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00:00:00 [ Music ]
00:00:28 [ Music ]
00:00:48 [ Music ]
00:01:17 [ Music ]
00:01:20 >> It is miserable out here, absolutely miserable.
00:01:24 You're sweating so much.
00:01:26 Your two-hour shift feels like four.
00:01:29 The sun's just beating down.
00:01:30 So it's kind of quiet on the boat today.
00:01:32 Everyone's just kind of in their own heads, trying to get through their shifts.
00:01:36 [ Music ]
00:01:46 Why would anyone want to row across an ocean?
00:01:50 Or climb Mount Everest, for that matter?
00:01:53 Or run across a desert?
00:01:57 What type of person does this?
00:02:02 The effort chews you up and spits you out until you're essentially unrecognizable to yourself.
00:02:09 You sacrifice time with your family.
00:02:12 It punishes you.
00:02:13 It humbles you.
00:02:14 It breaks you.
00:02:17 So why would anybody do it, then?
00:02:22 For myself and for my teammates, it was because we were chasing something.
00:02:30 And we didn't know what it was until it was all over.
00:02:34 [ Music ]
00:02:55 Everyone has something they dream of achieving.
00:02:59 If you would ask me at seven years old what my dream was, it was to be a baseball player.
00:03:05 Just like any other seven-year-old's dream of being an astronaut, a ballerina, musician, teacher, a doctor.
00:03:15 What all of us are really saying, though, is that we want to be the best at something.
00:03:20 The older you get, the harder it is to pursue those dreams.
00:03:24 But they're still there.
00:03:28 So the question is, why do we give up on our dreams?
00:03:34 This is my story, but it can be anyone's story.
00:03:37 It's about what happens when you're faced with failure and what kind of person that makes you.
00:03:43 [ Music ]
00:03:54 The Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge.
00:03:59 World's toughest rowing race.
00:04:05 A 3,000-mile rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean.
00:04:14 The race attracts up to 30 teams from all over the world.
00:04:18 Teams of four, pairs, and solos.
00:04:23 It's a challenge that pits you against the elements 24/7.
00:04:30 It's unassisted.
00:04:35 You have to take all your own food for up to 90 days and use it to salinate it when making drinking water.
00:04:43 And there's no stopping.
00:04:46 Over 1.5 million strokes all day and all night.
00:04:54 Until you set foot on land.
00:05:02 When I first heard about it, I thought, this seems impossible.
00:05:05 I mean, I'm a rower.
00:05:07 But rowing 3,000 miles across an ocean seems just removed from reality.
00:05:12 You've got moms that are crossing this.
00:05:16 You've got people that have gone through war and that are missing limbs and that are doing this.
00:05:20 You see recovering drug addicts, people that had gone through failed marriages, people that have a void to fill.
00:05:28 And I don't think I was any different than that.
00:05:34 I think the Talisker Atlantic race is unlike anything he'd ever heard of.
00:05:39 When he first brought it to my attention that he had found this race, he was astounded.
00:05:43 He couldn't believe that people could actually do this.
00:05:45 So he almost became a bit obsessed with researching it and finding out how do people do this and the intricacies of it.
00:05:52 The more that he researched it, the more he kind of fell in love with the idea of I could do this.
00:05:56 And I think the idea of doing something that seemed impossible was very romantic to him.
00:06:02 I had no idea really what was in store.
00:06:06 When somebody says I'm going to row across the Atlantic Ocean, you know, I just didn't understand it.
00:06:13 Trust me, I had people that said, "You've got to be kidding me. What is he doing?"
00:06:18 There's two types of people entering this race.
00:06:20 The first type of person or team was a team just trying to represent their country or their charity and just complete the race,
00:06:27 just try to literally get to the finish line.
00:06:30 And the others were trying to win the race or potentially break a world record.
00:06:34 And I knew that I was going to be in the latter.
00:06:36 There's no way that I was going to dedicate 18 months of my life and do this and work as hard as that to simply just finish.
00:06:41 I wanted to win and potentially even break a world record.
00:06:45 And I allowed myself to once again dream like a 7-year-old.
00:06:59 Jason's dad and I separated, divorced when he was, Jason was 5 years old.
00:07:04 One week on with dad, one week on with mom.
00:07:08 When going to my dad, certainly it wasn't that it wasn't loving, but it was intense.
00:07:12 There was an intensity to it.
00:07:13 I remember having to almost pump myself up knowing that after school, like, that week was going to be a tougher week,
00:07:19 more filled with structure and discipline.
00:07:23 You can do it!
00:07:25 Yeah, yeah, you can do it!
00:07:27 Good job, Jason. Good job, buddy.
00:07:31 Baseball was the soundtrack of my childhood.
00:07:34 It seemed like everything that my dad and I did revolved around baseball to some extent or another.
00:07:40 I thought I loved baseball, but I loved my dad, and he loved baseball.
00:07:45 He was passionate about the sport. He loved the sport.
00:07:49 [indistinct chatter]
00:07:55 Well, when Jason decided he wanted to be a major league baseball player at 10 years old,
00:08:00 I took that just like you should take it from a 10-year-old, and that's that,
00:08:05 "Okay, let's see what we can do to get you on that path."
00:08:09 I come into the backyard, and there's this structure.
00:08:12 And maybe for a second I thought, "Oh, my dad made a fort or some kind of a play structure for me."
00:08:18 But it wasn't. It was a means to getting better.
00:08:22 Growing up, I played baseball as far as I could go, and I understood the art of hitting.
00:08:28 I set him up a net and a tee, and I said, "This is what you need to be doing on your off time.
00:08:34 Hit that bucket of balls. Don't hit 30. Don't hit 60. Hit all 62, and then fill it back up."
00:08:42 So when my friends were out playing, out on their bikes, having a good time,
00:08:45 I was in the backyard hitting balls off that tee.
00:08:51 And he didn't force me to do it, but if you didn't, then you weren't doing what it took.
00:08:56 You told me you wanted to be a professional baseball player.
00:08:59 Here's the bucket. You're not hitting them. I don't believe you.
00:09:08 When I went up to Sonoma, pitching was my best bet.
00:09:12 I'm left-handed. I can throw hard. I'm tall. I'm strong.
00:09:16 Sonoma State was very good.
00:09:19 They had asked him to go and play in the summer for the semi-pro team San Francisco Angels.
00:09:26 At that moment, that was my best shot.
00:09:31 There were times where I know he worked really hard and didn't do well.
00:09:35 He wasn't considered the top.
00:09:38 I, at times, was a little bit concerned that what if he doesn't make it?
00:09:44 And would that be such a terrible letdown to him? Or even his dad?
00:09:49 And so there was a part of me that was saying I didn't want the sport to define the person he was.
00:09:58 But on the 24th of July, 2004, everything changed.
00:10:04 In the third inning, one pitch, you just hear this pop.
00:10:09 People in the dugout could hear it.
00:10:12 And all of a sudden, I just, I can't throw.
00:10:17 He had done some damage to his elbow.
00:10:20 The tendon is completely ripped in half.
00:10:24 And that, that was a tough crossroad.
00:10:28 I remember being at the doctor's office and us asking the questions.
00:10:33 What happens if I do have the surgery? How long is the rehab?
00:10:38 Which would have been about a year.
00:10:40 Versus, if you don't have the surgery, you'll be fine.
00:10:44 It's just you won't be able to throw the ball 90 miles an hour like you are now.
00:10:49 They're throwing this information like it's nothing, but it's a lot to me.
00:10:52 And I'm overwhelmed.
00:10:55 I had a brace for six months my senior year of college.
00:10:58 That didn't sit right with me.
00:11:00 I'm thinking about it all night.
00:11:02 I was dreading making that call to my dad.
00:11:04 I called him, I said, "I am not going to get this surgery."
00:11:07 And his response was, "I don't think you're making the right decision.
00:11:11 And I think you need to think about it again."
00:11:14 And I said, "Okay. I mean, I can think about it again, but this is my decision."
00:11:19 He said, "No, you should think about it. Call me back in an hour."
00:11:21 And he did call me, and he said, "Dad, I'm not going to have the surgery.
00:11:25 I think I'm done."
00:11:27 Like this was my dad's dream and not mine,
00:11:32 and that made him so pissed that we didn't talk for months.
00:11:38 But once Jason made that decision, there was a sense of relief.
00:11:43 I didn't know what I was going to do next,
00:11:47 but I was okay with it not being baseball.
00:11:51 School starts again.
00:11:54 I'm drifting at this point.
00:11:56 I'm at the gym working out, but I don't know what I'm working out for.
00:12:00 The worst thing in the world for me as an athlete
00:12:03 is not having anything to compete for, to be a part of.
00:12:07 And this guy comes up to me.
00:12:11 As a coach, you're always on the lookout for the next great athlete.
00:12:15 Jason specifically, I could tell he had a really strong focus from the beginning.
00:12:20 He says, "You know, I'm the rowing coach here at Sonoma,
00:12:22 and I think you'd be pretty good at rowing."
00:12:25 He kind of plucked him out of a dark spot.
00:12:28 So the Sonoma State rowing program
00:12:30 was the newest program in the country at that point.
00:12:34 It was a complete shit show.
