Scottish catering business executive Robbie Laidlaw has rowed 3000 miles across the Atlantic to raise funds for industry charity Hospitality Action.
Robbie (34), from Gullane, East Lothian, now lives in London, working for contract catering business Genuine Dining, an award-winning company that employs some 750 staff, and provides corporate catering services to companies across the UK, as well as events and front of house services.
Robbie was rowing alongside his boss, managing director Chris Mitchell (41), when they set sail from La Gomera, off Tenerife, on 13th December.
On the western side of the Atlantic, the pair reached Nelson’s Dockyard, Antigua, last Sunday, 21st January, having completed the World’s Toughest Row event in 38 days 15 hours and three minutes, coming in 5th overall, and first in the ‘pairs’ category. The boats ahead of them were all crewed by four or five men.
They each rowed in two-hour stints, and slept, ate and cleaned for two hours, 24 hours every day. In total, they made some one million strokes to complete the journey.
Along the way, the pair endured very heavy seas, blistering heat – and even capsized on Day 6. They had been experiencing waves of 10 to twelve metres, when a ‘monster wave’ flipped them over.
Luckily, their boat, named Maria, is designed to be self-righting, but they did lose all power for several days, affecting their emergency positioning system and auto-helm, which keeps the boat on course. That meant that, instead of two hours on and two hours off, both men had to work all the time – one to row, the other to manually steer the boat.
Underlying the mental challenge involved in the challenge, both Robbie and Chris suffered hallucinations, which they had been trained to expect, working with mindset coaches who normally train fighter pilots so, when things got tough, they were able to think clearly and stay safe.
So far, the duo has raised over £150,000 for Hospitality Action, a charity for the hospitality sector, providing financial and mental health support. They hope to raise further funds and would be grateful for any donations, large or small, via a Just Giving page at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/spiritofhospitality
The scale of their epic voyage is underlined by the fact that more people have scaled Everest than rowed the Atlantic.
Their 7.5 metre boat only carried basic medical, navigation, communications and survival equipment alongside enough food to sustain them for up to two months. They converted seawater into drinking water and used buckets as toilets.
During the journey, they only ate vegan food, to avoid stomach problems, and were both looking forward to a burger when they landed!
“The hospitality industry is built upon a strong community spirit, and this spirit was damaged during the pandemic with waves of redundancies sweeping the sector during 2019 and 2020,” said Chris.
“Hospitality Action supports people facing mental health challenges, which we understand the importance of. It’s why we wanted to support them on our Atlantic campaign,” he said.
The men trained for two years in preparation for this challenge, rowing three times during the week, gym work, with longer rows at the weekend.
Robbie added: “It was a fantastic, exhilarating and terrifying experience. We knew it was going to be tough, but we’d prepared and trained well. We are also grateful for the support of our families.”
Waiting for them at Nelson’s Dockyard were Chris’s wife and three children, and Robbie’s partner and their baby son, only born in November last year.
You can see some more of their adventures on Facebook and Instagram.
