Completely Mad
Tom McClean, John Fairfax, and the Epic of the Race to Row Solo Across the Atlantic
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4.1 • 7 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of The First Man comes a sweeping saga involving two extraordinary—and extraordinarily different—adventurers who have only one thing in common: the ambition to cross the Atlantic in a rowboat . . . alone.
In this bracing adventure tale, the stories of John Fairfax and Tom McLean are woven together for the first time. Fairfax would set off from the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa with his sights on Florida. McClean charted a course from Newfoundland to Ireland.
The two men couldn’t have been more different. John Fairfax was a golden-haired playboy, gambler, whiskey, gun smuggler, and ex-pirate who blamed his boat often, and who brazenly took time off from his goal of reaching America to hop aboard large ships for a drink, a shower, and good food. He courted the press like a modern-day Richard Branson or Elon Musk.
The egoless Tom McClean was an orphan with a tough, Dickensian childhood, who ran off to become a British paratrooper and later joined the SAS (his training rivaled the U.S. Navy Seals). Tom was a purist who loved his boat Silver and never once took time off from rowing to sun himself on a remote beach or jump aboard a cruise ship. After 70 days, he landed on the rocky coast of Ireland to no fanfare and headed straight to the nearest pub.
Though the two men’s remarkable transoceanic journeys seem pulled from a different era, both embarked within days of the first landing on the Moon: July 20th, 1969.
Filled with gale-force winds, backbreaking effort, menacing sharks, playful dolphins, awing natural beauty, great mishaps, failed equipment, hyperthermia, near-drowning, the fighting of mental and physical lethargy, creative problem-solving, phantom illusions on the water, and glorious moments of bliss, Completely Mad stands alongside other classics of ocean adventure.
With gripping and insightful prose, James R. Hansen brings to life Fairfax and McLean's expeditions, from their battle with the elements to their own inner demons. Completely Mad is a nail-biting, epic tale of endurance, and readers will be gripped until the end to find out who won.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this colorful account, Hansen (First Man), a history professor at Auburn University, narrates the 1969 voyages undertaken by two British men to cross the Atlantic by rowboat. Drawing on interviews with McClean (Fairfax died in 2012), Hansen writes that the two were nearly diametrical opposites: Fairfax, 31, was a "profligate gambler playboy," and 26-year-old McClean was a paratrooper who'd overcome a hardscrabble childhood. The men began from opposite ends of the Atlantic—McClean departed Newfoundland on May 17 and headed toward Ireland about four months after Fairfax had launched from the Canary Islands aiming for Florida. Hansen captures in vivid, sometimes visceral detail both the physical challenges (McClean's hands swelled so severely that he could barely grasp the oars, and he bit open the blisters to release the water) and psychological tolls (in a ship log, Fairfax describes "shedding the veneer with which civilization had coated my animal instincts") the men endured. In the end, Fairfax finished about a week before his rival, though only after 180 grueling days at sea. Hansen's spirited entry provides a riveting examination of the human will to survive, and readers will be fascinated—if occasionally mystified—by the determination the men displayed. This is perfect for those seeking adventure without leaving their couch.
