Interview from the Indian Ocean — Rob Barton on his Guinness World Record Challenge

Where are you now, Rob?

Right now, I’m pretty squarely in the middle of the ocean. So that is equidistant between Carnarvon and Madagascar at the moment.

That’s incredible. And you’ve been on the water now for over a month?

This is my sixth week. Week five passed yesterday so this is the first day of week six.

The big question everyone wants to know the answer to is: Why on earth are you doing this?

[Laughs]. Motivations change as you move along … originally when I started doing this, I thought it was a bit of an adventure. I read about someone else doing something similar and thought, ‘That sounds great’, it’s something that nobody’s ever done before; no one has gone non-stop from continent to continent; they’ve stopped along the way.

But interestingly, one I started — just a few days out. I hadn’t eaten anything, I was seasick, the boat was leaking, and I had water all over the floor of the cabin. And I actually started rowing back. I spent about two hours rowing back. But after about two hours — I wouldn’t quite say I had an epiphany but … Your motivations do change. It went from, ‘OK, well I’ve had my adventure and had enough of that’ to, ‘The reason I’m doing this really is to raise money from Zero2Hero’. I just felt, within those two hours when I was going the wrong way, that there was a real reason for doing it.

Zero2Hero is a mental health charity and they go into schools, they run camps, and they really do education for youth and young person’s mental health and suicide prevention and general mental health wellbeing. It’s a great charity and I was keen to support them.

Can we ask you a little bit about the boat? Can you paint the picture of what exactly your environment looks like?

It’s pretty cramped. When I started this journey, based on the times that other people have completed it, I thought it was going to take me about six months. I think it’s going to be quicker now. But, as a result of that, I’ve got six months’ worth of food on board! So there’s not a lot of space. It’s just over six meters, maybe a seven-metre-long boat. There’s a cabin at the front, which you can kneel in (just). You can lie down in it, I can stretch out full length, so a full six feet to lie out in. But it’s very narrow. The other half is full up of food and supplies.

And then there’s a rowing deck. So where I sleep actually goes back underneath the rowing deck and the boat, it’s actually designed for two people. And two people actually took the boat to Mauritius a few years ago. But because of the distance that I was going and the amount of supplies I thought I’d need, it was recommended that I get a two-man boat.

So there are two rowing positions and then after that, there’s another very small cabinet, which is just used for storage.

You’re having to physically work hard to do this for hours on end. How did you prepare and train for this?

Last winter, I spent quite a lot of time on the rowing ERG and I have a small rowing boat, which I take up and down the coast and do a bit of rowing ... but I have to say that … I didn’t do very much rowing at all. I’m quite active down at the local surf club and do a lot of surfski paddling, a bit of board paddling and that’s much more fun, I have to say, than rowing! So I spent most of my time actually doing surfski paddling, not rowing!

Somebody said to me, you can only train for the first five days and after those first five days, when you’re out there, you’re training for the next five days and so on. So I kind of took that on board and I got through the first five days and I’ve been training for the next five days ever since!

You do have a companion, in the form of Wilson the football (inspiration from the movie Cast Away). Tell us a little bit about how Wilson came about.

Wilson was given to me for my birthday last year or it might have been Christmas by some family members. He’s come along with me and he’s been making regular appearances on my Facebook, Instagram, and even TikTok, I think, he’s made it onto as well. He’s a grumpy git though. Someone said he’s obviously been to the Monty Python School of Acting and I think that’s about right.

You had to put on quite a bit of weight before your row — why did you decide to do that?

Before I started putting on weight, I was pretty lean; there wasn’t a lot of fat on me. I’d read that other ocean [travellers] routinely lost 15–25 kilos. So, I kind of figured out it was the sensible thing to do, to put some weight on. So I bulked up, I went to the gym as well — a couple of days a week of gym training on top of the ocean training. I think we put on a good 20 kilos and probably more than half of that was just fat and a good chunk of that is gone already!

The first five days I barely ate, I was just so sick. I suffered from seasickness really for the first three weeks.

What has been your biggest challenge so far?

[The seasickness]. When you’re sick, everything just tastes horrible. And normally I’m not [sick]. I haven’t been seasick since I was a child ... So it came as a surprise to me that I was seasick.

The motion of a rowing boat is horrible. It’s not just up and down motion, it’s rocking from side to side on quite a regular basis. And when you come down a big wave and there is disturbed water at the bottom, it is really a very uncomfortable motion. So, it took me a while to get used to that.

Can you walk us through your typical daily routine?

I get up at dawn; the sun wakes me, which is quite nice. Then basically it’s clearing the deck of dead fish. There are lots of tiny little flying fish that are no more than a pinkie size or smaller. The other day there were about 60 of them on there! Often the deck is reasonably clear, if it’s a rough day, the water comes over and keeps washing them away. But on a calm day; there are about 40–50 fish. So I clear fish and then I get rowing.

