Three Scottish brothers just launched a non-stop 9,000-mile rowing trip from Peru to Australia. They will not have a backup crew tagging along. Sounds crazy, right? Except the Macleans have pulled off something like this before. The trio set three world records on an unsupported row across the Atlantic Ocean in 2020. Now, they hope to become the fastest paddlers to cross the full length of the Pacific. They expect the trip will take more than 120 days to complete. Their goal is to raise £1 million ($1.3 million) to fund clean water projects in Madagascar, a country they love. The Macleans are also making the voyage in honor of Rose Emily, the baby girl their mother lost during pregnancy. Their boat is named after her. The craft is crammed with toilet paper and a half-ton of fatty, freeze dried food. The brothers left from Lima on April 12. Ewan Maclean, 33, told the Edinburgh Evening News that they got the idea for the challenge during their last row. "We started thinking about how we could spend more time at sea and help more people, and this daft challenge was born … It’s an awful long time. But if we want to raise a million pounds for a cause that means so much to us, we had to go for something big.” Maclean and his brothers Jamie, 31, and Lachlan, 26, are rowing in shifts. That will allow them to take turns to sleep. They hope to arrive in Sydney on August 2. "It's definitely daunting, but we've prepared so long that we're desperate to get going," Lachlan Maclean told the BBC. "In many ways we're a bit weird – I'm probably happier on the water. I've never been good at replying to emails, and now I have the best excuse in the world." Reflect: How do you decide which causes are worth supporting? Photo of the Maclean brothers from Instagram courtesy of @themacleanbrothers.
