And while Brown may have come second, he crossed the Atlantic faster than any
solo rower had done before, smashing the record by more than two days.
So when he finally staggered out of his tiny boat and on to the quayside at
Port St Charles in Barbados, his two closest rivals were waiting there to
hug him and say in admiration: “Mate, you are a superhero.”
Brown, from Limspfield, Surrey, smiles at the memory, a few days later, and
shifts in his chair.
“That was nice of them but I don’t feel like one just now. Everything
hurts. We have put our bodies through a lot, and it’s only now starting to
kick in, as the muscles ease. My ribs took a hell of a bashing from the
oars. My back is really painful today. My fingers are still quite fat, and I
can’t move them much or grip anything.”
He offers his hands, which are bloated and locked in the shape they call
rower’s claw.
“I’ve lost about three stone too. It will take a long time to get back to
normal.”
Brown wasn’t an Olympian or even a serious rower before this, just a
26-year-old toy company manager from Surrey who spent his days at a desk at
his father’s family toy distribution firm.
His eyes are bloodshot, from being whipped and sanded by the wind and salty
sea, but the life in them now is startling.
“This race has changed me, but I’m only just finding out how,” he
says as we sit in the Port St Charles yacht club.
“There were moments out there when I thought I just could not go on. The
worst was on New Year’s Day I was knackered and dehydrated and thought, ‘I
really wish this would just end now.’”
Others have been broken by this race. There were 42 entries but only 17 boats
left La Gomera. Six pulled out on the way because of equipment failure,
capsize or just chronic seasickness.
Five are still a very long way from home, including the wounded soldiers on
board the boat Row2Recovery, who had to drift for days when they ran out of
water, until the support ship reached them with fresh supplies.
They are now due home on Thursday. Brown was determined he would make it
without calling for help.
“My heroes are the old-fashioned hardy sailors like Chay Blyth and Robin
Knox-Johnston, who thought that if someone had to come and rescue you, then
you would be putting them in danger. So if you get yourself into trouble,
then you’ve got to get yourself out of it.”
It was a book about one of those heroes that planted the seed of his triumph,
a dozen years ago.
“When I was 14 I read a book by Pete Goss, who had sailed around the
world solo. He had a problem with his elbow and had to perform a little bit
of do-it-yourself surgery.
“I remember reading about him sticking a mirror on his knee, holding the elbow
above the mirror and cutting into it.
“The mirror was full of blood. I thought, ‘What an incredible thing to
do, to be out there all alone on the ocean and reliant on yourself. One day
I would love to go off and do something like that.’”
He smiles. “Obviously it was the adventure I wanted, not necessarily the
surgery.”
Brown rowed naked for most of the way, to avoid the chafing of fabric and sea
salt on skin, but still finished with sores in intimate places and lesions
under his armpits.
Dressed in a T-shirt and shorts now, he sits down gingerly but otherwise looks
deceptively well. “Don’t be fooled. I’m a mess.”
The first major crisis came when the solar batteries that powered the water
pump failed, which meant he had to bail the cockpit of his boat JJ out by
hand – but the sea kept flooding in anyway.
“I sat with my head in my hands, crying, not understanding what was going
on at all, and not knowing the solution at all. I was so tired.”
He called his girlfriend Lucy on the satellite phone and cried again, but she
told him to calm down and think logically.
“Then I noticed that these little bits of plastic along the side of the
boat, called scuppers, which let water out instead of letting it in, had
disappeared.
“I unscrewed a little noteboard in the cabin, chopped it into four pieces,
drilled two holes in and put some elastic around it before putting it in.
Things go wrong. You have to find the answer.”
He was doing DIY on a rolling sea.
“It was relentless. There was no half-time, let’s stop now and have some
oranges.”
Did he ever ask himself why he was doing this?
“I don’t know what I was trying to prove, to be honest. I wasn’t trying
to prove anything to anyone except myself. I don’t know what was missing in
my life. I just know that I needed a challenge.”
Brown was raised in Surrey, a long way from the sea, but got wet as often as
possible.
“I started sailing when I was about seven years old, in a dinghy called
an Optimist. I sail and surf and windsurf. I can’t stand just sitting on a
beach.”
As a teenager he drifted, unsure of what to do with his life.
“I didn’t know what the plan was. I did enjoy reading economics at
Exeter, but more for the sailing than the academic side of things. Then I
had no idea what I was going to do afterwards.”
His first job was in recruitment.
“I hated it and left. Then I was at a loss for what to do again. I
figured that if I went skiing, that would help.
