestly thought there'd be a lot more row specific stuff. I genuinely thought it would just be, yeah, I've just spent the last six months sat on a Concept Two and I've done some accessories work. But it would appear that

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:56Chris Williamson?

  the crossover from doing more functional stuff actually appears to be more beneficial in

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. Looking at like that Talisker race that I keep like going back to, people take that pretty seriously.

• 31:06Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  And people train for it or have trained for it um with this like the thing you've just said there, like sat on the Concept Two.

• 31:14Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Most of the time.

• 31:15Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  And then doing a little bit of accessory stuff and it hasn't really worked as well.

• 31:19Chris Williamson?

  Really?

• 31:19Speaker 01

  As people that have come in recently with like an endurance sports background who have done more sort of functional training and then they've done a bit of

• 31:28Chris Williamson?

  A little bit more well-rounded as athletes.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I think it's more like training for the Marines was you're like, you're sort of ready for anything. Like you're a good sprinter, you're strong, you're gymnasty and all that sort of stuff.

• 31:38Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  Um, and I think, you know, that that's definitely worked well and been as robust as you can possibly be.

• 31:45Chris Williamson?

  I suppose it must make the training as well, building up to something that is going to be a bit monotonous. The fact that you can go in and one day do rope climbs and one day do pull-ups and one day do Concept Two and that, do you know what I mean? Like it

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, my, my thought is to save the monopoly for the actual, the event itself.

• 32:00Chris Williamson?

  It sounds like it's gonna be a little bit, yeah.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm happy that I could sit on a rower for like fourteen hours or whatever. I've done it before.

• 32:06Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Um, I'm happy I can work out for eighteen hours, having done it before. Um, and like I said, the row is more mental than it is physical. Like it's gonna be debilitating and hard work and all that sort of stuff. But I think like the overriding rule or mantra in my life is there's always someone worse off than yourself.

• 32:24Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  And it's, I think whatever situation you're in is not that bad if you keep that in mind.

• 32:30Chris Williamson?

  I'm not sure there's gonna be very many people on the planet that are gonna be doing as many hours per day.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 32:34Chris Williamson?

  As yourself during that period. Which again is a crazy, a crazy thought when you think seven billion people on the planet and you will be easily in the top 0.1% of people working out for three months.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:47Chris Williamson?

  On the balance.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  No, it's not. Well, there's a famous, Brad Wiggins explains the Tour de France by saying it's the only sporting event on the planet where you need a haircut halfway through. And I'll need like maybe three or four.

• 32:58Chris Williamson?

  You're gonna have to, you're gonna have to do all sorts.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  So, um, but it's, and also apart from the working outside of things, like I have to be a carpenter, an electrician, um, a water maker specialist, um, all these different things. Cause if anything breaks on the boat, there's no one to fix it but me.

• 33:14Chris Williamson?

  You'd, you'd said to me that one of the first things that you said about the race was you need to be able to take apart and put back together every single element.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, upside down and in the dark. So.

• 33:22Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  It's pretty.

• 33:23Chris Williamson?

  So talk us, talk us through the vessel or the boat. Talk us through what.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. So she's 24 feet long. Um, there's a cabin at the front and at the back that are both enclosed and airtight.

• 33:33Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Um, the one at the back is the one I sleep in. Um, so it's about, it's basically coffin dimensions. It's like six foot by two foot.

• 33:42Chris Williamson?

  Built for you, pretty much.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Built for me pretty much, yeah. And in, in, in the cabin, I've got sort of food, a memory foam mattress and a sleeping bag.

• 33:50Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Um, and then I've got like the GPS, the radio, uh, the, I think called AIS, which is like an indication system that tells me and other ships who each other are.

• 34:00Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  And get in touch and say, stay away from me. You're about to run over or whatever.

• 34:04Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Um, then the forward cabin at the front of the boat is where I'm gonna have, it's mainly for storage. You can't really get in there.

• 34:11Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Um, and it's just gonna store things like a parachute anchor and all that sort of thing.

• 34:16Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  And then the deck itself has got two rowing positions and six oars. Um.

• 34:22Chris Williamson?

  Why?

• 34:23Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 34:23Chris Williamson?

  Why two rowing positions and six oars?

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Uh, basically, so my boat can be rowed by one person or two people.

• 34:29Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Um, and there was an opportunity to like condense the two positions into one, just for the sake of I'm a solo rower, so I don't need two.

• 34:36Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  But then we talked about with the project manager that when they, um, as I get halfway through and I've eaten half of the food.

• 34:43Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  And obviously half of the, the weight of the boat has disappeared.

• 34:46Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Um, it would be nice to have the opportunity to either row more forward or more back of the boat. So I can affect the boat's stability in the water.

• 34:54Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Uh, cause ballast's like a big thing with those boats. So that's the reason we kept the two positions and also just to break up them and up me a little bit.

• 35:03Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  It sounds weird, they're only like a foot apart from each other, but if I spent one day in the front and one day in the back, it might.