00:12:36 So first I show up, and it's not a boathouse.
00:12:39 It was a boat yard full of gravel and shipping containers.
00:12:43 I've been used to intense tryouts
00:12:45 where everybody who goes there is good, and they're eyeing the competition.
00:12:50 I was too good for these people. That's what I thought.
00:12:52 I'm too good for this.
00:12:54 While I think sports like baseball can be phenomenal team sports,
00:12:59 they don't have that deep connection as an individual player.
00:13:04 In rowing, you're all doing the same thing.
00:13:06 And if you're not together, you're lost before you've even begun.
00:13:11 Jason's a very big, intimidating person,
00:13:15 and he really wanted to win,
00:13:17 and he wanted everybody to work as hard as him.
00:13:20 It definitely rubs a certain type of person the wrong way,
00:13:24 and there was somebody on our team that told him,
00:13:27 "People are only pulling because they're scared of you."
00:13:31 Yeah, I was a hothead,
00:13:33 and I thought that that showed a level of passion,
00:13:35 but that's immaturity there.
00:13:38 I was shocked by how little I knew what it meant to be part of a team
00:13:42 until I got into rowing.
00:13:44 Rowing is so interdependent.
00:13:47 If you take one person out of the boat, the thing completely crumbles.
00:13:51 There is no rugged individualism,
00:13:54 and I started to fall in love with that team aspect.
00:13:58 Mike sat 8th seat, the stroke seat, I sat 7th.
00:14:01 I can tell you every single T-shirt he owns,
00:14:03 because I'd stare at the back of him.
00:14:05 I'd see after we were done with a piece
00:14:08 how he would almost collapse upon himself,
00:14:10 because he had given everything, and I loved that about him.
00:14:14 And I was scared to death of not doing the same thing.
00:14:18 You're more afraid of letting them down
00:14:21 than you were of the pain that you were going to go through at that practice,
00:14:24 and that is a strong human emotion.
00:14:28 And Jason is one of those people who won't let anybody down.
00:14:32 That nature in him really made him perfect for the sport of rowing.
00:14:37 I realized, no, I did not love baseball, because this is love.
00:14:43 One of the things that was so apparent about the sport of rowing
00:14:49 was that it was mine.
00:14:59 When Jason called me, he told me that he was trying to put a team together,
00:15:03 and I'd already semi-committed to another team.
00:15:06 And I knew that Jason had the right mind frame
00:15:10 to get a record or win the race,
00:15:13 and I wanted to be part of that.
00:15:16 Angus was my first pick.
00:15:19 He won the race last year, set the course record,
00:15:23 and he was the skipper of that team.
00:15:25 Ladies and gentlemen, 37 days, 9 hours and 12 minutes, new race record.
00:15:30 Go, Angus!
00:15:32 There's a lot of reasons to want Angus on your team, a lot of them.
00:15:37 Angus has got over 100 days of ocean rowing experience.
00:15:41 He's rowed the Indian Ocean as well as the Atlantic.
00:15:44 He's one of the most experienced ocean rowers alive today.
00:15:47 He builds boats for a living.
00:15:49 Angus is part of a family legacy of ocean rowers.
00:15:53 His uncle had actually broken the world record
00:15:56 as the fastest solo rower to row across the Atlantic Ocean.
00:16:00 His sister has also rowed across the Atlantic Ocean.
00:16:03 With her team, breaking the world record
00:16:06 as the fastest all-women's crew to ever row across the Atlantic Ocean.
00:16:10 I've known Jason for two years,
00:16:16 and sometimes you know if someone is someone you want to be on a boat with.
00:16:20 He's looking at me for the technical side
00:16:23 that I've been doing for quite a few years,
00:16:25 which is the weather routing and how to make the boat move fast
00:16:28 through certain wave conditions and with certain winds.
00:16:31 Last year, we were on track for the record
00:16:36 and we had a storm that turned into Hurricane Alex.
00:16:40 We then had a power anchor for three days
00:16:43 and we saw the record just being ripped away from us.
00:16:47 The weather stole three days away from me.
00:16:50 We missed the world record by only 32 hours.
00:16:54 We landed in Antigua and we celebrated
00:16:58 and I already knew that I wanted to go and do it again.
00:17:02 I just keep getting called back to go and row it again
00:17:05 and wait for that perfect crossing.
00:17:15 After Angus and I had decided that we were going to row together,
00:17:18 the next sentence that he gave me was,
00:17:20 "If I was putting this team together,
00:17:23 I would bring this guy on the boat, Alex Simpson."
00:17:26 I said, "Okay, who's he?"
00:17:27 He says, "He's a guy I rowed in the Indian Ocean with."
00:17:30 And I said, "All right, and what makes him so great?"
00:17:32 He's like, "He just shuts up and rows."
00:17:34 I rowed the Indian Ocean in 2013 with Angus and two other crew members.
00:17:41 We spent 71 days at sea from Australia to originally Mauritius.
00:17:45 Didn't go to plan, we ended up going to the Seychelles.
00:17:48 Equipment was breaking, we had no spare oars left.
00:17:51 Our batteries were failing, our water maker was failing by the end.
00:17:55 We rowed 4,300 miles, but I always wanted to cross again.
00:18:00 I always wanted to do it better, I always wanted to do it faster.
00:18:03 So I think I bring an element of calmness.
00:18:07 I'm a fairly laid-back person.
00:18:09 I'm not looking to be confrontational or argumentative on board.
00:18:13 Having said that, I'm rubbish at waking up.
00:18:16 I've struggled for the last six months,
00:18:18 to my girlfriend's annoyance, like getting out of bed and going to the gym.
00:18:22 I went through a pretty hell of a childhood.
00:18:32 So I was a really pissed-off kid, even as an 18-year-old.
00:18:37 It's probably the reason why I could pull so damn hard.
00:18:40 I just took all that aggression out physically on a rowing machine.
00:18:44 I viewed teammates as obstacles that you had to go out and crush.
00:18:49 And I just wanted to go to all these guys
00:18:52 that I thought had these privileged childhoods,
00:18:56 and I was going to show them that I was going to take their seat in the boat.
00:19:00 I found out really quickly, well, first of all, that I love the sport,
00:19:05 and second, that I want to take it to the highest level.
00:19:09 At that point, I started considering that at the end of the day,
00:19:13 you're in a boat with a couple other guys.
00:19:15 It's not just you in that boat,
00:19:17 and you're going to cross the line at the same time.
00:19:19 So if everyone hates each other,
00:19:21 the boat's probably not going to go that fast.
00:19:24 I ended up making the Varsity 8, the top boat at Yale,
00:19:28 and I rowed at Oxford.
00:19:31 I ended up winning the United States National Championship in the single.
00:19:36 I've broken maybe 6 or 7 American records on the rowing machine.
00:19:40 I went to the Olympic trials in 2016.
00:19:43 That had been my dream for 15 years,
00:19:46 and I didn't qualify.
00:19:51 And I spoke to Jason about a month after that,
00:19:56 and he said, hey, I've got something you might be interested in.
00:20:00 Have you ever thought about rowing across the Atlantic?
00:20:03 He didn't even have to finish his sentence, and I was like, that's it.
00:20:09 So I've got a little baby daughter.
00:20:11 We named her Olympia Faith
00:20:13 because we want her to go on and do amazing things,
00:20:16 Olympic-sized things.
00:20:18 Me doing this race, I just want to show her
00:20:21 that she can do anything that she wants to do,
00:20:24 and she can be a strong, powerful woman,
00:20:26 and she can look at me as an example.
00:20:30 Matt and I have a history.
00:20:32 We rowed together on the East Coast at Vesper Boat Club.
00:20:36 Vesper Boat Club is the best club in the United States.
00:20:45 They have more Olympic gold medals than any other club in the United States.
00:20:50 The history, the atmosphere just breathes success.
00:20:54 If you select a group,
00:20:56 you're not just looking at, you know, the best athletes.
00:21:00 You're also looking at character,
00:21:03 and what struck me with Jason was his dedication to the sport.
00:21:08 McKeel doesn't ask about how well I row,
00:21:12 but he asks about my background in baseball.
00:21:15 He asked what position I played, how long I had been playing for,
00:21:18 how hard I could throw, all these different things,
00:21:20 and Mark doesn't even know the answers to all this stuff.
00:21:22 He's my rowing coach, not my baseball coach.
00:21:24 Knowing his baseball background,
00:21:27 the detail, the coordination for pitching,
00:21:30 that made me decide, let's give this guy a chance.
00:21:34 McKeel offers me a tentative spot on the team,
00:21:39 and I knock on that door,
00:21:41 and the first guy to open up the door,
00:21:44 guy's 6'7",
00:21:46 and I'm thinking, "I'm out of my league."
00:21:50 I am the least experienced by far, by years,
00:21:56 the shortest, the lightest,
00:21:59 and come from the shittiest school.
00:22:01 For Jason to go from, you know,
00:22:04 our little boat club here in Sonoma to Vesper,
00:22:08 and not only to be successful there during the summer,
00:22:11 but to be invited back just is, speaks to who Jason is.
00:22:15 So for the next 3 years, I row at Vesper.
00:22:19 I live in the boathouse.
