Glasgow student and his brothers break record for rowing across the Atlantic

Three brothers from Edinburgh, including Glasgow Philosophy student Lachlan MacLean, have smashed the world record for rowing across the Atlantic by six days.

21-year-old Lachlan, 26-year-old Jamie, and 27-year-old Ewan, rowed from La Gomera in Spain to Antigua in the Caribbean.

They completed the journey in 35 days, nine hours and nine minutes, beating the previous world record of 41 days.

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The MacLean brothers were taking part in this year's Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, in which teams of rowers compete to cross the Atlantic in the shortest amount of time.

They finished first among trios, beating teams of four and five people and setting three world records in total.

These include becoming the first three brothers to row across any ocean and the youngest trio to row across the Atlantic.

The team set out from Spain on December 12th last year, and completed the 3,000-mile ocean crossing despite spending the last 20 days of the trip without any music, podcasts or audiobooks, as a result of water and sun damage to their phone cables.

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They entertained themselves with instruments kept on board, and managed to overcome seasickness, battery issues, storms, dehydration and exhaustion.

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Ewan, a design engineer for Dyson in Bristol, described the trip as "incredibly difficult", but he says he will be "forever grateful" to his brothers for convincing him to take part.

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He said: "This was, without doubt, the defining experience of my life.

"It definitely tested our relationship, but it was remarkable how we were able to lift each other up as we struggled.

"It’s brought us closer together, although I am looking forward to getting to see and talk to some different people.

"We don’t do things by halves, so we were always going to go for a World Record."

Ewan didn't rule out further world record attempts, teasingly commenting: "Who knows what comes next? We'll be eyeing up other oceans."

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So far, the brothers have raised £110,582 for the charities Feedback Madagascar and Children First, and they are hoping to reach their fundraising target of £250,000; the donation link can be found here.

Featured image credit: SWNS