• 35:09Chris Williamson?

  A little bit different. So I remember one of the first questions that I asked you, and I'm sure that some of the listeners are thinking this as well. The guys, the boats that have two or three or four people in them, you would think would be able to get across quicker. Than a boat that only has one person in them. You have more people, more horsepower.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:28Chris Williamson?

  But you said that that wasn't strictly the case.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  No, and it's been proved in the last two Talisker races. So it's all like power to weight ratio. So they can go faster, but they're carrying more weight and they're doing it in two hour sort of sessions. So if we were doing it as a pair, for example, like I'd be rowing while you're asleep and vice versa. But the pace is pretty much the same because our boat would, it would weigh what it would weigh for two people. Whereas my boat's only going to have a hundred days worth of food instead of two hundred days.

• 36:01Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  So.

• 36:01Chris Williamson?

  Only one person.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've got to shift less weight. So effectively I can keep the same sort of speed.

• 36:06Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  Over a 24 hour period as we could do in two hour, you know, segments.

• 36:11Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  So in the last two Talisker races, last year, my friend Gavin Henigan came third overall as a solo rower.

• 36:18Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Beat teams of two and three and four.

• 36:20Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  And there's a guy, Mark Slats, who's doing it this year and he's third.

• 36:26Chris Williamson?

  As a solo.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Solo in a team, you know, in a race full of fours and threes.

• 36:30Chris Williamson?

  Which is, which just seems so camaraderie, I suppose, but yeah, when you've got the amount of food for that many more people and and all the rest of it. I mean, that's just.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  And they're rowing probably 20 hours a day, those two solo guys I just mentioned.

• 36:42Chris Williamson?

  20 hours a day.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  They're rowing about 20 hours a day, yeah.

• 36:45Chris Williamson?

  So what's the logic behind, because obviously that's going to cause, I guess, a little bit more burnout. You're going to be more tired the next day.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  I mean, Mark at the moment, they've been going two weeks. He doesn't seem to have slowed down any yet.

• 36:55Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  But obviously you can't keep that up forever. So.

• 36:57Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Everyone's sort of.

• 36:59Chris Williamson?

  Get out ahead.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  It's going to stop. Yeah. So for me, for example, I, I'm just going to row and see how I feel. And judge everything off of that. There's no point in me making like a a schedule now that I'm gonna have to change when I get on the road. So I'm just gonna sort of row for an hour or two and see how I feel. Um. If I feel like I should rest a little bit, I will get some food down in the water and stuff. And then if I feel like I wanna carry on and do a big stint, I will.

• 37:27Chris Williamson?

  So in for the rowing aficionados out there, have you got an idea of sort of cadence and stroke rate and stuff like that?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, so as a very basic sort of measure, you'd be doing around eighteen to twenty strokes a minute. Um. And to be honest with you, that's all that really counts for for for the aficionados out there, cause. The boats, like I said before, if I do two hours on a Concept Two and two hours on my boat, the distance is like halved, basically. So, um, it was, that was a big eye opener, cause obviously you spend the whole time looking at your little screen on the Concept Two and thinking. Right, if I pull one thirty per five hundred, that's awesome.

• 38:06Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Doing really good. And if it's too blah blah blah. And you're doing all this maths in your head, and then as soon as you get on the boat, it just all goes out the window. So. It's just efficiencies and guided by your stroke rate. Um. And eighteen to twenty is sustainable for a hundred days.

• 38:21Chris Williamson?

  And that feels about right for you as well?

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it feels nice. And also, because it's an ocean and not like a riverboat. A a lot of river rowers have talked to me about sort of how it feels now I'm training and all this sort of stuff. And it's it's different again from those guys, cause. They're generally racing on really flat, sort of glass-like rivers or lakes.

• 38:40Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Um. And they don't have to deal with weather all that much.

• 38:43Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Whereas I'm constantly moving, the oars very rarely go in the water super clean and come out super clean. So you might put two oars in and one, you know, you're catching crabs straight away or.

• 38:55Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  You all get to pull like hands or pull down onto your thighs or whatever.

• 38:59Chris Williamson?

  So I think for a lot, a lot of people that have seen rowing on water before, it'll be Oxford Cambridge Boat Race, stuff like that, which is like.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:07Chris Williamson?

  Like as flat as flat, flat as you can get.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  And guys displaying like amazing balance and their boats are super rigid and they don't move around at all.

• 39:14Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, and I've seen a video of. One of your friends recently, I think, is out on the water at the moment.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:20Chris Williamson?

  And I saw a video that he'd uploaded from the cabin looking at him.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:23Chris Williamson?

  And it it just looks like hills. It just looks like a crazy golf course that's like that that he's roaming over the top of behind.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's nuts. So, for instance, to like to describe the conditions, he recently woke up in his cabin with his eyes sort of all blackened and cuts all over his face.