00:22:21 I've got this prison-like lifestyle,
00:22:23 practicing twice a day with a weight session in between,
00:22:27 and my greatest contribution to this team
00:22:31 could be the guy that you could rely on,
00:22:33 the guy that would pick you up from the bar
00:22:35 if you were drinking that night
00:22:36 and you shouldn't have been out in the first place,
00:22:38 the guy that would do extra reps with you in the weight room
00:22:40 if you needed it, go out in a boat,
00:22:42 take some extra strokes if that's what you needed.
00:22:44 I was that guy, and it worked.
00:22:47 You go from the worst rower there
00:22:49 that probably has no business being there
00:22:51 to barely making the second boat,
00:22:54 to being one of the fastest rowers in the second boat,
00:22:57 to being in the first boat.
00:23:00 And you could just feel the legacy
00:23:02 that we had all created together over the last 2 years.
00:23:06 To Jason's credit, working so diligently, you know,
00:23:10 here at Vesper to work his way into the first boat,
00:23:14 to make such an impact on such a short time,
00:23:18 quite exceptional.
00:23:20 But he started maybe then a little bit too late
00:23:24 to make it to the national team.
00:23:27 The goal, the end goal, was to make it to the Olympics.
00:23:30 Some of us did, and some of us didn't.
00:23:33 I was one of them that wasn't able to quite make it.
00:23:37 At the end of 3 years, I had a decision to make--
00:23:40 do another 4 years for the next round of Olympics,
00:23:44 or retire and go home and start a career.
00:23:48 And that's what I decided to do.
00:23:51 So all 4 of us had something in common.
00:24:01 We had fallen short in some place,
00:24:05 and we were desperate to change that.
00:24:10 [music]
00:24:13 Training for a crossing of this proportion
00:24:17 isn't just your average marathon-type training.
00:24:20 It takes the average team approximately 2 years
00:24:23 to properly prepare for this endeavor.
00:24:26 Training not just physically,
00:24:28 but doing emotional and mental training as well,
00:24:30 sleep deprivation training.
00:24:32 You're going to average 4 hours of sleep for every 24 hours.
00:24:36 That's going to wear on you by day 3, let alone day 30.
00:24:39 How to train with less calories.
00:24:42 You're going to be so seasick the first 3 to 7 days of this thing
00:24:45 that you'll be lucky if you get 1,000 calories in without puking them out.
00:24:49 In which case, you've got to learn to be able to still get on those oars,
00:24:52 having a major calorie deficit.
00:24:55 Dehydration training.
00:24:57 Maybe you're only getting 3 liters per person of water a day.
00:25:00 That means you've got to go ahead and row 12 hours a day
00:25:03 on 3 liters of water.
00:25:05 You've got to take classes such as how to navigate at sea,
00:25:08 how to navigate at night.
00:25:10 You have to train to live on the boat,
00:25:12 and sometimes the not-rowing hours are tougher than the rowing hours.
00:25:17 Hey, yo.
00:25:23 Hey, man. How you doing? You all good?
00:25:25 Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. Good.
00:25:27 How you feeling about the row? You mentally ready?
00:25:30 Yeah, I'm definitely there.
00:25:32 I'm ready to go. I'm crawling on my skin.
00:25:34 You know, got the holidays coming up. Thanksgiving, as you know.
00:25:37 But I'm kind of, like, checked out already.
00:25:39 So I know Amelia's getting a little nervous.
00:25:42 What about you, man? How you feeling?
00:25:43 Yeah, good. Yeah, been feeling really good.
00:25:45 And then, yeah, starting to feel a little bit nervous now.
00:25:49 Kind of all the memories are coming back of that first--
00:25:52 kind of, you know, what we're going to have to go through
00:25:54 that first 10 days of just hell.
00:25:56 You have a lot more to lose in terms of what you did last year was so special.
00:26:01 Yeah. There's-- obviously, I didn't get a really good crossing,
00:26:04 not just the result last time, but also, like, the three really close mates.
00:26:09 So for them, they kind of look at me and think,
00:26:12 "Why are you doing it? There's no reason."
00:26:15 For me, yeah, there's a lot to lose, but there's also just a lot to gain.
00:26:19 So you've got to take those risks,
00:26:21 and I think we've done everything we can to put together a pretty perfect team.
00:26:26 We're co-leading this, you know. There is no skipper on this team.
00:26:29 So I'm looking forward to, you know, just making decisions together.
00:26:34 Yeah. We've got the engines in the front.
00:26:37 Alex and Matt, we can just keep feeding them and tell them what to do.
00:26:41 Hopefully, I won't have to do any rowing.
00:26:43 Just keep throwing food at them.
00:26:45 [laughs]
00:26:47 [birds chirping]
00:26:50 [music]
00:26:54 [music]
00:27:20 To properly prepare for this race,
00:27:22 it's going to cost you more than it would if you were trying to summit Mount Everest.
00:27:26 The first big thing that you've got to purchase is a boat.
00:27:30 You need corporate sponsorship for that.
00:27:32 Once you've got the boat, you've got to fill it with the things
00:27:35 that are going to be necessary to keep you alive
00:27:37 as you cross 3,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean.
00:27:40 You've got a life raft.
00:27:42 Then you've got a water desalinator.
00:27:44 This thing weighs a ton.
00:27:46 You've got all the food. That's 5,000 calories per person per day.
00:27:50 The race requires you to pack a minimum of 60 days' worth of food.
00:27:55 You've got your radios, your sat phones, your navigation, your chart plotters,
00:28:00 tools for fixing all of these things.
00:28:02 If it can't be fixed, you're going to have to learn to live without it,
00:28:05 which means you've got to bring other things, like a hand pump.
00:28:07 So if your watermaker breaks on you,
00:28:09 you're going to literally be pumping salt water by hand the rest of the crossing.
00:28:14 Then you've got your personal stuff.
00:28:16 Sleeping bags to keep you warm when you're sleeping at night.
00:28:18 A few extra layers of clothes.
00:28:20 Foul weather gear. Spare shorts. Hats. Sunscreen.
00:28:25 Then you've got something called a ditch bag.
00:28:27 This is a bag that if all goes wrong, you're going to take this along with you
00:28:30 in your lifeboat, and this is going to be everything that you need.
00:28:33 Your passports. Money.
00:28:35 I even started to mention things that are already mounted on the boat.
00:28:37 Solar panels. Rudders.
00:28:39 These are all things that are going into this small boat,
00:28:41 and that means that if you want to take less food
00:28:44 so that you have more room for other things, you're taking a chance there.
00:28:47 Once you've got your boat, you start to focus on some of the competition.
00:28:53 It's a good competition out there.
00:28:55 The Row for James guys are really strong.
00:28:57 They've been using their boat well.
00:28:58 They've been training with the right guys.
00:29:00 I'm really looking forward to that competition.
00:29:03 I think Row for James are definitely competitors,
00:29:07 and a couple of the guys are bigger than I am.
00:29:10 We've done everything we can to prepare mentally and physically,
00:29:13 preparing our boat now behind us.
00:29:15 I think the biggest anxiety you have with ocean rowing is the unknown.
00:29:19 I would be lying if I said that there wasn't fear
00:29:22 in thinking about the 30 days because of the discomfort, the pain.
00:29:26 For the last year, I've been obsessed with putting together the right guys,
00:29:30 prepping the boat in the right way, training the right way.
00:29:33 And then all of a sudden, here we were.
00:29:38 The morning of the race.
00:29:40 Hi, Olympia.
00:29:45 Where is Daddy rowing a boat?
00:29:48 On the ocean.
00:29:50 On the ocean. That's right.
00:29:53 Daddy's on the ocean?
00:29:56 On the boat.
00:29:58 On the boat.
00:30:00 You want to show Daddy the picture?
00:30:02 Yeah.
00:30:03 You go get it? Okay, she's going to go get a picture with Santa.
00:30:06 She was so excited, she kept saying, "Going to see Santa!"
00:30:09 And when we got there, she was like silent,
00:30:12 and she wouldn't even sit on his lap.
00:30:14 Oh, that's cute.
00:30:16 So I wish you all a safe crossing.
00:30:22 Be careful out there.
00:30:24 And see you in Antigua.
00:30:26 Thank you.
00:30:28 [Music]
00:30:32 [Music]
00:30:36 [Music]
00:30:39 [Music]
00:30:44 [Music]
00:30:50 [Music]
00:30:57 [Music]
00:31:05 [Music]
00:31:08 Oh, all right.
00:31:20 Coming into the afternoon of our first row, first day.
00:31:24 I already see dolphins.
00:31:26 That's a good sign.
00:31:28 From the very first stroke, I was motivated and excited.
00:31:33 So we rode three up for really half a day.
00:31:36 We had two hours on, 40 minutes off.
00:31:38 We're currently in the most southern boat.
00:31:41 Hello.
00:31:42 Matt.
00:31:43 Jason.
00:31:44 And we all have this vivid memory of Matt coming off the oars,
00:31:48 dripping in sweat.
00:31:50 The very first stroke, I'm treating it like it's a 2,000 meter race.
00:31:54 I'm like chugging water and just sweating like crazy.
00:31:59 He's just drenched, and he gets out of the wet food,
00:32:02 and he's just eating an all-day breakfast.
