Fresh off the exhaustion and satisfaction of summiting the top of the world – Mt. Everest – in 2017, adventurer Andrew Towne of Minneapolis said his next plans were more down-to-earth: maybe ballroom dancing, martial arts or orienteering.
But plans change.
Beginning next week, Towne and five others will attempt to row a vessel across a stretch of ocean that gives even hardened mariners nightmares.
The team plans to row from the tip of South America to Antarctica through the 600-mile Drake Passage, connecting the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern oceans.
Towne barely had recovered from Everest when his next adventure became clear. A former crewing teammate at Yale, Matt Brown, set a speed record rowing across the Atlantic Ocean.
"I realized that everything he loved was what I loved," Towne said, of the physical and mental demands. "I thought, 'This is it: ocean rowing.' How did I not think of this before?"
Towne, 37, has prepared during sessions with the Minneapolis Rowing Club ("raining and cold weekends," he said) and also a test run with his team in August off the coast of Scotland. His boatmates are a who's who of adventurers and rowing record-holders. Fiann Paul of Iceland, Cameron Bellamy of South Africa and Jamie Douglas-Hamilton of Scotland were part of a crew that set a Guinness World mark when they covered 5,000 miles across the Indian Ocean in 2014. The fifth member is Colin O'Brady of the United States who became the first person to traverse Antarctica solo and unsupported in a trek last year. John Petersen, another Yale crewing alum, also is aboard.
"I'm more excited about the group than the route," Towne said (shown third from left). If they succeed, Towne said they'll be the first to row unaided all the way to the Antarctic peninsula. In 1988, adventurer Ned Gillette and a team rowed the Drake Passage, using a small sail at times on their 28-foot vessel.
