Defying Death on the Atlantic

William Fichtner: The ocean can be magical as well as murderous.

The world's toughest row has been described as relentless, exhilarating, life-affirming; and also frightening, frustrating, and brutal.

Unassisted boats travel 3,000 miles across the Atlantic from La Gomera in the Canary Islands to Antigua.

Team Fight Oar Die rowed through sunny days, star-filled nights, and unexpected danger.

They were ready for the physically and mentally-tough challenge.

Their mission was to raise awareness for veterans' mental health, veterans' suicide, and PTSD.

They rowed to save others' lives and didn't realize this race would have them fighting for their own.

William Janssen: So we were all in the Air Force together, we all had the same job, and then we were all deployed together in Iraq in 2008.

We were going to create awareness by showing other veterans there's more to life after your service instead of just, like, getting out and being a nobody and secluding, which is super common among veterans, as you go hide somewhere or you just get, you know, in your own little bubble, your own little world; and by showing veterans that get out of your comfort zone, take on an adventure, spend time with other veterans, you can process things a lot easier.

You know, you're talking to other guys that have gone through the same things that you have.

Chad Miller: I looked up online.

I started watching the promo videos for the row, started thinking like--and it looks pretty exciting.

Then it got to the point I was like, "Man, could I pull this off?"

And then we--once we gathered up the team, we presented to the organization and said, "Hey, you know, we got four guys ready to go."

And so at that point it was late 2021 and we were rolling.

Thomas Hester: That was a new purpose I found after getting out of the military, is just helping other veterans get through whatever they might be going through.

In an ocean row, global recognition for doing something put us on a pedestal to really bring awareness to what we were trying to overcome.

Nicholas Rahn: The whole goal was to show people that no matter what you go through, you know, if you push hard and you have a good team you can persevere.

Ian Couch: My job is that I make the initial contact with the crew when they start doing their training.

We do some of the preparation.

We run a mandatory course with them to help prepare, and then I will then inspect their boats before we let them go to the start.

We inspect the boats and equipment before the race start itself.

And then once they're at sea, I'm on call--well, myself and the team are on call 24/7 to give them advice, guidance, deal with anything from minor issues right up to emergencies and casualties.

Fichtner: Training was tough.

The team needed to train individually and, whenever they could, together.

Thomas: We all live in different states.

So all four of the teammates--I mean, we had our requirement amount of hours that we had to do in the boat, and those were all done together either in Lake Superior or down in Mobile Bay, Alabama.

But I went out and bought myself a row machine.

So if I was at home, I was on my row machine minimum 2 hours a day getting ready for 2 hours every 2 hours.

Janssen: I live, like, an hour from Lake Superior.

So the boat was at my house for several months, and we went on Lake Superior and did training.

And if you look at comparable bodies of water to the Atlantic, you know, The Great Lakes, they can be compared to, you know, the Atlantic Ocean as far as weather systems coming in, those waves that are created.

Thomas: That was probably the most excitement I have had in the last 20 years.

We had been preparing for this mentally and physically for 2+ years and that was the moment.

And being the first boat to start the race, hundreds of people on the dock cheering, horns, cowbells, fireworks, it was like being the grand master of a parade.

Nicholas: You know, all of us were screaming.

We're super excited.

You know, we knew that this was going to be tough, but we were too excited to even think about that, you know.

Janssen: There's all this tension and apprehensiveness that is built up to that race start.

We got out around the pier, and then you're by yourself and it's like, "Oh, this is real."

Like, there's nobody there to, like, guide you anymore.

It's all on us four and, like, everything we do is going to be as a team.

So we rowed in pairs in 2-hour shifts.

So 2 hours on, 2 hours off.

So when you're 2 hours off, you had to eat your food, which was dehydrated meals.

So that meant you were rehydrating water, you know, to make the meals.

You had to brush your teeth.

You had to go to the bathroom.

You had to fix whatever is broken, and it seemed like there was always something to fix.

Clean your body.

You know, do that type of stuff.

And then you would go to sleep, I'd say, quarter after 2, and your alarm was set at 3:45.