00:32:04 He goes, "Got to stay hydrated.
00:32:06 Got to keep the body going."
00:32:08 Just coming up on 24 hours since the race start.
00:32:13 I think it's fair to say that the adrenaline of the start has worn off,
00:32:18 and now we're trying to slowly settle into the reality of a month plus at sea.
00:32:23 Something started to change, and I started feeling a little bit queasy.
00:32:30 People are starting to feel ill, tired, and having trouble
00:32:37 holding anything down or even having an appetite.
00:32:40 But that's all to be expected.
00:32:42 Nobody's complaining, and people are just powering through it.
00:32:46 I started to throw up.
00:32:49 There were obvious reservations that Matt hadn't spent a lot of time at sea.
00:32:56 On paper, we knew that he was able to pull the oars stronger than us.
00:33:00 To Jay, that meant a lot, but in my eyes, that screams disaster.
00:33:06 He was trying to eat, trying to hydrate himself.
00:33:09 Nothing was happening, and that's normal.
00:33:12 I thought, "That's fine. Give him two to three days."
00:33:15 I was on this team to be the guy who's the strong rower,
00:33:22 and that was my strength on the team.
00:33:24 And I wasn't doing that.
00:33:26 He was losing a lot of weight.
00:33:30 I was rowing in front of him.
00:33:32 I noticed the power disappearing behind me.
00:33:34 Angus would spend Matt's first hour on a shift with him,
00:33:38 and then I'd come in and spend the second hour.
00:33:41 So as we'd pass each other, he'd say, "Hey, he's barely pulling at all."
00:33:46 It got worse and worse and worse.
00:33:52 Alex was right outside the cabin door,
00:33:55 and I would throw the door open and hopefully make it to the edge of the boat,
00:34:01 just puking up everything that was in my stomach.
00:34:04 I went through probably four or five days just thinking,
00:34:07 "This is now time-wasting."
00:34:09 And it coincided with a time where Rowe for James were equal to us,
00:34:14 ahead of us, then behind us, and every stroke, every day, every mile mattered.
00:34:18 And then we had Matt not performing to his 100%,
00:34:22 and that was really, really painful.
00:34:24 I know probably more than anyone that you need to have everything at 100% to get that record.
00:34:29 I think Jay must have massively been having flashbacks,
00:34:33 and you could see he was getting nervous about it.
00:34:35 And there was a lot of me thinking, "Have you not learned a thing from last year?"
00:34:41 Let me pause right there.
00:34:46 This is not the first time that I was attempting this race.
00:34:49 In fact, I had attempted this Rowe a year ago in 2015.
00:34:53 So just a week after we got married, we went to Costa Rica,
00:34:56 and I flew home, and he flew to the Canaries to get ready for the race.
00:35:01 It didn't really hit me until the day that he was leaving
00:35:04 that I won't see you for a month and a half, maybe more.
00:35:08 Look, I knew it was going to be hard on Amelia,
00:35:12 but in my mind, it was worth it.
00:35:14 I was going to redefine the sport of ocean rowing.
00:35:17 There's two ends of this spectrum for this race.
00:35:21 You've got, on one end, the salty sailors that can take storms,
00:35:26 that know how to read storms, that can overcorrect, that can take harsh conditions,
00:35:29 and that is certainly a lot to be said there.
00:35:32 And then on the other end of the spectrum is pretty much our team.
00:35:35 We've created a new spectrum, I think, which is this elite athlete
00:35:38 that comes from the traditional rowing background.
00:35:42 It doesn't matter that they haven't been on the ocean.
00:35:44 It matters that they understand what pain is all about,
00:35:47 and they know how to fight through that.
00:35:49 I'll start off with Tom Nagaroff.
00:35:51 Tom and I have worked together for the last three years.
00:35:55 Since then, him and I have become very, very close.
00:35:59 He was one of my groomsmen at my wedding.
00:36:01 Next guy, Nick Kahn.
00:36:04 Six-foot-four, huge guy, great rower, an elite athlete to say the least.
00:36:09 Greg Wood, fourth and final guy.
00:36:11 He's got a lot of boat knowledge.
00:36:13 I had selected people that on paper were perfect for this.
00:36:18 They were essentially like hired guns.
00:36:20 I mean, Jason thought for sure they were going to win.
00:36:23 I was surprised at how confident he was.
00:36:26 The only team we were really worried about was Angus' team.
00:36:30 These four guys were old childhood friends that had grew up together in boarding school,
00:36:35 and this race was literally a reunion for them,
00:36:38 which is why they called themselves Ocean Reunion.
00:36:41 So we've been training for two years now,
00:36:44 and we've had to sacrifice a lot.
00:36:46 Some of us have lost jobs, lost girlfriends.
00:36:49 So if you're going to sacrifice all of that, you may as well try and win the race.
00:36:52 But it's not up to us at the end of the day.
00:36:55 Even though they were loud and obnoxious,
00:36:59 showing up late to mandatory meetings,
00:37:01 seeming like they were half drunk when they were there,
00:37:03 it was also so apparent how much they loved and respected one another.
00:37:08 They had come with the ambition of breaking the world record
00:37:12 for the fastest four-man crossing, as had we.
00:37:15 Yeah, you too. He's helping us.
00:37:22 In the ocean rowing world, there's a big thing like the four-minute mile.
00:37:27 It's the 30-day crossing,
00:37:29 and it is only possible if the weather is absolutely perfect
00:37:32 and the team is perfect and the boat is immaculate.
00:37:35 But I try not to think about it because I'm going to jinx it.
00:37:38 So our goal is, and how it's always been,
00:37:43 to row these 3,000 miles in 30 days.
00:37:47 There is some arrogance in that.
00:37:49 There has to be a little bit of arrogance.
00:37:51 You're crossing a fucking ocean, for Christ's sake.
00:37:53 Jason, I thought he was very naive to the ocean,
00:37:58 very good at talking about rowing hard,
00:38:01 not knowing what that meant.
00:38:02 A lot of people think, "Oh, I've rowed at Henley Regatta,
00:38:05 "I've rowed for my university, therefore I'm good for rowing an ocean."
00:38:09 And the fact of the matter is, when you're rowing out in the Atlantic,
00:38:12 you're rocking all over the place.
00:38:15 It's nothing like river rowing.
00:38:17 There are so many other prerequisites
00:38:19 that are more important than rowing itself.
00:38:27 You have to think that you're a little bit special in order to do that.
00:38:31 If you don't, you're in trouble.
00:38:33 And I could be wrong.
00:38:35 Talk to me after this race, and if we finish in 50 days,
00:38:38 then everyone can say, "I told you so."
00:38:41 Within 24 hours of starting this race,
00:38:49 Nick started getting sick.
00:38:55 He started throwing up as he was rowing.
00:38:58 One of the toughest things I saw him do,
00:39:01 throw up, row, throw up, row.
00:39:04 And it didn't take more than a half a day of us being out in those swells
00:39:09 for him to start taking a turn for the worse.
00:39:11 As the days went on, I tried eating, I tried drinking water,
00:39:16 nothing was staying down.
00:39:18 And then finally, it got to a point where he couldn't even move.
00:39:23 And then he never left the cabin.
00:39:25 And that was the beginning of the end.
00:39:28 By day six, he was so dehydrated, malnourished, and seasick
00:39:33 that he was starting to shake and talk out of his mind,
00:39:37 even saying he was going to jump out of the water and swim home.
00:39:40 And so I made the call to the duty officers
00:39:43 who knew that this was now a life-threatening situation,
00:39:46 that he needed to be taken off board and given an IV.
00:39:50 You guys are going to come out, you're going to send a boat out.
00:39:53 Two days plus, you think.
00:39:55 They're going to leave today.
00:39:57 We anchored, which we weren't expecting to do.
00:39:59 We did not know that we were going to have to anchor, but it makes sense, right?
00:40:02 Stay where you are so that the sailboat doesn't have to chase you down.
00:40:05 The first thought that rolled through my mind was,
00:40:09 "Shit, we're not going to win this race."
00:40:11 The thought of anchoring for days while teams were going ahead of us
00:40:16 was, you know, was soul-crushing to me.
00:40:19 We always knew that latitudes were going to be a big threat,
00:40:22 and then we realized latitudes just basically weren't really moving.
00:40:25 Compared to the other four-man boats,
00:40:27 we thought something bad must have happened.
00:40:29 We knew Nick was going.
00:40:33 I was very surprised by the fact that Greg came up to me and said,
00:40:37 "Jason, I think I'm going to go with Nick."
00:40:40 Now, remember, Nick needs to get off the boat.
00:40:42 This is life-threatening for him. This was not his choice.
00:40:44 But Greg's healthy.
00:40:46 Before we even left, we were talking about the team
00:40:50 and how we were acting or how we had meshed,
00:40:53 and Nick and I were like, "Yeah, we're on the team,
00:40:56 but we're not as tight as Tom and Jay ever were."
00:41:00 And there's a little crack, like you know that something's not as tight
00:41:03 as it could be or probably should be
00:41:05 when you're going to go on an outrageously difficult journey.
00:41:08 Jason didn't want to acknowledge that the team he put together
00:41:13 wasn't going to work.