• 39:38Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Cause while he was asleep, he capsized and it's like a washing machine inside the cabin most of the time, so.

• 39:44Chris Williamson?

  And it's, uh, you said it was sealed, right?

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he's just batting around in this sort of coffin, um, woke up with his eye in sort of bad order.

• 39:52Chris Williamson?

  Oh, my god.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Um, but he's, he's the guy I mentioned before, Damien, he's just sort of an example of how to tackle it. So he just sort of laughed it off, took it for what it was.

• 40:01Chris Williamson?

  And he's just cracking on.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  He's just cracked on, yeah.

• 40:03Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  And then later that day, I think he was on the deck and it capsized again.

• 40:06Chris Williamson?

  Capsized twice in a day, right?

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Um, and he said he just sort of, you know, he's prepared for that because he'd heard of it before, so. But he's, he's like, uh, he's how I'd sort of like to tackle it.

• 40:16Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  And like, you you look at him and it really sets you up well for for what's coming, because he doesn't like sugarcoat it and make out it's easier than it is. And at the same time, he's just honest, like he just says what it is.

• 40:28Chris Williamson?

  Not sort of glorifying anything.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he's not saying, oh, it's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life and all this sort of thing. You're gonna, if you go into it thinking it's not gonna be the hardest thing you've ever done, you're an idiot. So I think as long as you're aware of how difficult it's gonna be, there's not gonna be that many nasty surprises.

• 40:44Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Um, but also I think the amount of people that get into this sort of thing, they're not gonna do it like you.

• 40:49Chris Williamson?

  You've already filtered out an awful lot of people just through the madness of saying that you're gonna do it, I think.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, yeah, that that video scenario I always explain in in Fulham is a good a good like litmus test, I think, for the general.

• 41:04Chris Williamson?

  No, no one in the room even thought about it.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  To even think about it. And I was just sat in my own thinking, ah, that sounds.

• 41:08Chris Williamson?

  Going crazy.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  And I don't, like, I know I'm not normal, like, I'm against the grain of what most people think is, you know, normal or whatever like that, but I just, like I said before, I I find value in other things that some people don't. And I think that sort of, you know, as much as people wanna progress in business and see how. Much money they can make and all that sort of stuff, that's admirable in its own world, but I I'm not made of that sort of stuff. Like, I wanna see what I can put up with and what I can achieve in other worlds. Um, and it's just sort of how I'm bred, I suppose, and the people are bred differently.

• 41:43Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, so going back to the race, so you've got yourself out of Portugal, hopefully you've managed to pull yourself away. You said that you can't drift into things, so it's gonna be finding your feet for the first week to ten days or so. And then what happens ten days in, where are we there?

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Um, ten days in is hopefully set a rhythm. Um, I know what the scenario, uh, what my schedule on the boat is gonna be more like. So maybe rowing three hours and resting for one hour or rowing two, resting two. Um, and, you know, all the, all the jobs on board that you deal with while you're not rowing. So like cooking and cleaning and maintenance and all that sort of stuff. Um, hopefully on top of all of that by ten days in. Um, and yeah, and just sort of, you know, making good chunks into the the distance. So the guys on the task race, for example, they've been roaming for like two weeks now and they're still only halfway through.

• 42:33Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Uh, no one actually has passed the halfway mark.

• 42:36Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Um, so it's just that it's known every day, let's, it's breaking everything down into small chunks. So if you can cover sixty miles in a day, you're doing well as a solo. Um, so that's, you know, you break that target, sixty miles down to thirty miles for every half day.

• 42:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Um, and just keep on going through it like that. Um, so yeah, hopefully by day ten, I'll be sort of, you know, a good chunk into the race, a couple of hundred miles down. Um, and just sort of not really looking at the miles to go, cause I'd be a little bit disheartened seeing three thousand and a half miles. Um, and yeah, and then just enjoying the experience is the main thing for me. I think too many people come back from the race and they've treated the whole thing as a, you know, a pressurized race where they're, they're not really appreciating where they are and what they're doing. Um, there's a book I read recently by a guy called John Fairfax, who rode solo in nineteen sixty nine.

• 43:30Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  So he did it basically like compared to me on the bones of his arse, like he didn't have any kit, um, none of the electric.

• 43:36Chris Williamson?

  That would be hammer foot steering, right?

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, he had no food. He caught most of his food that he ate on the road.

• 43:44Chris Williamson?

  No way.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Um, so all that sort of stuff. I've got like fishing rods and a spear gun and as much as possible, I'll sort of try and enjoy the experience.

• 43:51Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Um, rather than just treating it as a sort of.

• 43:54Chris Williamson?

  You haven't got a volleyball, have you?

• 43:58Speaker 01

  That's come up a few times.

• 43:59Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, the Wilson thing, that would be quite cool. Uh, so one thing that I I didn't understand was how you secure yourself when you can't touch the floor of the ocean. For sleeping, so you don't drift away.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah. Um, so you've got a thing called a power anchor, which is like a twelve foot parachute. Um, and it's set out on like a one hundred metre line.

