“We always say, ‘there is power in technology,’ but it wasn’t until I was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, closer to people in space than on land, battling 60ft waves, and still able to hear the comfort of my mother’s voice on the end of a Teams call, that this statement became true.” – Anna McLean
On December 19, 2019, Anna and Cameron McLean, the brother and sister rowing pair also known as the Seablings, embarked on the journey of a lifetime: competing in the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge, the “World’s Toughest Row.” Over 3,000 nautical miles, 43 days, 15 hours, and 22 minutes later, the Seablings completed the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge and set two world records, becoming the first brother and sister pair to row an ocean and the fastest mixed-sex pair to row across the Atlantic.
For Anna, this accomplishment was long in the making. Anna fell in love with rowing in college, following in her brother’s footsteps, and ended up joining the D1 Varsity team at Clemson University. Seven years ago, she was inspired to conquer the Atlantic after reading a book by Roz Savage, the first woman to ever row across the Atlantic Ocean. According to Anna, “from that day on, it was a matter of when.”
In preparing for the race, Anna knew how important communication with both their support crew and family members would be. To help them push through the grueling physical and mental battle ahead of them, the Seablings turned to Microsoft Teams.
“Access to Microsoft Teams certainly gave us a competitive advantage:
Compete vs Survive: Just after a brutal first week, we received a Teams call from back home. It was our dad. “You’re doing really well, but just so you know, some solo crews are beating you”. What? How? We thought we had been rowing hard, but the reality was, we had simply been rowing to survive, and it was time to start rowing to compete. On land our support crew had access to a live tracker showing the speed, distance travelled, and co-ordinates of each crew. This data updated every four hours. At first, we didn’t realize this data would be important to us, but the more competitive we got, the more updates from land we received. Staying in frequent communication with the ability to receive images enabled us to stay competitive, stay hungry, and calculate our efforts to gain on crews. As soon as we gained some momentum there was no stopping us, and by the end we finished third in our category.
Sickness: We rowed in shifts of two hours on, two hours off, which meant we didn’t get more than 90 minutes of sleep at a time for over a month. Major sleep deprivation, along with hunger, a confined space, and exposed to the excruciating sun certainly meant tensions were high between us. But all of this combined with sickness, the situation was life threatening. Amongst the constant rocking of the boat, the force of the waves causes your oars bash into your ribs and scrape your knees. My brother got an infection in a small cut on his knee, which ended up spreading to his blood. With Cameron, confined to the cabin with a fever, I found myself rowing 36 hours straight. We were fortunate to communicate with our land-based crew via Teams during this time and they helped us to gather our thoughts, and a clear perspective on the situation. We followed the much-appreciated support and guidance from land, and together we came back even stronger than before.
Storm Coming: Through Microsoft Teams, our support crew provided us with predictions in the weather and information around upcoming storms. As a tiny rowing boat averaging 2.3kts we did not have the ability to navigate away from any bad storms coming, however this knowledge gave us an advantage as it helped us to prepare our vessel for the changes. Cloud coverage meant we had to reserve our battery power (solar powered). In turn rationing our water and therefore the food we ate. Preparing sooner rather than later allowed us to secure items on deck that we were at risk of losing, such as our spare oars which were crucial in case anymore broke.” – Anna McLean
But the Seablings’ ambitions didn’t end after that fateful row in the Atlantic. Next up, Anna and Cameron have their sights set on the Pacific Ocean, and Microsoft Teams is ready to support them on this next adventure and the many more to come.
To read more stories of people making the most of their 365, like Anna, check out the Microsoft 365 Stories page.