So really you're only getting 90 minutes of sleep in that 2-hour cycle that you were off.

We had little cabins.

They were maybe 3, 4 feet wide, maybe 2 feet tall and like 6 1/2 feet long, and we had little mattresses in there but dark.

I mean, you--when you sleep, you want it dark.

And then in the daytime, it was really hot in the cabins.

Fichtner: Their excitement gave way to some of the team's fears, but as the days became night the glory of the ocean and the beauty of the skies overwhelmed them.

Thomas: That is actually what I was most afraid of; is how am I personally going to deal with pitch blackness with God knows what around you just surrounded by water and whatever was living underneath the water that you can't see.

In your mind; yeah, that's terrifying.

But once we were out there that first night, we were blessed with some of the most amazing stars I've ever seen, definitely the most amazing night sky I've ever seen.

Bioluminescence on our first night.

So I'd call that a blessing because I went into nighttime terrified and within, you know, 2 hours of darkness it was just exciting.

It's still ocean-rowing.

You just can't see where you're going.

Fichtner: They were prepared for a grueling physical and mental beating, but nothing could have prepared them for the sudden, unrelenting, and raging storm that sent a 30-foot swell and a 50-knot wind gust right into their boat.

Janssen: There was a big storm system that moved through the northern part of the United States.

It hit Buffalo a couple days before Christmas, and it moved on to the North Atlantic and it created these gigantic waves.

So, like, the 24th, 25th we saw 50-foot waves out there.

And it's funny you think 50 foot, that's huge, but at that time we had seen 10-footers and then 20-footers and then 30-footers.

And you actually get used to being in 30-foot waves.

I know it's crazy, but you get used to it.

And for those couple of days we saw those 50-footers and then it calmed down to, like, a consistent 30-foot swell leading up to the day of our event.

Patrick Hammer: So our Buffalo blizzard had such a deep dip in the jet stream it actually helped create an area of low pressure that probably would have normally just sat up here in Europe or Spain and actually forced it south to a position off the coast of Africa, the Canary Islands.

Janssen: Chad and I were on deck.

It was like--we figure about 3: 30 in the morning.

Pitch black outside.

And we'd been in those consistent 30-footers, and we know there was a 30-mile-an-hour sustained wind system with 40-mile-an-hour gust.

And the wind, we think it was like a freak wind that hit us, you know, 60, 70, 80 miles an hour, I don't know, but it sounded like a freight train and it hit the side of us.

And we figure we're probably at the top of one of the big waves as well, and the boat just went straight upside down.

So Chad and I, we were both harnessed.

It's--part of the race requirement is to be harnessed to the boat anytime you're on deck, and we were both thrown from the deck.

And I just remember like trying to grab the rail but there wasn't enough time because it hit us so hard, and I just remember seeing the boat--it's like you're thrown away from the boat and then you see the boat roll over, and now you're in the water.

And thank God you're wearing a safety harness because--like, if you're not wearing a harness, like, the wind and the waves and the current just moves too fast and you would have just drifted away from the boat.

Ian: The conditions they had were particularly bad.

It was big seas.

And the noise of a big wave out there hitting you, knocking you over is terrifying and the shock of that is massive.

So the main thing--the key critical failure is that the boat didn't self-right.

We have capsizers fairly frequently.

Other designs of boats that we've gone through have always self-righted providing the crew have done the right thing.

This one didn't, and it's nothing to do with the crew.

Janssen: So the boat's upside down, and we had a daggerboard towards the front center of the boat and now it's sticking up out of the water.

And in my mind--we were told that the boat was going to right itself and it didn't.

And so you're just kind of, like, waiting for it to automatically flip back over and it doesn't.

So I actually climbed, I stood on the rail.

We had hard rails on our boat, and I stood on the rail and I actually grabbed on the daggerboard and started rocking on it trying to, you know, flip the boat back over.

And Chad is on the other side and he can feel me kind of rocking it so he's trying to swim up and push up at the same time, but it's just not moving.

