In November 2013 I received a phone call from Tommy Hudson, good friend as well as one of my employees. After we chatted for a bit, he said he loved his job but there was something he really wanted to do: row across the North Atlantic. I was instantly inspired; I told Tommy he could go and I was going with him. He laughed and agreed.

On arriving in Australia, MACPAC CHALLENGER took up residence in my garden shed. We started on what was to be just a new paint job but as we sanded we found lots of rot and ended up removing most of the cockpit interior structure and even some of the hull. Fortunately we had an excellent local boatbuilder, Dave Parker, to lead the way.Pete Fletcher

On arriving in Australia, MACPAC CHALLENGER took up residence in my garden shed. We started on what was to be just a new paint job, but we found lots of rot and removed most of the cockpit interior structure and even some of the hull.

We spent the next 15 months raising sponsorship and rebuilding an old, wooden, ocean-rowing boat that we hoped would survive the North Atlantic. Things started slowly, but then, thanks to the generous support of Macpac, an outdoor clothing company, and World Challenge, the organization where Tommy and I both worked, we began to make good progress, and our boat became MACPAC CHALLENGER, or MC for short. While the name conjured up an intrepid image, that was certainly unmatched by the reality. As we stripped MC bare with the help of Melbourne boatbuilder Dave Parker, we found more and more unsavory parts. She’d been left to sit out in the elements for two years after her third transatlantic crossing and the neglect showed. There was rot in the bulkheads and in the hull, and at one point Tommy put his hand right through the plywood with no effort at all.

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