The Story so far

I know that some of you will have read my other two posts and of course some of won't have read them and that's no problem. I'll include the links to them below just in case anybody wants to read them first, but I know how precious people's time is and this post is just one of many that you will be trying to read within a likely short window, so with that in mind, I'll quickly paraphrase what happened in the lead up to week 2 and continue from there afterwards.

This series brings you tales of exploration and woe from two Irishmen who embarked on one of the hardest challenges imaginable. Damien Browne and Fergus Farrell who are fellow Galwaymen set out to row across the Atlantic ocean from New York to Galway on Ireland's West coast unsupported, which means that there is no safety boat alongside them for emergencies, it's just them their oars and the roaring waves.

The lads set out to make history and aim to be the first crew to successfully row from New York to Galway, unsupported. Following some last minute scrambling to locate a Sat phone, and loading up some last provisions, including jelly babies and chocolate bars (seriously) they final set sail, well now, as there are no sails! They set off from New York on June 13th on their 6.2 metre rowing boat called Cushlamachree, next stop Galway and the "Bonfires of Aran" as Damian often says.

The two guys know each other from playing rugby in Galway and both represented Ireland at Junior level and have remained friends ever since. Damien had a very successful rugby career, playing for Connacht, Northampton Saints and Leinster over the years. When his career ended, Damian had to find new challenges to fill his days and find them he did. Everest basecamp and other mountaineering expeditions, ultra marathons, oh and he rowed an ocean! Yep, this is going to be his second ocean rowed if he gets over the line.

Fergus then had a near death experience a few years ago, which left him over 95% certain to be paralysed and unable to walk again, and after making a miraculous recovery, he too craved challenge and when the lifelong friends met up a few years ago, project Empower and rowing an ocean together while raising money for charities was born. Those charities are Ability West, the Galway Simon Community, Madra animal rescue and the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH) foundation, all very worthy recipients. I covered the ups and downs of the first couple of weeks in these posts in case you want to catch up, otherwise let's crack on.

https://hive.blog/hive-101690/@ablaze/two-irishmen-to-row-across-the-atlantic-part-1

https://hive.blog/hive-101690/@ablaze/two-irishmen-to-row-across-the-atlantic-part-2

In for a dip

You'd imagine that while swimming an Ocean you'd be getting in for at least two dips a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, but alas that is not the reality at all, and in fact as the expedition closes in on day 100, I think they have only been in five or six times. Time is too precious for such folly when one is trying to row an ocean, afterall this is a challenge, not a holiday. In fact if anything could be further from a holiday, then this is probably it. I remember in the early days the lads did get in for a dip though and I remember Damian had a great Facebook post about it, so I'll share what he said in that post with you here. I'd also recommend you give him a follow - a link to his page is at the bottom of this post.

"The highlight of any day on the ocean if you are lucky enough to get the opportunity has to be the late afternoon dip after a hot and sweaty day churning out as many miles as your body and mind can muster."

"Having posed a few questions over the last couple of years as to how we went about getting in and out of the boat for ‘swims’ I knew that this was an important milestone for Fergus and I was excited to help him realize it."

"With the sun dipping lower into the horizon and the extreme heat fading away I started to ready myself and the boat for getting in. Although Gussy have shitted within a meter of each other and the other must stop full rowing strokes when said shitter is wiping his arse (basically I am saying we are pretty close now) I thought it best to save naked ‘swimming’ for another time. Once I’d removed one set of our spare oars, dropped the jackstay line & fired up the GoPro, I was ready & with a gentle slide I was into the glorious big blue."

"I’d forgotten how salty she was, so cleaning the hull was out until I grabbed a mask but I made my way up and down the boats grab lines and removed anything I could see with a scrapper. Just as I reached the rudder I could hear Gussy shouting that there was a pod of dolphins on the far side of the boat but unfortunately they didn’t stop to say hi to me."

"The fear is not entering the ocean but rather not exiting it; so once I had demonstrated to Gussy how I got out, he was down to try. He striped and took the nervous plunge & LOVED IT!"

"It really is a glorious feeling."

Calm before the storm

The fight to cross this ocean was broken into blocks or steps and there were some important milestones in those early days, the first was to get out of the Hudson in New York safely, this one was knocked out of the park easily, as the guys left at 10pm at night meaning that the usually busy river was almost deserted, which was exactly what the guys needed.

The next milestone was to get over the North Atlantic ridge, a tectonic feature meaning that the earth at the bottom of the Ocean is pushed up like an underwater mountain. While over the ridge, the sea state can be very challenging with large bulbous waves, so it is no surprise that the guys wanted to get past this milestone as soon as they could. They managed that inside the first week or so.