00:41:16 The record was slipping away very quickly.
00:41:19 This is Louder 235 American Spirit. Go ahead. Over.
00:41:30 We are within three miles, so you shall be having eye contact with us.
00:41:37 The minute you do, please call and let us know.
00:41:40 Because for us, it's quite difficult to see you.
00:41:43 We heard all that and roger that.
00:41:46 The driver of that boat, she came into us with high winds.
00:41:56 Getting our boats attached was a trick, because they threw the line out.
00:42:02 It went under our boat, it got wrapped around our rudder.
00:42:05 To have it under our boat and on our rudder could flip on the boat.
00:42:10 Eventually we got it attached to the cleat and we were good.
00:42:14 Now the problem is, they would get too close.
00:42:18 A wave would bring them into us.
00:42:20 Watch out, watch out, watch out!
00:42:22 And if their boat hits our boat, we were going to be devastated.
00:42:26 Greg got off fairly easily because he was stronger.
00:42:32 Our boat kept getting tugged every four minutes, which would throw us back and off our balance.
00:42:39 At this point we're trying to deal with a sick person who can barely stand up.
00:42:43 He was in the cabin, scared, moaning, crying.
00:42:49 And this is one of the times I was trying to get him to get up.
00:42:53 I was trying to get him to get up.
00:42:55 He was in the cabin, scared, moaning, crying.
00:43:00 And this is one of the toughest men I've ever met.
00:43:03 I've got the life preserver, he's holding it, he's got it, he's attached.
00:43:07 I'm about to drop him in.
00:43:09 Are you ready? Yes.
00:43:10 We drop him in, the first thing that happens is that he loses it.
00:43:14 He loses the line.
00:43:16 He then proceeds to go underneath our boat.
00:43:23 He's gone.
00:43:25 I think that's the only time in my life when I've actually been scared.
00:43:36 You're one person just in the ocean, floating there on your own,
00:43:46 and hoping that one of these two tiny little boats is going to be able to save you.
00:43:52 His foot gets tangled underwater on the line that attaches our boat to theirs
00:44:02 and is now wrapped around his foot and it's pulling tight.
00:44:05 And he is screaming, "My foot's going to break."
00:44:08 Tom, on a great moment of clarity, takes a knife and cuts us away.
00:44:15 I've got it.
00:44:17 Ah, it's gone, it's gone.
00:44:19 Okay.
00:44:22 No, no, no, Maria, it's off, it's loose.
00:44:26 No, no, no, be careful.
00:44:29 It's so easy.
00:44:31 I've got it.
00:44:33 No, Maria, no, no.
00:44:41 Oh, God.
00:44:44 Stop it, stop it, you loser.
00:44:46 Maria, please help.
00:44:49 Yeah.
00:44:50 Grab it, grab it, grab it.
00:44:54 [screaming]
00:44:56 [music]
00:45:24 I'd seen the worst-case scenario with Nick in 2015.
00:45:28 I wasn't about to make that same mistake with Matt.
00:45:31 There was finally this point where, almost to the end of a shift,
00:45:39 I had 35 minutes left, and I said to Jay,
00:45:43 "Buddy, I don't know if I can do this for the next shift."
00:45:52 We knew Matt was really suffering.
00:45:54 We had to pull together to help him anyway.
00:45:58 Matt was pretty sick the last couple of days.
00:46:03 Rowing, throwing up over the side of the boat,
00:46:06 and then just kept on rowing.
00:46:08 Last night was pretty bad, so Angus and I split his shifts
00:46:11 to give him some time to eat and then fall asleep,
00:46:14 drink and fall asleep.
00:46:16 And I took that two-hour rest session.
00:46:20 Jay came and knocked on the cabin door after a couple hours,
00:46:24 and he's like, "How you doing? Drink some water."
00:46:27 He's being very kind of nurturing.
00:46:29 He didn't even ask if I was ready to come out.
00:46:32 He knew that I needed some more time.
00:46:35 You know, six hours is better than two hours sleep.
00:46:38 And by the end of that session, I had had even a little bit of water,
00:46:43 and I was holding it down.
00:46:45 I had just a bite of a granola bar, and I held that down.
00:46:50 And I was like, "I think I'm going to make it through this."
00:46:54 Here's the old Matt.
00:46:58 He's back. He's getting stronger, and we can feel him pulling now.
00:47:02 We went south.
00:47:09 History has shown that the better winds are in the south,
00:47:12 and we were going to try to catch those.
00:47:14 James decided to go almost due west and take essentially a straight line.
00:47:18 Within a couple days, we were realizing that they were catching much faster wind and waves
00:47:24 in much fairer conditions than we were.
00:47:26 Angus came onto the team as like the guy who knows routing,
00:47:33 and he's got this perfect routing strategy.
00:47:36 And you could sort of see Angus doubting himself a little bit.
00:47:42 I didn't really let on to Jason and Matt, but I think Alex knew as well
00:47:46 because of sailing experience, that we were in a disadvantaged position.
00:47:50 And it was really hard to admit that we weren't in as strong a position as them.
00:47:57 We actually rode more miles than them every shift.
00:48:06 And so we knew that we were a faster boat than them.
00:48:09 We knew we could out-row them.
00:48:11 We didn't have a big, aggressive move to come up to them.
00:48:16 And then we brought the fight to them.
00:48:18 This is not a powerboat. This is not a sailboat.
00:48:24 This is a self-propelled boat with oars.
00:48:28 So if you are changing direction and going against either the winds or the waves,
00:48:33 you're going to slow yourself down.
00:48:35 So in order to get there, we're going to have to slow down and be wet and miserable
00:48:40 in an effort to just get to them.
00:48:42 It's really one of the hottest bits to the right.
00:48:46 I feel like I still have a crick in my neck because the waves hit you, hit you,
00:48:54 and you're just kind of trying to manage the wave that is the next wave that's coming over to hit you.
00:48:59 And I was constantly looking left, I think, for three straight days.
00:49:07 All night long, all we did was get soaking wet and row hard.
00:49:11 It took a toll on us today.
00:49:13 We're going to do it again tonight.
00:49:16 We'd worked really hard to go and catch Rokujeme.
00:49:19 And when we finally got to them, we were able to straighten up a little bit.
00:49:23 We passed them, barely.
00:49:26 And then they passed us again.
00:49:30 We were 900 miles in, and we were separated by five miles.
00:49:36 For us to be looking around and wondering if that white cab was a boat,
00:49:39 is that them right there? It's incredible.
00:49:42 And so every four hours, we required Tom, our land manager,
00:49:46 to send a text updating us with our speed, our bearing,
00:49:51 our distance away from Rokujeme, whether behind or ahead.
00:49:54 It became a very technical row at that point.
00:49:57 It was make decisions all the time, check the bearing, keep an eye on the speed.
00:50:03 3.1, 3.0, 3.3, and we were sitting at 2.7, 2.8,
00:50:08 which meant that they were gaining half a mile to a mile on us every update.
00:50:12 Today is Christmas Day here on the high seas.
00:50:21 This one today is my Christmas card.
00:50:25 It's from Olympia.
00:50:27 That's sweet. She put all these stickers on it.
00:50:32 Hey, how's it going?
00:50:34 We're good. Merry Christmas, you two.
00:50:40 Hey, Mum. Thank you for the Christmas presents.
00:50:44 Merry Christmas. We're celebrating here on American Spirit.
00:50:48 It's the evening. Ho, ho, ho. We've got our Christmas hats on.
00:50:51 We've got the stockings down here. Matt's in his pride and glory.
00:50:56 There he is. Christmas Day.
00:50:58 Thank you, Mum. Merry Christmas.
00:51:00 Justin's getting into suit.
00:51:03 Angus is there rowing still.
00:51:06 No rest for the wicked on Christmas.
00:51:09 Doesn't feel like Christmas at all.
00:51:13 We're actually flat calm water and rowing free up.
00:51:17 After everyone's shift, we're doing an extra 30 minutes
00:51:20 because we are two miles behind Rupert James.
00:51:29 There's nothing about the ocean that says that human beings
00:51:32 should be living or thriving there.
00:51:35 Everything is slowly killing you. You're exposed to way too much heat.
00:51:39 You are burning more calories than you're able to put in your body.
00:51:43 The salt is all over your body and it's creating soreness.
00:51:46 It's creating infection.
00:51:48 So even when you come off shift and you've been soaked by waves,
00:51:52 you dry yourself off, you've still got salt crystals on your body
00:51:55 and you feel like you're just being pickled in the cabin
00:51:58 and you feel itchy and almost like you've jumped into a bed of stinging nettles.
00:52:02 And you're pickling there and then you come back out on shift
00:52:05 and it's almost relieving when you first get hit by a wave
00:52:08 because you feel like you've washed it off.
00:52:10 And then it dries on you again and you carry on being pickled.
00:52:13 Basically, wherever you're moving, when that salt gets in there,
00:52:17 it is just rubbing and wearing down your skin and creating sores.
00:52:21 This is what we're looking at here. Look at this.
00:52:25 Oh!
00:52:27 Oh, yes, that's one of them.
00:52:32 Actually, you know, they're getting better.
