In six months from now, Ed Dewar (C96) will set off from La Gomera, 300km west of mainland Africa, in an attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Not in a plane, nor a ferry, not even in a wind-powered boat… but in a rowing boat!
Ed Dewar relates: ‘Thankfully I won’t be facing this unfamiliar and seemingly insurmountable challenge alone – I will be the only man in a crew of four. Yes, I’ve found three women as mad as me to make the crossing, by hand, and face one of nature’s most frightening environments.
Aside from the endurance challenge of rowing 3,000 miles across the world’s second-largest ocean, we will navigate through waters more than five miles deep, and over waves of up to 40 feet. Nature, as far as I can recall, has never thrown me more than 10 feet in the air (surfing). Nor have I been suspended more than a mile or two above solid ground (outside the comfort of a plane). It would be a little premature at this point to offer too much profundity, but let’s just say that the enormity of this unfathomable place we call Earth, will for the first time be revealed to me, in both wonderous and terrifying ways.
Beyond the start line, the routine will involve two-hour shifts: two hours on (rowing) and two hours off (sleeping). After some 50 days at sea in a rowing boat that won’t feel a great deal bigger than my car, we hope to end our journey, with both bodies and friendship intact, in Antigua.
But the greatest physical and mental challenge I have ever faced (by choice), has been underway for some time. Training, about ten hours of puff per week, is in full flow. Endless sea-faring courses; the slow drip of equipping our boat with an arsenal of technology to navigate and survive; and a giant fundraising effort to heave us to that start line on 12th December, take up every hour we can find in between work and sleep.
So at this point, you may well be asking, why this insanity?
Well, there are many reasons, some of which I will unpick over the coming months (see Insanity or lucidity? You decide in LikedIn) But if I am to offer up a prelude, then above all I want to help inspire loved ones, friends and people; I want to explore my own mental fragilities in an honest milieu in which there is no escaping oneself; I want to overcome the mirage of impossibility, and to push the boundaries of opportunity; I want to mark special memories and honour the legacies of those who would approve of a wee paddle across a very large pond! But the motive that will no doubt resonate most with those less familiar with the depths of my somewhat cryptic reasoning, will be to help others less fortunate than me.
I will use this experience to raise awareness, and funds, for a charity called Blesma. The British Limbless Ex-Service Mens Association, a cause I have come to appreciate through my own experiences in and around the army, strives to enable limbless war veterans to lead independent and fulfilling lives. Whilst I don’t take lightly the scale of the challenge and sacrifice I will face, it will be brought back into razor-sharp perspective by some extraordinary human beings who have put their lives on the line, for us, with consequences we cannot even begin to imagine.
Downside is no stranger to ocean rowing. Ben Stenning (S99), a contemporary of mine at the School, crossed the Indian Ocean from Western Australia to Mauritius in 2011. Their tenacious crossing was chronicled by his rowing partner James Adair in a brilliant book called Rowing After The White Whale.
I hope that by embarking on my route across the Atlantic I can help inspire Downside pupils and OGs in the same way that Ben and James did.
To find out more about our team visit our Ebb & Flow website.’