The duo battled through the days and nights, through the turmoil of the Atlantic ocean and their own internal turmoil as they set out to reach a promised land of sorts, their third milestone, the Gulf stream. The Gulf what now? Ok, Wiki tells us:

"The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida and up the eastern coastline of the United States then veers east near 36 latitude (North Carolina) and moves toward Northwest Europe as the North Atlantic Current. The process of western intensification causes the Gulf Stream to be a northwards accelerating current off the east coast of North America. At about 40°0′N 30°0′W, it splits in two, with the northern stream, the North Atlantic Drift, crossing to Northern Europe and the southern stream, the Canary Current, recirculating off West Africa."

So the guys wanted ever so badly to reach the Gulf stream, as this would mean that the ocean current would help them to be carried in the direction that they are looking to move towards, Galway, Ireland, Western Europe. After around two weeks, their weather router Chris martin reckoned that they might be in the Gulf Stream and asked them to measure the ocean temperature and let the boat idle and see if a current was carrying them - they quickly realised that they were indeed in the Gulf stream and that was a big moment for them, but the celebrations would be short lived, as this expedition was about to be changed massively.

Disaster for Gussy

On Sunday 26th June at 4:45pm the project Empower challenge changed completely. MacDara Hosty from Project Empower had to tell people with “huge regret” that Fergus Farrell had to depart due to a medical emergency. “Fergus is now doing well, has arrived back in New York, and is awaiting transfer to a hospital in New York where he will undergo tests,” the statement continued. Some further statements include the below:

“Fergus had been experiencing severe exhaustion, and despite lots of rest was failing to recover”

“had started to experience tightness on the left side of his chest and had a very low blood oxygen percentage”

“After consultation with our medical consultants and the United States Coast Guard (USCG) flight surgeon, it was decided that Fergus should be extracted with all possible speed.”

Gussy was on the oars in the middle of the night and started feeling what was mentioned above and woke up Damian says "Damo, I don't mean to alarm you, but my O2 sats are 86" which was something that he had previously experienced after his accident and the doctors had explained that it meant that he was especially susceptible to a clot, so his alarm bells were ringing when he got this reading.

This was exactly why the guys had to searched high and low for a Sat phone and when Gussy got through to his doctor back in Ireland, he was told in no uncertain terms that he would have to be evacuated immediately. This was obviously gutting news for both Gussy as his expedition was over and also for Damian who would need to decide whether to try to finish it out alone.

They were not out of the woods yet though, Gussy would need supplementary Oxygen and fast and the only place to get that was on land back in the USA, so the lads would need to raise the alarm. They got onto the coastguard quickly and were just beyond helicopter reach, as they were over 550 nautical miles away from the mainland, so instead they would need to look for help from the closest ship.

Luckily for Gussy, a Singapore flagged tanker, Hafnia Shenzhen, had responded to a USCG request for assistance. The tanker diverted towards the lads and quickly reached them, and reached out over the VHF radio to assist in the removal of Gussy from Cushlamachree. The tanker pulled up alongside the rowboat and absolutely dwarfed it in size, and dropped a gangplank to help remove the two lads, but Damian quickly reminded them that only Fergus was leaving and he was staying put to finish the journey across the Atlantic. Farrell was brought on board using the gang plank, and taken to the medical room for further assessment.

The crew were keen for Damian to come as well, but he assured them that he was fine, they asked what he needed? So damian asked for a bucket, so they passed him down a few buckets. They asked if he needed food or drink and Damian assured them he was fine, but then they said, do you want Coke, and Damian's eyes lit up!! Yes, he'd take Coke, so they lowered a six pack with the buckets. They kept offering more and more and before Damian knew it, he had cartons of juice, bottles of water, cans of coke, a bucket (on deck toilet!! - the guys had lost theirs in a storm) and a Biryani dish and his words about that were "it was the nicest Biryani he ever tasted in his life, it was fuckin glorious!"

But back to Fergus, these statements were released later that day and he actually made a quick recovery, thanks be to God.

“Fergus responded well to initial treatment on board the Hafnia Shenzhen, and the decision was made not to airlift him by USCG or Navy helicopter to hospital, electing instead for him to remain onboard the Hafnia Shenzhen until she docked in New York,”

“Fergus is hugely disappointed at having to leave Cushlamachree, but understands that his and Damian’s health and safety has, and always will be, the primary concern for Project Empower,”

“Project Empower wasn’t planned this way, and none of us wanted it to be this way,”

“Gussy and Damian were supposed to do this together and row into Galway docks together. We are all absolutely gutted that they won’t now get to complete it together,”

Hopefully these two life long friends will be back together again soon and major kudos to Gussy for giving it his very best effort.

Want to know more?

Join me in part 4 of this post and find out what Damian did to reset after losing Gussy to illness and suddenly facing the last 2500 nautical miles alone.

Also, if you can't wait for that, follow the big man at any of these places. I have been listening to his pod casts the whole way along which have been brilliant and very motivational. I would highly recommend them to you all.

https://www.facebook.com/gulliverstravels17
https://damianbrowne.com/
https://open.spotify.com/show/5F8VlGPSU5mBEJszmMR0rj

These are not original photos - source below

https://www.facebook.com/gulliverstravels17

Thanks as always for stopping by everyone.

Peace Out