Rowing from New York to the UK: The full 56 days at sea

The boat went fully upside down. Two men were in the Atlantic, clipped on by a line. A third was inside the cabin, hitting his head hard on the way over.

Seconds later the boat rolled upright. And Adam Radcliffe picked up his camera and filmed a calm vlog.

That is how four British men handled day 7 of a row from New York to Britain. They kept going for another 49 days.

How did four men row from New York to the UK?

They rowed it with nobody following them. No support boat, no spare crew, just a small ocean rowing boat and four men taking turns.

The crew was Adam Radcliffe, Jack Jarvis, David Bruce and Sam Edwards, according to Guinness World Records. In the video they call each other Nutty, Brucey and Jack. They left Liberty Landing Marina in New York in June 2025. They aimed for the Isles of Scilly, off the south-west tip of England.

Adam posted the full story on YouTube on 25 September 2026. It has passed 1.2 million views.

They planned about 45 days. It took 56 days, 5 hours and 6 minutes, Guinness says. They set off on 19 June and landed on 15 August.

The shifts never changed. Three hours of rowing, three hours of rest, day and night, for two months. Two men row while two rest, so the boat never stops.

Photo: Joe Mabel (on Flickr as Joe Mabel from Seattle, US) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

What happened in the first week at sea?

They rowed straight into a thunderstorm. A viewer says they were on Governors Island on 19 June when that storm hit, and ran for their lives. The rowers were heading out into it.

Night one was no easier. Half a litre of sea water got into the sleeping cabin. The crew call that cabin "the coffin". It is tiny, it gets as hot as a sauna, and the door cannot open in rough seas.

On day 7 a huge wave hit during a storm. The boat was riding on a parachute anchor, a big underwater sail that holds the bow into the waves. The wave flipped it. Adam and Jack went into the ocean. Both were clipped on, and the boat righted itself in seconds.

Nutty was inside the cabin and banged his head badly. Adam then filmed that calm vlog. Later, Brucey and Nutty finished a bottle of whiskey on deck.

The wave also took two shoes. It broke the deck repeater, the screen that shows the boat's heading. So at night they steered by the stars and the moon.

Then more kit failed. The AIS broke, the system that tells ships where you are. So did the VHF radio. From then on someone had to keep a manual lookout so a ship would not run them over.

On day 6 the speaker had already died. There was no music for the next 50 days. Only one of their four chargers still worked by the end.

What went wrong with the boat and the kit?

The toilet was a bucket. By the end, the crew say, it was cracking.

Adam said on day 10 what he wanted most. A full English breakfast. A latte. "The warm embrace of a woman." And to be off the boat.

Did they really break a world record?

Yes. On day 12 to 13 they hit the Gulf Stream, a fast ocean current. It pushed them at about 6 knots.

In the video, they say they rowed 132 nautical miles in 24 hours, beating the old record of 116. Later they beat their own record again with 140.

Guinness World Records lists the longest distance rowed in 24 hours as 144.51 nautical miles, set by this crew on board ORB Endurance. A nautical mile is a little longer than a normal mile.

116.00nmOld record

132.00nmFirst attempt

140.00nmSecond attempt

144.51nmGuinness record

See the numbers

Old record	116.00nm
First attempt	132.00nm
Second attempt	140.00nm
Guinness record	144.51nm

Source: the crew's video for the first three figures. Guinness World Records for the last.

Somewhere on that route, they also passed over the Titanic wreck. Adam's line was that they did the part of the route the Titanic never could.

Photo: Chris Gorringe / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

How hot did it get on the boat?

The Gulf Stream was a record, and it was also an oven. Temperatures hit up to 35°C. The crew say they came close to heat stroke.

They cooled off with swims. Before each one, they checked the water for jellyfish on a GoPro.

They also had to eat. The plan was 4,000 to 8,000 calories a day. On night shifts they leaned on nut butter sachets, 567 calories each.

You may know Beatriz Flamini, who spent 500 days alone in a cave. Her long wait underground was lonely. This was the opposite. Four men, one boat, and no door that opened.

What was the worst day?

Day 25. Adam says it was "the worst decision I've ever made in my life". That day Nutty fell overboard. The boat tilted to 45 degrees.

Not every low was a disaster. Nutty turned 33 at sea. His birthday treat was a tin of peaches. And somewhere in the second month, the crew found nine Biscoff biscuits in a pack that should have held eight.

Those small wins mattered. When you are rowing in three-hour blocks for two months, a ninth biscuit counts as news.

If this sort of slow, stubborn journey grabs you, Karl Bushby's walk home from Chile to Hull is the same itch on land.

Why did the last day almost go wrong?

A cyclone near the end slowed them to a crawl. At the low point, they covered just 18 miles in 24 hours. After the record days, that must have hurt.

Then food ran low. They were rationing porridge. The weather forecast showed easterly winds, which would push them back from the Scillies.

The deadline was midnight. If they missed the Scillies by then, they faced five more days stuck on the parachute anchor, waiting for the wind to change.

They made it.

What did they eat first when they got to land?

A pasty. Four rounds of toast. Chocolate. Six Hobnobs. A whole roast chicken, shared. Some fruit. Then a full English, the breakfast Adam had asked for on day 10.

Viewers loved it. One wrote that they could finally relive their dad getting them to school every day. Another said they would never complain about an eight-hour transatlantic flight again. A third said that in the 1980s this would have been a three-part BBC documentary.

After the meal, the crew did one more thing. They bought a lottery ticket.

They had survived a capsize, a cyclone and 56 days in a floating coffin. Nobody won the lottery. Adam says they already had what they came back for: "Food, family, and freedom."