• 44:20Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  So you've got a big thick rope that you attach to the boat, and then you put the power anchor out so that the current, obviously that's going underneath the boat. Um, the power anchor harnesses that current and it keeps the nose of the boat basically into the the swell.

• 44:35Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  So that your position is held.

• 44:38Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Um, you won't gain much distance while you're on the on a power anchor, but ideally you're not going to lose much either. Um, and then also in bad weather, you can deploy the power anchor and it'll keep the front of the boat pointing into the the bad weather.

• 44:53Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  So that you're going sort of up and down rather than side to side.

• 44:56Chris Williamson?

  For sure.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Um, and it it's meant to um eliminate the possibility of capsized, but it doesn't.

• 45:03Chris Williamson?

  Well, your friend's proven in twice in twenty four hours.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the general rule of thumb is if you've got a boat that's say three metres wide.

• 45:09Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  If you get hit side on by a wave more than three metres, you're gonna.

• 45:13Chris Williamson?

  You're going over, yeah.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  And it's the Atlantic Ocean, so most of the waves are sort of eight or nine metres. So if you if you hit one side on, you're going over.

• 45:22Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  So I think it's important as well for if anyone's thinking of doing it is to understand it's how many times you're going to capsize rather than if you're going to capsize and being comfortable with the fact that it's gonna happen.

• 45:34Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 45:35Chris Williamson?

  So in terms of the route that you're taking and you've you've spoken about the the streams and the um the wind.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 45:42Chris Williamson?

  That you're going to catch. Am I right in saying what you said to me that there's going to be some times where you may be on the crest of a a wave going in the right direction, so to speak, and you can kind of almost surf that a little bit?

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Definitely, yeah.

• 45:52Chris Williamson?

  Pull at the right pace to ride that down.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  So in. What normal people would consider bad weather, um in certain situations for ocean rowing, it's it's really good for you because you'll get picked up by a wave as you're rowing.

• 46:03Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  And then the the common thread is to ditch the oars, just let go of them and they'll sit in the gates and they're not going to go anywhere. And then you grab your hand steering uh ropes and you basically steer yourself down the wave. And you'll pick up maybe like between sort of six and ten knots.

• 46:19Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Which isn't very fast walking from A to B, but surfing down a wave on the.

• 46:23Chris Williamson?

  It's sort of free money, so it's.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so you're flying along. And then anyone that understands surfing, obviously waves come in sets. So if you're doing that every sort of ten to twelve seconds, you're making up some really, really good distance.

• 46:36Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh. So a lot of this, uh I guess a lot of the ease of the journey is going to be dependent on Mother Nature.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and also it depends on my, for want of a better term, my balls, because. My friend Leven um is doing weather reading for the like five teams that are on the Taliska race right now.

• 46:56Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  And I was at Leven's house the other night, and as we were speaking, he had to keep on dashing away to like phone people on the race and give them their weather options.

• 47:03Chris Williamson?

  Right.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Um and one of the teams he spoke to were on Power Anchor because the weather was eh bad.

• 47:09Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  In inverted commas, um so they were just going to sit there and ride it out. And then he spoke to a four man team, um a group of boys from up here actually. Um and they were, they wanted more wind, they wanted more speed, so they were like surfing down the waves as we just described there, so. It's it's it's understanding what bad weather is, because there's a fine line between free speed and putting yourself in a dangerous position.

• 47:32Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Um but it's, you know, it's understanding what.

• 47:35Chris Williamson?

  Where do you think that you rank on the scale? Would you say that you're?

• 47:38Speaker 01

  I'm pretty happy because, I mean, at the risk of sounding too confident, I've worked on the Indian Ocean for sort of two or three years. Um and, you know, witnessed some pretty bad weather.

• 47:49Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  And that was when we were on sort of cargo, um cargo carriers and tankers and oil rigs.

• 47:55Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  And we were a little bit worried.

• 47:57Chris Williamson?

  Mm hmm.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  So that was pretty bad weather. So if I experience anything like that, then definitely I'd be like a case of buttoning down the hatches and. You know, surviving.

• 48:05Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Um, but I think in most scenarios, it's gonna be sort of harnessing what you've got.

• 48:12Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. So I saw something online that you posted about a sheepskin seat cover.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:19Chris Williamson?

  And then someone asked why you had a sheepskin seat cover.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:22Chris Williamson?

  And what are you wearing to rowing?

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Uh, so generally, I think eighty percent of the time, people will row naked.

• 48:29Chris Williamson?

  Completely naked.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Completely naked, yeah. So the idea is that a few, you could probably test it at home if you've got that much time in your hands, but. If you say, if your t-shirt gets covered in salt water.