“So I worked for a ski holiday firm, and in the summers I taught sailing in
Minorca and delivered yachts. Two years later, I hadn’t really progressed.”
In desperation, his father offered a job at his toy company, Flair.
“I like the toy industry, it is fun dealing with a different mindset,
making things for children who can be irrational, but it’s just nine to
five.
“When I heard about this race, and I thought about the heroes I had as a
child, I thought I’d give it a go. There seemed to be no reason I couldn’t
do it. Unless I couldn’t, of course. ”
The first thing to prove was his physical fitness. Brown did this by setting
up a rowing machine near Liverpool Street station and setting a new world
record, by keeping going for 25 hours without stopping.
“I was so tired at the end of it, but then I had the knowledge that I
could do it.”
At the start of the transatlantic race he would build up a commanding lead by
rowing for 12 hours straight, resting for three then rowing for 24 more.
His new girlfriend, Lucy Ryan, had started dating a nice, quiet lad from the
Home Counties – but had to cope with his growing obsession with the
challenge.
“It is a lot to ask, to be with someone who is barely there. The
preparation took up more and more time, with the planning and the training
and the fund raising.”
Brown chose to support the Toy Trust and Help A London Child, and has so fair
raised £88,080.
“It was hard on Lucy. I tried to keep it all separate from our
relationship, but in the end she said, ‘Look, can’t I just help?’ So when
the dried food arrived, we spent hours packing it up together. She has been
fantastic.”
Was he lonely on the ocean? “I shouted at myself a lot. I would get
really down and start shouting, ‘Come on Brown!’ That was a bit weird.”
He also talked to the seven-metre boat. “It was a joint effort. She was
security and protection. I didn’t have a pet name. It was just me and her.”
What will happen to her now? “She’s now going to an American guy, to do
the Pacific. I’m definitely going to follow it online to see how she gets on.”
To see if he treats her right? “Exactly.” The first time I ever saw
Andrew Brown was miles out to sea, close to the finishing line at North
Point. He looked lost and desolate, an impression that turns out to be true.
“I just wanted it to be over. I got terribly confused, I didn’t know
where I was. I hadn’t slept for 40 hours. People were shouting out
directions as I came into the marina, but I was in such a state, I couldn’t
tell my right from my left.”
There were cheers and tears as his mother and father, Penny and Peter, willed
the light on the bow of the tiny vessel towards them, reaching out and
calling, “This way, this way!” He got up, stepped on to the
pontoon and fell over.
“I was really alarmed, I thought, ‘I can’t walk.’ But then I hadn’t
really tried for 40 days.”
Flash guns went off and microphones were thrust under his nose.
“It was overwhelming. I thought, ‘Who are these people and why are they
all here?’ I didn’t know what to do, how to behave. And having to talk,
after so long alone, was a struggle. Suddenly, I was being asked questions
and had to think.”
The wooden planks seemed to shift beneath him like the sea.
“I have never been so pleased to get into bed, ever. The bed at the hotel
here was soft and clean and felt enormous. I slept like a log, only
disturbed by the fact I was rowing in my sleep. Apparently, my hands were
twitching.”
Is he ready for the quiet life now?
“Honestly, I don’t think I could put people through that again. These are
really selfish things to do. My Dad has been pretty worried the whole time.
“I still want to push and challenge myself but on smaller events. There were
times out there when I was thinking, ‘I can’t wait to be back at my desk,
thinking about toys.’
“But there were times I felt nervous about going back to real life,
thinking, ‘This is amazing, I don’t want to go back to commuting.’”
So he’s already conflicted.
The rower Steve Redgrave famously once said after a victory that if anyone
ever saw him in a boat again, they should shoot him – then he went on to win
more Olympic medals.
Lucy and his parents know Andrew Brown is not the same young man who left La
Gomera in the Canary Islands, Spain, on December 5.
He’s bruised and battered, but much stronger mentally and emotionally.
And there’s that look in his eyes. Can he really promise them he will never
take on a big adventure like this again? “Well,” he says, a smile
spreading across his face, “maybe in a couple of years.”
More Optimist Sailing News on: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/579330/s/1c07c07c/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cnews0Cworldnews0Ccentralamericaandthecaribbean0Cbarbados0C90A297750CFrom0Eshy0Etoy0Eseller0Eto0Etanned0Eadventurer0Ethe0Estory0Eof0Ehow0Eone0Eman0Erowed0Eacross0Ethe0EAtlantic0Bhtml/story01.htm