00:52:35 After a while, you've just sat on this thing for so long
00:52:38 that it's compressed and gotten smaller
00:52:42 in all the places that it was supposed to take the pressure off.
00:52:46 So I'm making a new one.
00:52:49 Ligament damage to the hand, so it's a good one.
00:52:52 You'll see that if I let go of the oars, my hands stay like this.
00:52:56 You can straighten them out, but they'll always just go back.
00:52:59 You try and stretch them out, but really, there's not much you can do.
00:53:06 Apart from that, it's all pretty easy.
00:53:10 It's 5 in the morning.
00:53:13 Just got in the cabin and I met a very nice of him.
00:53:19 Hello. Did a fucking massive fart.
00:53:22 Hello, Mummy, you all right?
00:53:24 As I walked in. That's why I'm going to fart all evening in here.
00:53:27 I'm going to close it now.
00:53:29 I'll just fart away.
00:53:31 When you've got rashes all over your body and your arses
00:53:38 and so much pain and your legs, you're getting more and more bruises,
00:53:42 those cuts are getting deeper, it is a big mind game with yourself.
00:53:48 How can you make sure that your mind doesn't give up?
00:53:55 I don't know.
00:54:01 After Nick was evacuated back in 2015, Tom and I slogged it out
00:54:11 for a gruelling 41 more days to get to the finish line.
00:54:16 (wind blowing)
00:54:18 On the last day, as Tom and I are rowing in, the sun's up,
00:54:25 we're just miles away, we can already see land,
00:54:28 and Tom is giddy. He's giddy with excitement.
00:54:33 He sounds like a crazed man. He's laughing at everything,
00:54:36 he's joking, he's singing, and he's happy.
00:54:44 I'm not as happy or as giddy or as excited as he is,
00:54:47 and I don't know why that is. I almost feel ashamed.
00:54:50 I found myself kind of like acting a little bit.
00:54:53 (cheering)
00:54:55 I'm looking at Jason, and he doesn't look like any human that I've ever seen.
00:55:13 I mean, he just looks so emaciated, completely weathered,
00:55:17 and just fragile.
00:55:20 He lost 40 pounds. Everything was just aching, sore,
00:55:24 pretty much falling apart. His body seemed defeated.
00:55:28 And in my mind, I'm thinking, yeah, this is probably one and done.
00:55:33 This seemed awful.
00:55:35 (indistinct chatter)
00:55:38 (indistinct chatter)
00:55:40 I was just so overconfident at the beginning of that race,
00:55:50 and we had got our asses handed to us.
00:55:53 And now all of a sudden, that confidence was just replaced
00:55:57 with doubt and despair.
00:56:00 I couldn't shake this feeling of failure.
00:56:06 Maybe I am a guy who's not good enough.
00:56:10 A guy that finishes in second or 11th.
00:56:13 A guy who dreams big but can't quite finish.
00:56:17 So what does that do to a person?
00:56:22 Do you just give up?
00:56:26 Do you go back to your comfortable life?
00:56:33 Or try again?
00:56:36 I knew that I needed to do it again.
00:56:42 Why? Why do you want to do this again?
00:56:46 I mean, I know you didn't win.
00:56:48 I didn't know when so many things went wrong.
00:56:50 But why do you want to do this again?
00:56:53 It affects me, too. Like, he's not here for Christmas.
00:56:57 You get a sat phone call maybe once a week,
00:57:00 maybe it's twice. You're lucky if it's three minutes
00:57:03 and you can actually hear what he's saying on the other end.
00:57:06 You know, you're praying to God that he's really doing as well
00:57:09 as he says he is, but it's just a lot of emotional strain.
00:57:13 And especially if it's not going well.
00:57:15 It's really difficult on both people.
00:57:18 Is there ever going to be enough?
00:57:21 What's going to be the endgame?
00:57:23 You know, what if you don't win this year?
00:57:25 It's a huge question mark.
00:57:27 It could be another awful year of weather.
00:57:30 Something else could happen. Someone else could be sick.
00:57:33 And then what if you don't win again?
00:57:35 Or break the record? Or even come in second or third?
00:57:39 Then what? Then are we doing it again?
00:57:42 You say it's the last time.
00:57:46 You lie.
00:57:52 And you tell the person that you love more than anyone in the world
00:57:56 that no matter what happens after this one,
00:58:00 I'll be happy with whatever result.
00:58:03 But she and I both knew that that wasn't true.
00:58:06 I'd felt like I had a life full of second-place medals.
00:58:13 We've got this baseball thing that didn't work out.
00:58:15 We've got the Olympics that I just missed.
00:58:18 And now we've got this race.
00:58:20 We did something against all odds, Tom and I,
00:58:22 but we didn't win the race. That's what we went for.
00:58:24 We went to win the race, and we didn't.
00:58:26 I'm just so tired of, like, always being that close
00:58:30 and people saying, "Well, that was a valiant effort.
00:58:32 I don't want valiant efforts anymore."
00:58:34 I know when to quit.
00:58:36 Like, I've shown that in my life.
00:58:38 I mean, I chose to not get the surgery.
00:58:42 And I had a choice at the end of Vesper
00:58:45 to go another round, another four years.
00:58:48 So I wasn't a stranger to quitting.
00:58:51 I understood how to give things up when it was right for me
00:58:54 and for my family, but this didn't feel right.
00:58:57 It didn't feel right.
00:58:59 There was something that was gnawing at me,
00:59:04 and it was that time with Greg.
00:59:07 It's easy to get down on Greg in this.
00:59:10 He left. He abandoned us.
00:59:12 But in the end, as the captain and the leader of that team,
00:59:16 I had failed to keep Greg on that boat.
00:59:20 And that failure was the biggest motivation
00:59:25 for doing it a second time.
00:59:27 I think maybe he forgot about the great teams that he was on
00:59:34 at Sonoma State, at Vesper,
00:59:36 and the love that he had for those guys.
00:59:38 And that's the feeling that he wanted to create
00:59:42 for the second row.
00:59:47 I've learned something, and now I'm going to do it the right way.
00:59:51 Inevitably, the first person I ask is Tom,
00:59:54 to which I think he replied, "Fuck no,"
00:59:57 [laughs]
00:59:58 and--which was fair,
01:00:00 but he did agree to be the land manager.
01:00:04 I started to build a community of people.
01:00:08 Yeah, we spent time rowing and working out,
01:00:11 but we spent more time just being with each other,
01:00:14 having meals together.
01:00:16 Getting to learn about them more.
01:00:19 Our wives and girlfriends should be part of this team.
01:00:23 That change in perspective
01:00:28 is the greatest difference between 2015 and 2016.
01:00:44 We started to make some changes here,
01:00:47 and I think this was the tipping point
01:00:49 with our competition on Rover James.
01:00:51 We kind of reset, and we said,
01:00:53 "Let's do everything that we need to do on this boat
01:00:56 to give us the advantage."
01:00:58 That's when our power, sea knowledge,
01:01:00 rowing experience came into itself.
01:01:02 So we started to get lighter.
01:01:04 Any food that we didn't need,
01:01:06 we were taking out of the packets and dumping.
01:01:09 We retrimmed the boat, we shifted weight around
01:01:12 to make it a little bit easier to surf the waves.
01:01:15 That's Alex bravely volunteering
01:01:17 to go and clean the bottom of our boat.
01:01:20 We've been wondering why the boat's been going slow,
01:01:23 and this is the reason.
01:01:25 I think Jason and I both appreciated
01:01:27 that we lead teams in different ways,
01:01:29 and I'm more of a technical, factual leader,
01:01:32 where Jason's more of an emotional leader.
01:01:35 That's when Jason's leadership came in.
01:01:37 He said, "Right, here we go."
01:01:39 And he set big goals.
01:01:41 Goals that I thought there's no way you should even--
01:01:44 you may be thinking it, but don't say it out loud.
01:01:47 50 miles, we're 5 miles behind them.
01:01:49 Why are we thinking about 50 miles ahead of them?
01:01:52 And you then see that every stroke does make a difference.
01:01:56 Matt is back to his full strength.
01:01:58 He was now feeling like he needed to pull extra time.
01:02:01 Now this guy's starting to just finish his 2-hour shift,
01:02:05 shovel some food down, and then all of a sudden
01:02:07 he just started putting the oars in that third position.
01:02:10 "What are you doing?"
01:02:11 He's like, "I think I'm just going to row for another hour.
01:02:13 I feel pretty good."
01:02:14 He just said it like it was no big deal,
01:02:16 like he was, "I'm going to go feed my fish."
01:02:19 And I came out, I actually got angry at him at one stage,
01:02:22 and said, "I'm not going to look after you
01:02:24 when you need to go to sleep.
01:02:25 You need to get off the oars and eat."
01:02:27 And he said, "Don't worry, Angus, I can do this."
01:02:29 This is the first time he did a 6-hour shift,
01:02:31 and I sat there in front of him fuming, thinking,
01:02:33 "Here we go, we've got so many things
01:02:35 I can row for 6 hours.
01:02:36 I'm going to be a hero, and he's going to be asleep
01:02:38 in 4 hours' time with a bad back."