• 48:40Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  And then it dries out in the sun. The water evaporates, but the salt crystals stay in the material and they're abrasive. So obviously, if the t-shirt's rubbing on your skin, especially with rowing, you're gonna end up like sores on your armpits.

• 48:53Chris Williamson?

  Really bad, really fast.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, and because you're at sea, the salt gets into the wound and it makes it harder to heal. Um, and then obviously because you're debilitated and malnourished and all that sort of stuff, your body's slower at fixing itself anyway.

• 49:05Chris Williamson?

  To bad environment for healing.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  And that's gonna happen anywhere you've got clothes on or anywhere where there's friction. Whereas the sheepskin, because it's soft and fluffy and it's like more of a natural fibre, it's. It's better at not retaining the salt crystals than sort of manmade fibres are. So the idea is that you clean it out as often as you can with uh, fresh water. Um, and then sitting on that naked is basically gonna provide less friction than rowing in a pair of shorts.

• 49:33Chris Williamson?

  So if someone goes past you on a boat.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:36Chris Williamson?

  They're gonna see.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, for the first part, you'd you'd wear shorts for that reason, but for the middle of the ocean, there's not many people gonna come past.

• 49:48Chris Williamson?

  Someone on holiday, a family holiday in a yacht just coming around the corner to Portugal and.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  And but I'd be in a position where I'm that tired, I don't really care who sees me or.

• 49:55Chris Williamson?

  That's absolutely fine. So in terms of avoiding sunburn and stuff like that, like even just like the volume of sun cream that you're gonna have to take.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I use like these zinc stick things.

• 50:05Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Um, so I just stick that on, but I generally, through like. Uh, jobs I've done in the past, I've spent a lot of time in the sun, exposed to it in sort of big chunks.

• 50:14Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Um, so I get used to it pretty quick. Um. And like I said before, uh, when I was in Tanzania for a few years, um, it was, you know, something I put up with all the time there, so you get used to that pretty quick. Uh, but definitely for the first part, I'll be covered up and. You know.

• 50:31Chris Williamson?

  After a hundred days in the sunshine, you're gonna come back with a wicked tan as well.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll be quite leathery.

• 50:39Chris Williamson?

  Man, so fresh water as well, like water's a very, very heavy.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:44Chris Williamson?

  Object to take with you. How's that working? Have you got a, a, something that you can distill on, on board as well?

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so on board I've got a, um, a desalinator or a water maker. Uh, and basically it's plumbed into the boat. So there's a valve underneath the hull, like the bottom of the boat.

• 51:00Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  And it sucks up seawater. And then through loads and loads of different filters at mega high pressure, it turns it from saltwater into drinkable water.

• 51:10Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Um, doesn't taste particularly great, but you know, it keeps you, keeps you going when you need it.

• 51:15Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Um, and then also because of the type of boat I have, it needs ballast.

• 51:21Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  To sort of sit it down in the water and again reduce the, the chance of capsizing.

• 51:25Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  So the ballast is going to come in the form of about a hundred and twenty kilos of fresh water.

• 51:30Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  Um, just in plastic bottles that you'd get from the shop sort of thing. Uh, and then if the water maker breaks and my handheld water maker breaks as well.

• 51:40Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  I've got emergency water to last me sort of, you know.

• 51:44Chris Williamson?

  Sufficient.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  However long it could.

• 51:45Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Um, and the idea with that would be if you drink any of the fresh water in the bottles, you can just replace it with seawater and mark the box so you don't drink it.

• 51:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  And that way you don't lose any ballast, but you're able to drink the emergency water.

• 51:56Chris Williamson?

  So that's hydration. What about food?

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Food comes in the form of freeze dried meals. Um, the sponsor that I've got, uh, Firepot. Um, it's a company called Outdoor Food that make that brand. Um, they basically cook their meals and then, uh, dehydrate them.

• 52:15Chris Williamson?

  Right, okay.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  So they're way healthier than some of the other ones out there on the market. So I won't obviously mention their names, but they're super sugary.

• 52:22Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Um.

• 52:23Chris Williamson?

  So you're actually having fully cooked meals that just have, have had the water taken out?

• 52:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then you just pour boiling water back in.

• 52:29Chris Williamson?

  Back in, back in pack foil bags or whatever it is.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Leave it for like fifteen minutes and that's rehydrated. And it's all like, uh, chili con carne and spag bol.

• 52:37Chris Williamson?

  Ultimate cup of soup.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, yeah. And they're like a thousand calories each meal and stuff like that.

• 52:42Chris Williamson?

  So how much are you gonna be eating every day?

• 52:44Speaker 01

  So I've got four of those every day, um, as well as a snack pack and the snack pack's got about three thousand calories in it.

• 52:51Chris Williamson?

  A snack pack with three thousand calories?

• 52:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's like.

• 52:53Chris Williamson?

  What's this, what's?

• 52:54Speaker 01

  I've got loads of uh, nut butter, some biltong, because apparently people say that you miss chewing. Because all the freeze dried food's like quite sloppy and soft.

