Adventurer Jamie Douglas-Hamilton says his final rowing challenge in the world’s treacherous waters left him with the worst pain he’s ever felt.
“I still can’t feel my fingertips or wiggle my toes,” he says.
“I couldn’t even get from my bed to the bathroom without holding onto things along the way.”
Jamie was part of a crew of six battling 10m waves, crippling seasickness, freezing winds and constant terror in the Southern Antarctic Ocean and Scotia Sea.
They completed 407 miles in six days before high winds and the risk of frostbite caused them to end the challenge early.
Jamie said conditions had been “horrendous” from the start and the crew narrowly escaped a fast-moving ice stream while exiting King George Island.
The 41-year-old adventurer from Edinburgh suffered a snap of frosts on his hands and feet during the frigid range that became unbearable upon his arrival home.
The trip was originally scheduled for December 2021 but had to be postponed when Jamie discovered he was suffering from a heart condition which he believes would have killed him on the trip.
He accepted the challenge just five months after his open-heart surgery in August 2022, which left him feeling like he’d been hit by a bus.
The international crew departed January 11 from King George Island, 120 km (75 miles) off the coast of Antarctica in the Southern Ocean.
For six days, they rowed in 90-minute shifts.
The challenge took them via Elephant Island to Laurie Island, the second largest of the South Orkney Islands – some 604 km (375 miles) northeast of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
They originally planned to drive another 500 miles to South Georgia, but the conditions were too harsh.
“We all suffered from some degree of seasickness and one member had chronic seasickness to the point where he was unable to keep food or liquid down and was evacuated to the surveillance ship that was following us before he developed hypothermia was,” Jamie said.
“The strong westerly and northwesterly winds made it increasingly unlikely to get far enough north to reach South Georgia and if we had continued we would have had less than a 50% chance of getting there.
“This became all the more evident when one rower fell out and several others developed frostbite.”
Jamie added: “The waves were huge and it was like looking at fast-moving walls of water the size of warehouses.
“Many times we came so close to capsizing completely in the freezing cold water. That was very worrying.
“These rowboats are designed for the warm weather of mid-Atlantic crossings and the cabins were like cold, damp refrigerators with everything soaking wet, including our sleeping bags.
“Our legs would shake uncontrollably at times and then this would migrate to our upper body and be close to hypothermia.”
The team had to deal with huge 10-meter waves on the expedition
Although the challenge ended early, the crew set eight world records, including the longest distance rowed in the Southern Ocean.
Jamie said he took on the expedition in honor of Harry McNish – the “forgotten hero” of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s endurance voyage that attempted to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent.
McNish was on Shackleton’s ill-fated voyage, which ended in the expedition ship being sunk by pack ice in October 1915.
Although McNish built a new boat on the pack ice with his hands frozen, he was denied the polar medal for falling out with Shackleton.
He used flour and seal blood to seal the hull and without him they would all have perished.
Jamie is demanding the Polar Medal be awarded posthumously to McNish, who died penniless in New Zealand after frostbite from the trip left him unable to use his hands.
Jamie Douglas-Hamilton with Harry McNish’s great-nephew, John McNish
Jamie has previously completed three other dangerous rowing challenges.
He was part of a team that rowed from Chile to Antarctica in 2019 and rowed the Drakes Passage.
He said that although this latest spat only lasted six days, it was tougher than his previous ones and it could take months for the frost in his fingers and feet to fully recover.
Jamie said: “Despite all the suffering, there were beautiful moments – being chased by penguins, whales, orcas and seeing huge icebergs the size of cities.”
Sir Ranulph Fiennes, hailed by the Guinness Book of World Records as “the world’s greatest living explorer”, said: “I rowed all the way up the Thames from Windsor to Henley once, but rowed in 90-minute shifts, eight times per day in the world’s coldest, harshest seas in less than five months after open-heart surgery is inspiring.”
The world records of the Shackleton Mission:
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First row from Antarctica
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First row on Scotia Sea
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First row in the Southern Ocean from south to north
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Fastest rowing in the Southern Ocean
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Fastest polar series
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Southernmost start of a rowing expedition
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Longest rowing distance in the Southern Ocean (407 miles)
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Most series in the Southern Ocean are two by Jamie Douglas-Hamilton (UK), Fiann Paul (Iceland)
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