Oban community hub The Rockfield Centre brings adventurer and world record rower Jamie Douglas-Hamilton to town on May 9.
The 15 times Guinness World record holder and first person in history to row across the Drake Passage from South America to Antarctica will be re-telling how he made the first human powered roughest-sea crossing of the Southern Ocean and was the first to row to Antarctica.
Tickets, available on the door, are £10 each and proceeds from this not-to-be-missed opportunity will be split between the British Heart Foundation and The Rockfield Centre. It starts at 7pm with doors opening at 6.30pm.
Less than five months after having open heart surgery for a life-threatening leaking aortic valve, Jamie - who also rowed from Australia to Africa in 2014 - was part of a six-man team crossing from Antarctica to South Orkney islands.
It took 13 days and more than 700 miles in a boat that was just 29 feet long. Jamie dedicated that mission in honour of unsung hero Harry McNish who was shunned and denied the polar medal by Shackleton, yet was the real hero that saved all the crew of the doomed Imperial Trans Antarctica Expedition.
McNish, who died in 1930 and was nickname Chippy, was the expedition’s carpenter. When The Endurance became trapped in pack ice in the Weddell Sea and was destroyed, it was Chippy who modified a small boat that allowed Shackleton and five men, including himself, to make a voyage of hundreds of miles to fetch help for the rest of the crew.
The relationship between Shackleton and the outspoken McNish was described as “difficult” and Shackleton awarded almost all of his team the Polar Medal, excluding McNish.
Jamie wants to put that right, dedicating his Drake Passage expedition towards McNish receiving a posthumous Polar Medal. He believes none of the crew would have survived if it had not been for Chippy.
As well as making a name for himself as an adventurer, Jamie is also an entrepreneur. His experiences at sea led him to start up the the UK’s first alkaline ionised bottled water brand - ACTiPH. During his 2014 Australia to Africa voyage, he found that freshwater mixed with seawater was more hydrating than freshwater alone - increasing power, energy levels and reducing hallucinations.
You can find out more here at www.therockfieldcentre.org.uk/
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