I eat breakfast while I row and I row for about three hours. I have a morning call catch-up with my support person Neil, who gives me weather updates and routing information and the suggested course. And then it’s back to rowing. I eat lunch while rowing, I have tea while rowing.

Then I scrub myself down with a cold flannel wash (salt wash to start with, rinse off with fresh water) and then it’s into the cabin to write up my journal and send it to the engineer who publishes it [on Facebook] and then back to bed!

I’ve been reading your Facebook blog, which is fascinating. There’s a lot about the winds pushing you off course and you trying to battle the winds. How are you ensuring that you’re not firstly, not being blown over and two, sticking to course?

I have had one capsize and I ended up in this sea. There’s a good chance there’s a bit of a blow coming … on Saturday (3 June) through to Wednesday (7 June). So I’m expecting quite a big blow; maybe 50–60km/h winds. Then you will get big seas … you could end up on a day with a four-metre swell (which is what they’re forecasting; 4.2 metres) and then you get waves on top of that and then sometimes you get dumped with the odd sets now and again. So the average might be four metres but you get the odd six- to eight-metre swell coming through.

And if you’re not at the right angle, it can capsize the boat.

I haven’t had a 360 [degree] rollover yet. I’ve only had capsized and got back in again but who knows?

How are you staying positive?

[Laughs]. You just don’t have a choice. Well, you do have a choice; you could choose to be miserable or you can choose to be happy and enjoy it.

I love being on the ocean, it’s such a beautiful place. [Usually] it’s being out on my surfSki — and usually only for an hour and within sight of land — but it’s great, it’s lovely out here.

Even on the days of big seas — it’s exhilarating whizzing down waves. I have a boat speed record of 10.4 knots, which is about 20km/h. That's not fast for people in cars but…

… That’s fast for a row boat!

It’s fast ... you have water cascading over the decks and it’s just … Yeah, you just feel so alive.

Are you tied to the boat?

Yeah, at all times. Even on a beautiful calm day, I’m strapped to the boat.

There have been plenty of cases where boats have been found intact, nothing wrong with them, but no person on board. If you go over, the boat is moving faster than I can swim. So I am tied on the whole time.

I wear a leg leash and that is tied onto a safety line that I can then pull back and be connected with the boat.

What are the best things you’ve experienced so far, what have you learned?

I think just realising what the boat is capable of and the confidence that it gives you.

So, haring down waves at 10 knots is great fun. It’s quite exhausting if you have a day of full-on adrenaline, it can be pretty draining, but it’s great fun.

I think you just learn also what you are capable of. You realise, when you are out here, there is no one else. Since leaving [Western Australia], I’ve seen two … three ships. There are not a lot of people out here.

What advice would you give to anyone else in the industry looking to push themselves physically or mentally by doing something like this?

I think for me, it was a journey to get here. It was something that I wanted to do for quite a long time.

Most brokers are self-employed and for me, I spent the last two years getting my business into position where I was able to walk away from it and have a degree of confidence that — when I come back in six months (well that was what I planned, but it might be earlier) at the end of this journey … there would still be a business there.

BrokerEngine is one of the people sponsoring me and it was about putting in tools like that, working with Broker Ideas Group (James Veigli and his team) to put the processes in place, and to build a team — not just have a one-man business — that is capable of keeping everything going while you’re away.

… My holidays used to include a laptop and three hours a day dealing with clients. But now, to actually be able to come away for three to six months and step away, that’s probably the biggest achievement of all, to be honest. Because it’s hard to leave the business you’ve built.

Apart from the Guinness World Record Challenge — what else do you want to achieve from your row?

The number one thing for me right now, the focus, is all about raising money for Zero2Hero … And a lot of brokers I know already have, so to those guys: thank you very much. Brokers I know have already been on there and donated.

But for anyone who would like to contribute, I have a $300,000 fundraising targets to hit that I’d really, really, really like support from the broking community to get there. That would be fantastic.

Any advice for others looking to do something similar?

If you’ve got something you want to do; it doesn’t have to be something like this — for some people, it might be going on a track and doing one of those long amazing walks… [inaudible]

Whatever your goals or ambitions you have, it’s just about finding the time and space in your life to do it.

DONATE

You can donate to Rob’s Australia2Africa row here and keep track of his progress via his Facebook page here.

You can hear directly from Rob Barton on his rowing adventure in the Elite Broker podcast. Tune in to the episode with Rob, recorded on his satellite phone from the Indian Ocean, below:

[Related: Perth broker attempts to become 1st person to row non-stop to Africa]