• 53:02Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  So the biltong is just basically for chewing.

• 53:05Chris Williamson?

  Tough, yeah.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  And it's obviously like mega stacked with protein. Um, and then I've got sort of uh, energy gels that are fat based.

• 53:13Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Rather than sugary ones.

• 53:14Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  Um, and then battle out spars and flapjacks and stuff like that.

• 53:18Chris Williamson?

  Full work. So you're gonna be eating sort of moderately well, I suppose.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I'm gonna be hitting about seven thousand calories a day and then the argument is you burn about ten. So I'm in a three thousand calorie deficit every day.

• 53:29Chris Williamson?

  So that's about a pound a day of weight.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, yeah.

• 53:33Chris Williamson?

  You'd be losing. So what if we say it's around about a hundred days and a hundred days from January eighteenth?

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:40Chris Williamson?

  What's your weight gonna be?

• 53:41Speaker 01

  I think the, the, um, what do you call it? The vast majority of people that do it say they lose about a quarter of their body weight. So that's why I took the jump from eighty five to one twelve. I aimed at one fifteen, I think.

• 53:54Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Um, but I think I'm about one twelve with minutes on there and thereabouts.

• 53:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  Um, and then hopefully I'll lose all that um, by the time I get to the.

• 54:04Chris Williamson?

  If you come back in, you're at one twenty.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  I'll be really annoyed, Jeff. Super annoyed.

• 54:08Chris Williamson?

  Fuck, bollocks, I've got it. I've got to go on a fucking cut now.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah, got on the what bike and sit on that.

• 54:14Chris Williamson?

  You have got the time though. Yeah, I've already got the time. Um, so tell us about the Rock to Recovery then, because the, the, everything that we're doing here is based around a charity, right?

• 54:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so to get a bit candid, maybe a little bit sort of controversial, um, I generally, you know, a, a lot of other people. Um, wanna bring to the fore how much PTSD is ignored. Um, I think people that come back from Afghan and Iraq and all that sort of stuff with injuries, physical injuries are pretty well looked after now. Um, they don't get the, the best care that they could possibly wish for, but it's, it's pretty good. So if you lose a leg, for example, you're going to get prosthetic and it's going to be of a very good sort of standard. Um, but unfortunately, the same can't be said for mental health. Um, if you come back with a brain injury or with post traumatic stress or anything like

• 55:07Speaker 01

  that, you're just not well looked after at all. It isn't clear what avenues you should be going down to seek help. Um, it isn't clear what kind of signs and symptoms to look out for in people.

• 55:18Chris Williamson?

  Do you think, do you think that this is across US, UK?

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, like the suicide rate for sort of veterans is sky high. And a lot of it is because of, you know, post-trauma sort of incidents that they've experienced, or if they've, you know, been in high pressure situations for huge chunks of their lives, which Afghan and Iraq provided. Um, you basically leave the service and you don't have any, um, transitionary sort of support. You're just, you know, one day you're flying around jumping out helicopters and shooting people and stuff, and the next day you're in Waitrose getting annoyed at people.

• 55:54Chris Williamson?

  Not with the law.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, getting in your way when they're trying to buy tomatoes or whatever. So it's a really hard thing to come to terms with, especially with the fact that there's no help out there. Um, and Rock to Recovery is a charity that's sort of changing the face of that. So they're providing help for veterans and the families, um, who have to deal with PTSD and sort of brain trauma injuries and stuff like that. Um, and it's like a fast action charity as well. So if anyone, for example, if you had a friend or a relative or whoever that was in the forces that you worried about, you could call Rock to Recovery and they'd literally fly up to see that friend or relative and give them like immediate one-to-one support like there and then.

• 56:34Chris Williamson?

  Good Samaritan was put for, for really serious.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  And obviously it costs a fortune, so the raise money for a charity like that. Tranquilise the awareness of them as well is like really important.

• 56:47Chris Williamson?

  I mean, I I I think I've I've got a friend BT Rella who started Vet Sports in America, which is a wounded and PTSD.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:57Chris Williamson?

  Uh supporting sports leagues, so they play like baseball and a whole bunch of other stuff.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 57:01Chris Williamson?

  And he gave probably one of the most moving talks I've ever heard about a year and a half ago.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:05Chris Williamson?

  And he went through all of the different bits, all of the problems that his friends have had with PTSD. And he he said that he was one of the guys who'd come out physically injured quite badly. Um but given the choice between being physically injured and mentally injured, he was glad that he was able to. That he'd lost a leg, that was was his analogy that he'd used.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:26Chris Williamson?

  Um and I think it just sounds so alien, the concept of PTSD and obviously being in that high pressure situation. The level of adrenaline that they have experienced, that soldiers have experienced in one day of combat. Will be more than most people will experience in a lifetime.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  And like, not only that, even getting away from the trauma side of things, just looking at something as simple as transitioning from one career to another.

