Meet the world record breakers!
They did it! The Ocean5 crew became the fastest man crew to safely cross the Pacific, unsupported, in an open rowing boat – raising vital funds for the Lewis Moody Foundation in the process. But that’s not all…
World Record #2
At 66, business leader Kevin, who was the youngest MD of Porsche, Lamborghini and BMW, also set a new world record as the oldest person to row across the Pacific Ocean.
He took part in the challenge with his son Matt Gaskell, the team medic, skipper Tom Higham, Patrick Deacon, and Stephen Greenan. They trained in Lymington, Hampshire.
But after their boat, a 9.6-metre Rannoch RX45 was shipped out to Monterey in California, they rowed 2,800 nautical miles to Hanalei Kauai in Hawaii in 32 days, six hours and 51 minutes. The previous world record for a five-man crew was 51 days.
Kevin told The Times the rest of the crew kept him going: “I had days where I worked myself to exhaustion, and when I did go gaga one or two of them would peel me off the oars and just say ‘get an hour’s rest and some calories in you’ and then they let me get back to it.”
“I never stop training. I cycle and go to the gym and pull a couple of car tyres around the woods near me, but I don’t run any more, it’s not good for my knees. It’s a mindset. If I gave myself a year off, getting back to this fitness would be three times as hard.”
Kevin Gaskell
Battling mother nature
Living off 500kg of freeze-dried rations and high protein snacks, the crew needed to consume around 6000 calories and 10 litres of water each per day. But they all lost weight.
Other challenges include generating their own water and electricity supply from solar panels. They also coped with sleep deprivation, sea sickness, salt sores, huge waves, isolation and physical exhaustion. But, somehow, they got through it, witnessing mother nature at her fiercest and best – spotting dolphins, albatrosses, a massive turtle and a whale too.
Kevin said: “We had seven knockdowns in one hour but I slept through that. You just get used to bouncing off the walls of the tiny cabin you sleep in. You try to pad yourself with a sleeping bag on either side of your head. When you are asleep you are very asleep.”
The challenge was sparked by Kevin’s friendship with former England rugby captain Lewis Moody, MBE. To date, The Ocean5 have raised £51,000 for The Lewis Moody Foundation
A huge well done to the whole team on completing what Lewis Moody called a ‘bonkers’ challenge!