Food for Rowing the Atlantic Ocean

Have you ever fantasized about what it would be like to spend over a month rowing a boat? Across the Atlantic Ocean? With a bunch of blokes? Well, you don’t need to anymore, because apparently, this is a thing. The Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge is a 4800km long rowing competition that people take part in voluntarily. We at Jimmy Joy think this is both tough and scary, so we’re supporting a couple of teams from the comfort of our office.

Turns out our sponsored teams kicked some serious butts as they all completed the contest with 1.5 million strokes per rower. The Dutch Atlantic Four finished first overall and Atlantic Discovery finished sixth overall while fifth in five. But the Nauti Buoys avoided some rowing spanking by finishing first in five and breaking the frenetic world record. Feeling like proud parents at our kids’ graduation ceremony, we asked the Nauti Buoys a few questions about their journey and how they managed to be so cool.

First of all, why the hell did they go on this suicide mission?

Each team member had a different reason for participating in the race. But, the theme that was encompassed was to get out of our comfort zones, create lasting memories, and attempt to obtain the 5-man world record.

And so they did. They broke the world record in 36 days, 19 hours and 9 minutes. The only record anyone on our team broke was balancing the fullest Plenny Shakers on their head, and that ended up… messy.

So what did you eat during that time?

We consumed an entire bag of Plenny shake every day, as well as 3-5 rehydrated meals. The shakes proved to be crucial to our performance. Paul got dizzy for the first few days and was unable to keep down rehydrated food. He doubled up on Plenny Shake for the first few weeks, getting all of his nutritional needs from shakes and chocolate bars. We also used the shake as a form of desserts during the day (vanilla was a favorite) to boost our energy intake. The shakes were our main source of nutrition at night – we were able to save time and minimize sleep by making a quick shake right before bed. This was much quicker than eating a meal with the same nutritional content!

On average, rowers lose 12kg each while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. How did this work for your team?

Our team had the lowest weight loss of all the teams, Matt only lost 2kg!

"That's mind blowing (or should I say mind rowing)". Especially when you consider that they burned 5000 (!) calories per day.

Did you experience any big moments of realization or epiphany during the trip?

During our crossing, we saw the effect of plastic pollution on a daily basis. There wasn’t a day when we didn’t see a floating bottle or piece of plastic. The team took great care to keep all rubbish on board and dispose of it properly upon arrival. We are very happy to have been supported by Jimmy Joy as they do everything they can to reduce packaging waste and its impact on the environment.

"Aw stahp, you're making us blush." ​​Is it true that each rower is expected to use only 800 sheets of toilet paper during the entire crossing period?

Yeah.

That's tough.

Yeah.