A north-east man has described battling an Atlantic storm during a 3,000-mile row across the ocean – half of which was done alone.
Duncan Brown has been reunited with his family on Scottish soil after completing the Talisker Atlantic Whisky Challenge on his own, after his rowing partner was forced to pull out due to medical problems halfway into the race.
The personal trainer, who lives in Torry, landed back in Inverness and is starting his recovery with his loves ones in the Highland capital, having lost a huge amount of weight on the trip.
Mr Brown’s Rowing for Rascals partner, Robert “Andy” Strachan, was forced to abandon the race with 922 nautical miles to go after an infection left him in constant agony.
The pair decided to embark upon the journey to raise cash for the ARCHIE Foundation and Great Ormond Street Hospital, having raised more than £3,000 so far.
The adventure from La Gomera on the Canary Islands to Antigua was two-and-a-half years in the making.
The journey itself was hit with challenges and the duo were forced to spend two hours a day pumping water from their vessel, the Papa Delta, following a malfunction.
They also suffered a week of sea sickness at the start of the race.
However Mr Brown said this paled in significance to the woes of other competitors, some of whom were being “followed by sharks” in their boats.
The rower had to battle a storm in the last week of the journey, which was completed at the start of the month and took him a total 75 days, 14 hours and 46 minutes to complete.
Mr Brown, 27, said: “I enjoyed the Caribbean very much but I am very much more at home in a colder climate with my family and girlfriend in a place I’d call home – it is helping me with the recovery.
“I think it is such a contrast out there between going from land to being at sea for such a long time. A lot of days merged together. The first few days and last few days were most memorable.
“It was really great to see land again. Unfortunately I arrived in the middle of a storm. My last five to seven days were probably the hardest of them all.
“I absolutely had to fight to reach the land, even though I could see it. It was some of the hardest rowing I did my whole life in those last few days. I was so relieved.”