01:02:42 He got back up, he did 6 hours, went to sleep for 2 hours,
01:02:45 and was 2 hours off, got back on,
01:02:47 rowed just as hard as anyone else, if not harder.
01:02:50 Unbelievable.
01:02:53 I mean, that kind of selflessness
01:02:55 would just put a smile on my face.
01:02:58 I've been on my off shift for 30 minutes,
01:03:02 and I'm still sweating like this.
01:03:05 I'm trying to get as much food as I possibly can.
01:03:10 So it's day 18, it's New Year's Day in fact.
01:03:19 First January 2017.
01:03:21 Happy New Year.
01:03:23 Jason does a fantastic job of making these days exciting.
01:03:27 So, for example, here is the itinerary
01:03:30 that he's come up with.
01:03:32 7 p.m., a dinner with the theme of White Night.
01:03:37 1 p.m., rockin' karaoke in the Windjammer Lounge.
01:03:44 That's at 1 p.m.
01:03:46 That's coming up really soon.
01:03:49 Angus, you come out so well on film, though.
01:03:54 Say something funny.
01:03:56 How do you make an American boat win a race?
01:03:59 I put 2 Brits on it.
01:04:02 [laughter]
01:04:26 Hand steering.
01:04:29 We're hand steering all night.
01:04:31 A decent amount of today.
01:04:34 Just got off a really good night shift with Angus.
01:04:46 Matt's coming on the oars now.
01:04:48 Stunning moon up there.
01:04:51 [music]
01:04:54 I hate to even say it, but right now
01:05:09 we're tracking for the race record,
01:05:11 even the world record.
01:05:13 We're on pace, but...
01:05:16 The situation is fickle.
01:05:21 And who knows what we're going to have to do.
01:05:26 Talking about record is no good thing,
01:05:29 and Jason and Matt loved talking about it.
01:05:31 Angus and I were slightly more reserved about it.
01:05:34 Angus and I might have a little chat on the oars at 3 a.m.
01:05:37 when it was just me and him on the oars.
01:05:39 What do you think about this record attempt?
01:05:41 Not quite sure if we're going to make it.
01:05:43 We'll see how the weather is coming in tomorrow.
01:05:46 So about every day or two we download the next file
01:05:49 to get the update on what the weather is going to look like.
01:05:52 Angus downloads it one day, and I say, "How's it looking?"
01:05:55 "It looks good for the next few days, but I'm seeing something."
01:05:58 And I say, "Well, what is it?"
01:06:00 And he says, "That's just a lull."
01:06:02 I say, "Okay, well, a lull's okay.
01:06:04 We can power through that."
01:06:06 He says, "Yeah, but it's long. It's like three days."
01:06:09 We've got a 24-hour buffer right now
01:06:11 that a lull is going to wipe that out.
01:06:14 Then on Friday the 13th, everything went against us.
01:06:20 The weather got harder, the water got thicker,
01:06:35 the wind died down, the waves came from the north,
01:06:38 and our average speed dropped and dropped and dropped.
01:06:41 But we had flat water, and we couldn't move the boat.
01:06:45 We were going 0.7 knots with three people rowing.
01:06:48 All of a sudden the water felt like you were rowing through cement.
01:06:52 That lull turned into a storm as a headwind.
01:07:01 You're going so slow at that point
01:07:03 that the autotiller that helps steer you usually fails
01:07:06 because you're not actually going fast enough for it to steer.
01:07:10 Well, we're going 0.2 knots at the moment.
01:07:15 Which, for those of you who aren't law school,
01:07:20 you probably crawl on your hands and knees at about one knot.
01:07:25 It's back-breaking.
01:07:27 The boat just doesn't move, doesn't glide through the water.
01:07:31 And worst of all is, it's a repeat of what happened last year.
01:07:37 To have it taken away again because of weather,
01:07:43 because of something that's outside your control,
01:07:45 is just heartbreaking.
01:07:47 The waves are coming in from every single direction.
01:07:55 The sea was so confused.
01:07:57 We're not even going half knot forwards.
01:08:00 We're getting blown backwards.
01:08:03 Angus came out of the cabin and he said,
01:08:06 "Get the para-anchor out."
01:08:09 And I was like, "No."
01:08:12 That meant that we had been beaten by the elements.
01:08:16 We could no longer maintain what we were doing.
01:08:20 It's almost not fair how hard we pushed
01:08:24 and how dedicated we've been to this.
01:08:27 We've done everything right, rowed as hard as we can.
01:08:31 I was thinking, "God, why do you always, always get me so close to it?
01:08:42 And why can't just this once you give it to me?
01:08:45 Give me my dream and give me what I've worked so hard for?"
01:08:52 [sniffles]
01:08:54 And that's the point when I was like,
01:09:02 I was so angry.
01:09:05 And just felt like it was gone, slipping through our hands.
01:09:12 When I thought, "We aren't going to make it,"
01:09:19 I couldn't help but think back to the year before.
01:09:22 It was the day before the evacuation of Nick,
01:09:27 and I met Tom on the deck of the boat.
01:09:30 I was sitting towards the bow cabin and I was thinking,
01:09:34 "The race was over for us, all the prep, all the families.
01:09:38 It's going to go down to, unfortunately, waste."
01:09:41 And I did not think there was an option.
01:09:44 So then Tom says, "Jay, just come with us.
01:09:48 We can't do this by ourselves."
01:09:51 And I say, "Yes, we can."
01:09:54 "This is possible to do."
01:09:57 And I said, "Think about the glory that you could do two men
01:10:01 rowing a boat that's supposed to be rowed by four
01:10:04 across the Atlantic Ocean."
01:10:07 These were the reasons why I knew I wasn't getting off this boat.
01:10:10 But in the end, those weren't Tom's reasons.
01:10:13 He's one of my best friends. He's like a big brother to me.
01:10:17 So I wouldn't have left him behind.
01:10:20 And he said, "Jay, I'm not going to let you do this on your own."
01:10:23 I know how scared Tom was to say that.
01:10:27 And he knew when that boat left, when that sailboat left,
01:10:29 he had nowhere else to go.
01:10:31 He was stuck with me and this boat.
01:10:33 And he said he was going to do it, and he was very, very scared.
01:10:36 About a week after we had had the evacuation,
01:10:41 about a week of us struggling, rowing a boat that's too big for us,
01:10:44 too heavy for us, it's manhandling us,
01:10:47 and the nights that are just punishing.
01:10:49 I think we wanted to just chuck it in, just be done with it.
01:10:59 And I think right then, Tom comes out.
01:11:02 The first thing he says when he gets out of the cabin is,
01:11:05 "What would you want for breakfast?"
01:11:07 Which to me was like, out of all the things you could say,
01:11:10 why are you asking me what I want for breakfast?
01:11:12 But there was a complete mind shift right there.
01:11:14 And instead of saying, "What do I want for breakfast?"
01:11:17 I just had the worst night of my life.
01:11:19 I thought about it. I was like, "What do I want for breakfast?"
01:11:21 And I said, "I think I want chicken risotto."
01:11:24 Just kind of going with it.
01:11:26 He said, "All right. You want coffee?"
01:11:28 I said, "Yeah, I want coffee."
01:11:30 He says, "You want cream in it?" I said, "Yeah."
01:11:31 "Put the hazelnut creamer in it. What are you going to have for breakfast?"
01:11:34 And I said, "I think I'm going to have spaghetti bolognese."
01:11:40 We decided to take 30 minutes off the oars, not rowing.
01:11:43 That was the worst thing to do.
01:11:45 But we took 30 minutes that morning, and we ate our food.
01:11:48 We sat there face to face, eating our food, drinking our coffee, 30 minutes.
01:11:54 And instead of complaining about our miserable plight, we started laughing about it.
01:12:00 "Oh, God, you should have seen what happened last night.
01:12:02 I had a flying fish hit me right in the face."
01:12:04 Are you kidding me? A flying fish hit you in the face?
01:12:06 And we're sharing these stories. Now we're laughing.
01:12:08 And we're joking about stuff.
01:12:10 And then the next morning, we decided to take that 30 minutes again.
01:12:13 It became our ritual. Those 30 minutes is what we lived for.
01:12:22 Every day, at least we had those 30 minutes.
01:12:25 Couldn't wait for those 30 minutes.
01:12:26 Yeah, Tom comes out for the camera now. He's been sleeping for the last two hours.
01:12:30 It was one of the things we would not give up on, no matter what happens.
01:12:36 If Ian called us and he said, "Guys, 30 more minutes of rowing a day, you will pass a couple more boats,"
01:12:41 we would say, "We'll probably not pass them."
01:12:44 And we never sacrificed those 30 minutes. No matter what happened, we always took those 30 minutes.
01:12:55 Those 30 minutes ended up being what saved us.
01:13:01 Because those 30 minutes were continually recommitting ourselves to each other.
01:13:07 We answered the question, "Why are we doing this?"
01:13:13 And we kept going. And I'm glad we did. Keep going.
01:13:30 And so that's what I was thinking of, as the team and I were sitting there, demoralized,
01:13:35 and Agus and I were trying to figure out what to do next.
01:13:38 And so we decided, "I'm going to pull the pair anchor in and try rowing."
01:13:44 And I'm hand steering there, and all of a sudden I see out of the corner of my eye, I'm like, "Jay. Jay, look over there."