• 57:48Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  For most people, it's quite stressful, but for people like in the backgrounds that I've sort of encountered. You go from this sort of high level, like, you know, where the the level of octane and the adrenaline and all that sort of stuff that you're experiencing.

• 58:03Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  On a day to day basis, um it goes from like a hundred to zero.

• 58:07Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  And you're expected just to deal with that.

• 58:09Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Um and what you're used to and the people that, like people around you, their behaviour that you used to, that changes all of a sudden as well. So you can't rely on people to, you know, treat you the same way or anything like that. So you've got to, you've got to transition your heads and like the way you act and everything you've ever known. Completely change that without any support whatsoever. Yeah, at least. And like if you're joining the military, um and you're, you know, you're doing that role reversed. So you're going from a very sedentary lifestyle and all that sort of stuff and then joining the military. They take almost a year to train you up to a standard that they can then send you to war.

• 58:45Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  And then when you come back from war and you wanna go back into like city street.

• 58:49Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  You're just sent there. You don't get any transition.

• 58:52Chris Williamson?

  They dive you down but they don't reverse dive you back up.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  Exactly. So like, that has a massive effect on how people act, on their reactions to things, like how they process stuff in their heads. Um, and there needs to be help for that. There's like, at the moment, there's no prosthetics for the mind. But if people lose legs or lose arms or something, they can get those limbs replaced. They're obviously nowhere near as good as having your original leg or whatever. But this, like I said, there's no prosthetic for the mind. So the, the more help that people can provide by using these charities like Rock to Recovery and, you know, ones like it. It's, it's super important to get to a point where people aren't running out of options and they're arriving at the door of suicide. People are losing their families and love funds, sort of thing, so.

• 59:35Chris Williamson?

  So that's, the, the goal is to raise as much money as possible. Where are you up to?

• 59:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we've, I've raised about five grand for them so far. Um, the bulk of the money that's going to come from the, the row itself will be a while on my way. Um, I've experienced in the build up to the event itself that you're taken far more seriously when you sort of, you know, you tell people you're gonna do it. And then that sort of dies off a bit. Then you buy a boat and that like thing makes people think, geez, is he just actually gonna go through with it? So he bought a boat. Um, and then all the training and all that sort of stuff, yeah. Um, so I think as soon as I set off, then that'll be a big thing.

• 1:00:11Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Um, and then also one of the founders of the, the charity, uh, Foxy, um, he's on TV quite a bit with the SES programme. On Channel Four. Um, and then he's got another programme coming out about, uh, drug cartels and stuff like that in Venezuela. So he's.

• 1:00:27Chris Williamson?

  You're not gonna, you're not gonna meet him at, at one of them, are you, when you're over there?

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  No, yeah, yeah. Well, he gave me a load of, uh, heads up about what Venezuela's like at the moment, because it's basically a failed state.

• 1:00:36Chris Williamson?

  Pretty lawless, yeah.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so getting there is gonna be interesting.

• 1:00:39Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, you might just jump back in the boat and turn around, right? Give me some, give me some more food and I'm going back.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he's, he's basically gonna help sort of, um, you know, spread the message and all that sort of stuff. And

• 1:00:49Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  I think, like I said, when I'm actually out on the road, that's when the sort of, the money will come trickling in then.

• 1:00:55Chris Williamson?

  For sure.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  The BBC are gonna do an interview on the fifth of January. Um, and then one of the main sponsors is making a, a documentary. So

• 1:01:02Chris Williamson?

  No way.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  I think in terms of raising money, there's about sort of, the next six months is gonna be the big

• 1:01:08Chris Williamson?

  Big deal.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  The big, the big push, yeah.

• 1:01:09Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. So in terms of you've got Rock to Recovery on there, I know that you've got Myprotein as well. Who else have you got on there that this sort of?

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the two main sponsors are True Potential.

• 1:01:23Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  Um, they're an investment firm based in New Bern, so they're a north east based company.

• 1:01:27Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  Uh, and then the other one is Airfare, um, and they're basically a flight claim, flight delay compensation company.

• 1:01:33Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Um, both owned by friends of mine, uh, and they're both north east based sort of companies as well.

• 1:01:39Chris Williamson?

  So you're taking a good sort of local base.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's like, that's an important thing for me. I wanted to get sort of people in the local area involved in it. Um, there was a story in The Chronicle and all that sort of stuff. And then like I said before, BBC Look North are going to come do a feature on it, so.

• 1:01:53Chris Williamson?