01:13:59 And there's this little fin coming up behind the boat.
01:14:02 I'm like, "Jay, it's a shark. That's definitely a shark."
01:14:06 We're all soaking wet. We're silent. We're demoralized.
01:14:20 And Jay's there, like a little kid, leaning off the side of the boat.
01:14:26 He's got a bag of one of our dehydrated meals, beef broccoli.
01:14:30 And he's sprinkling it out like he's feeding a little goldfish in a bowl.
01:14:34 And we just started cracking up at that point, like the lowest point in the race.
01:14:39 By that afternoon, the weather cleared. The shark found something better to do.
01:14:51 Sun started coming out, right just about sunset.
01:14:55 And then slowly, the waves died down there against you.
01:14:58 We're going one knot, and then you get a little bit more positive.
01:15:02 And then suddenly we're going 1.5 knots.
01:15:06 And then we're out of Friday the 13th.
01:15:09 We're into Saturday, and suddenly we're back to three knots again.
01:15:13 I crawl in the cabin to do the math.
01:15:18 We've got five days left until the expiration of the world record, almost to the hour.
01:15:24 And we've got almost to the mile, 400 miles left to go,
01:15:28 which means that we had 80 mile days to achieve for the next five days.
01:15:33 To put that in perspective, 70 mile days, if you average 70 miles a day, that's a world record speed.
01:15:38 75 mile days is incredible, which makes 80 mile days just short of a miracle.
01:15:44 And to have to string five of those, it seems impossible.
01:15:52 I had myself a little cry right there in the cabin by myself.
01:15:56 I opened the cabin door, and I've got three expectant faces looking at me, waiting to hear what that number is.
01:16:08 The first person that spoke was Matt, who said, "Oh, thank God. I thought you were going to say 100."
01:16:18 He says, "This team can do 80 mile days."
01:16:22 The second person to say something was Alex, who really struggled that night to row,
01:16:28 would literally fall asleep on the oar, says, "I'll do whatever it takes, Skip. I'll row all night if I have to."
01:16:35 And then Angus, who was right in front of me rowing, said, "This is the reason why we joined teams.
01:16:42 We wanted the best chance at breaking a world record.
01:16:46 It isn't a great chance, but it's ours."
01:16:49 The response by my teammates was the culmination of everything that I had ever achieved at Sonoma, at Vesper, and with Tom in the first row.
01:17:02 I knew that I'd done what I had come out to do. I had put together a team that could do the impossible.
01:17:10 Everyone was about each other. It ceased to become about the world record.
01:17:15 It became about the men in the boat.
01:17:19 Up to that point, our best day was 81 miles, and our worst day was like 20 miles.
01:17:38 So Saturday, we rowed two hours on, three up, 40 minutes off, the length of the day.
01:17:45 That was the hardest day physically I've ever had in my life.
01:17:50 You know, your bum's sore, your hands are sore, you haven't got time to really stop and have a rest.
01:17:57 So the Great Depression is over. We are now going about two and a half to three knots.
01:18:06 And that day we did 79 miles.
01:18:08 Leaving everything out there, we didn't quite get what we needed that day.
01:18:14 Day two, smashed it with 92 miles.
01:18:20 Every stroke, pushing ourselves as hard as possible.
01:18:25 I thought, "There's no way. Can we actually do this?"
01:18:29 Day three, just cruising, rowing hard, hitting four knots.
01:18:36 We did 91 miles.
01:18:38 Everyone's starting to stick their hand up and say, "Yeah, I'll row an extra shift."
01:18:43 Matt was sticking his hand up every five minutes. "Yeah, get me on the oars."
01:18:47 Day four, weather slows down a bit, still hit 88 miles.
01:18:52 The ocean was throwing everything it had at us, and it just wasn't enough.
01:18:57 It wasn't enough to break our spirit.
01:19:02 Sun came up on Wednesday, the last day, and 20-plus miles ahead of the pace
01:19:08 that everyone thought was impossible to hold.
01:19:11 And we were looking down the barrel of a 50-mile day, 50 miles to go.
01:19:15 And then we realized, "Right, we're actually 12 hours ahead of what the record is."
01:19:30 We all met on deck. We pulled out a flask of whiskey.
01:19:35 Is this actually recording? Where's the thing?
01:19:39 OK, it's the last night here on the American Spirit.
01:19:47 It has been a true honor to share this experience with you all.
01:19:52 There are small ships like this boat. There are big ships.
01:19:56 There's no ships like French ships.
01:19:59 There's a carrier.
01:20:01 I am eternally grateful to have shared this opportunity with all you guys.
01:20:07 Here we are, checking off.
01:20:09 Vox is winning the race by 200 miles, setting the course record.
01:20:15 And if all goes well in the next 24 hours, setting the world record.
01:20:20 Can't be done without a team like this, so cheers to you guys.
01:20:23 Thank you, Skipper.
01:20:26 The motivation to strive forward in any endeavor or personal journey
01:20:30 comes quite simply from passion.
01:20:33 The word passion actually comes from the Latin word that means "to suffer."
01:20:38 Every now and then you'll have to suffer for the things that are important to you.
01:20:45 The inevitable failures and setbacks are not easy.
01:20:49 At times they cut painfully deep and you'll be left with no choice but to suffer.
01:20:54 At times they cut painfully deep and you'll be tempted to turn your back on the challenge
01:20:57 because it seems vast, overwhelming, or unattainable.
01:21:01 Whatever your ocean is, strive with the spirit of excellence to cross it.
01:21:10 If you can take those harrowing blows and come across
01:21:21 with your zeal for life still intact,
01:21:24 you'll have not only a quiet confidence but also a sense of humility
01:21:30 because the journey, like the sea, is bigger than you.
01:21:35 Your ocean is there to define you.
01:21:43 [Music]
01:21:46 I'm obviously extremely excited to step on dry land,
01:22:02 eat some good food, have a shower, stretch,
01:22:05 see my girlfriend, see my family.
01:22:11 But I'll miss this as much as I've complained over the last 30 odd days.
01:22:16 I love this simple life.
01:22:20 I love pushing myself, pushing the limits.
01:22:23 It'll be something that I will really, really miss.
01:22:27 I'm sorry for saying it, Grace, but I'll probably be back here again at some stage.
01:22:39 I'll come back.
01:22:41 [Music]
01:22:45 For my entire athletic career, I was obsessed with being the best,
01:23:03 not having a wall full of silver medals anymore.
01:23:06 And it took rowing across the Atlantic Ocean twice
01:23:11 to finally realize that once I did win,
01:23:14 it had nothing to do with what color the medal was
01:23:17 and everything to do with the people that I did it with.
01:23:22 It was about the small, authentic moments that you share
01:23:31 with your teammates in the middle of the Atlantic.
01:23:35 It was about the highs, but it was also about the lows.
01:23:40 No one will ever really know, except for the four of us,
01:23:46 what it was like out there.
01:23:48 No one will know, and sometimes you don't want to let that go.
01:23:52 For a split second, you don't want to get off the boat.
01:23:57 [Cheering]
01:24:02 [Music]
01:24:05 25 days, 14 hours, and 3 minutes.
01:24:11 Not only did they win the race,
01:24:14 they also set a new world record for classic swimming.
01:24:18 [Cheering]
01:24:21 Is it?
01:24:22 Great!
01:24:23 Is it?
01:24:24 Great!
01:24:25 Is it?
01:24:26 Great!
01:24:29 [Music]
01:24:32 I'm so proud of the boys.
01:24:39 I did not know that we had it in us to do that.
01:24:42 I now feel a huge connection and increased bond with Angus
01:24:51 and huge, huge respect for Jason and Matt,
01:24:54 and I would refer to them as almost my brothers.
01:24:58 I love those guys, Angus and Alex and Jason,
01:25:02 and we've done something that's rare in today's world,
01:25:07 where we built ourselves up to something greater
01:25:11 than each of our individual parts.
01:25:15 [Music]
01:25:18 Now I'm a father, and that pretty much changes everything.
01:25:38 It fills me with new perspective,
01:25:41 it fills me with new purpose, grace,
01:25:46 and it also adds a level of complexity.
01:25:49 The sacrifice now that I'll be making
01:25:52 and any future adventures has gone way up,
01:25:56 and yet I know I won't stop doing them.
01:26:00 Me and my son have such a bond.
01:26:05 Um, sorry.
01:26:09 And I think the struggles have really helped him
01:26:13 because I think he'll be able to show Tristan
01:26:17 how much you can learn and change from those things,
01:26:22 and they're necessary, sorry, to grow.
01:26:28 Um, he's a wonderful father.
01:26:32 Going back to the question of why do people do these things,
01:26:38 why do people cross oceans,
01:26:41 we've heard about the saying,
01:26:43 it's not how many times you get knocked down,
01:26:45 it's how many times you get back up,
01:26:47 but that is only half of it.
01:26:50 You must spend time on the ground
01:26:53 understanding and learning how you got there
01:26:55 so that when you do get back up,
01:26:58 you're a smarter, tougher, harder, stronger target to knock down.
01:27:04 That is why we keep doing things
01:27:09 even though we lose, because we learn.
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