  Have you found it difficult? Because you've said that you're a little bit averse to kind of putting yourself on a pedestal and, and uh, searching the accolade that's a little bit more extrinsic and stuff like that. Have you found it uncomfortable to have to be the Instagram story guy, the, the constant update guy? Cause obviously, as you've said, when you, when you publicize these milestones in the build up to it, and presumably throughout as well. When you do those, you're kind of battling against two things there. One of them is it'll raise more money for the charity and generally, no derity about the race is good, but on the flip side of that, you're maybe doing something that naturally you wouldn't have a preclusion to do.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, it's really, I, I did a blog post about it recently because it's sort of, you know, it's one of those things, I, I don't berate anybody that does it and that builds their profile and all that sort of stuff. Cause generally they're doing it for good reasons. Um, and I do understand that the more people I tell about the road, the more exposure the charity gets and the more money that we raise and all that sort of stuff. But also at the same time, I've chose to do the road solo for a reason. Like I like my own company, I like my own space and I like being able to do things without any sort of fuss and stuff like that.

• 1:03:04Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  And I also strongly feel that. In terms of like raising money before the row and telling people what's gonna happen before the row, to me, it's sort of, it's not important until I've completed the task. It's one thing to say you're gonna do it, but actions are remembered long afterwards, they're forgotten. So actually completing the challenge and coming back and having the story for me is way better than going around telling everyone you're gonna do it.

• 1:03:28Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  There's obviously seven years' worth of me preparing for Atlantic Row has seen me see, like, seven years' worth of other people preparing.

• 1:03:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  And the amount of people that put it off for a year or don't actually follow through with it or said all these big promises and failed.

• 1:03:45Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  It's crazy. So I don't wanna put myself in that position where I'm telling everyone I'm gonna smash it and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna be this guy and I'm gonna raise this much money and all that sort of stuff before it's actually done. Um, I think I'm in a better position to talk about it and raise the profile once I've actually achieved the milestone.

• 1:04:01Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  Um, than to talk about it before it happens.

• 1:04:04Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  But it's just, it's one of those things, it's the world we live in, it requires that sort of excitement and beat up and big hoopla that social media is now.

• 1:04:14Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  Um, and I hope I've done an alright job of it so far, but I could always obviously use like more shares and follows and all that sort of stuff.

• 1:04:23Chris Williamson?

  So while, while you're on the row, if people wanna keep up to date with what you're doing.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Chris Williamson?

  Is there going to be, have you got access to Twitter or have you got access to?

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  So I've got.

• 1:04:34Chris Williamson?

  How can people keep up?

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  There's a thing called a Yellow Brick Tracker, um, that people will be able to download the app for that and follow me on like a Google Maps sort of image, uh, like a Google Earth image. And there'll be a little like arrow, which will be me making like a really slow progress across the thing. Um, and then also I can Facebook and tweet using that device as well.

• 1:04:54Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  Um, I can send photos and stuff and perhaps the odd video.

• 1:04:58Chris Williamson?

  I was gonna say, cause the guy.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:00Chris Williamson?

  Who tumbled over, he had, would like, look like a GoPro sort of thing that was attached to the front.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, uh, there, there is a capability these days for that, that sort of stuff.

• 1:05:09Chris Williamson?

  Uh huh.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  Um, but it's just, it's very sketchy with satellite comms if anyone's ever had experience with that stuff. It's hard to get the videos up and out.

• 1:05:16Chris Williamson?

  Well, when you can't get. 3G in the middle of Newcastle City Sunday, yeah, trying to get a video up in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  Um, but it should be good. I think it's one of those things that you sort of, you start sending on Tuesday morning and it actually goes up on Friday afternoon.

• 1:05:27Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I go.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  It'll be like that. Um, but yeah, I mean, there'll, there'll be a blog every day and all that sort of stuff. And then Lauren's gonna control the social media stuff and do my updates and stuff like that for me, so.

• 1:05:38Chris Williamson?

  Well, you're gonna have to be careful, especially if you're rowing naked of just what footage just does end up going up.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Be interesting.

• 1:05:44Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, well, so, so if drawing everything to a close, where can, where can we find more information about the row over the next, the next few weeks? And then once, once everything's up and running, where can you all kick up to date the story?

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  If everybody goes and checks out Rock to Recovery UK on Facebook and Instagram, it's just at Rock to Recovery UK. Um, and it's a number two, not T O. So, uh, go look on that. Or if you go to any of the platforms and put in Atlantic Solo Stew, so Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Um, and there'll be links there towards the fundraising pages to hand Rock to Recovery. Um, and then basically, like I said, I'll, I'll release like a, a page that people can follow while I'm on the road. Yeah. Like a week before I leave. Um, so that'll have the tracking information and everything on there. Um, and yeah, so that'll be the, the best way to follow it.

• 1:06:36Chris Williamson?

  Fantastic, man. Well, thank you very much for coming on. I'll make sure that all of the links to everything that you've put in here to Rock to Recovery, to the links to follow yourself will be in the description. Um, good luck, man. That's all I can say.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  Thanks, buddy.

• 1:06:47Chris Williamson?

  We really appreciate it for having you.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:48Chris Williamson?

  Cheers, man. Thank you.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Cheers, man.

• 1:06:50Chris Williamson?

  Cheers.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Bye.