Chad: I instantly noticed that the boat was starting to rock, and I could hear him climbing on the boat.

So at that point I said, "Well, if he's rocking the boat this way, I'm going to help push."

With no support of the water, I'm pushing up.

But as I went over the boat, my harness, I see, got tangled up inside the oars.

So you got Will rocking the boat one way.

I'm doing everything I can to push it.

It's not budging.

With every push, I was getting drag under to the point where I ended up taking a nice wave behind me that took me completely under the boat, like underneath the rail where I was trying to hold it up.

And we did everything pretty much systematic.

You get so tired at night.

You get used to, like, taking things on and off.

I knew how my harness came off, and I knew it was either remove the one piece of equipment that they told us never remove while you're rowing or drown.

So I was actually surprised how easy it came off, and was able to get the harness off.

I came back up underneath.

So I knew if I let go of that boat I'd be in some serious trouble.

He yelled, "Get to life raft."

I instantly swam under the rail, got in front of the back cabin door, which was where Nick was actually sleeping.

Nick was at the window and he had been tossed upside down.

Nick was yelling through the window, "Don't let me drown.

Don't let me die."

It's a really hard thing to see when you're looking at your friend at the outside of the window knowing that if you don't get this life raft he will drown.

Nicholas: I was sleeping, and I woke up to the sound of the wave because some of those waves hitting that carbon fiber boat it--you know, and somebody could be lightly tapping on the boat and it sounds like somebody is hitting it with a baseball bat.

So when the wave came in, it woke me up instantly.

And then we turned completely sideways and then it sounded like a freight train hit us when the gust of wind actually knocked us off the wave, and I was knocked out immediately.

I woke up and I was on my back, and I got up on my knees and I realized that the boat was upside down and so I started to panic for a minute.

And everything that was on the ground was now on top of me, so I had to push the mats off of me and I started feeling around.

And it was pitch black, you know, 'cause it was around 3:30 at night.

So I couldn't see anything.

So I kept my headlamp right over on the right side hooked on a hook, and I reached over and it was there and I grabbed it and put it on my head.

And I was just in my boxers and a long sleeve shirt.

So I started feeling around for anything else, but I just--I couldn't see.

I was extremely dizzy.

I was diagnosed with a TBI, a traumatic brain injury from that.

So--you know, my vision was blurry, I was dazed and confused, and I was just feeling around for something.

And I couldn't really figure out what's happening, but I realized that the water was filling up inside the cabin.

So within a few minutes, I was in about waist-deep water.

I started banging on the doors, yelling at Chad 'cause I knew Chad was in the back.

And I could hear the guys moving around and I could hear them yelling, and I started banging and said, "Chad, I think I'm going to drown.

I need help."

'Cause I tried opening the door and the door wouldn't open.

I could unhinge it, but because of the pressure from the outside--I was probably 2 feet underwater so I couldn't open it up.

Chad: I got Nick inside and I pretty much told him, I said, "Hey, life raft has just been deployed.

We got to get you out of here."

I'm not harnessed in, and I know that he's inside and I know he's wearing what he slept in, which was his boxers, and I was like, "Well, he's got to go."

So I told him, I said, "We open this door."

The--I'm in an air pocket right now with a feet.

This is the only air pocket I've got.

"I'm going to open this door.

You're going to come out this door, and the water is going to hit you hard.

You need to get out."

In his mind he saw the air pocket, and that's where he was going to go to.

The minute we opened that door, he got hit with about 80,000 gallons of water of angry ocean.

He had to come up in the footwells, and the air pocket that I just had quickly went away as the boat dropped.

Due to all the confusion going on and all the chaos, we didn't get anything out the back cabin.

And so now we got two guys holding on for dear life untethered.

Nicholas: So Chad ended up diving underneath, and he opened it up for me and we both--I pushed, and he pulled it open.

My goal was to go up into the footwells because there's about a foot and a half where the feet rest are for when we row.

So I figured I could take a breath, I could look around, see if there's anything I can grab, and then I could dive back underneath, but I didn't realize because of the amount of water that went into the back cabin the boat had sank and there was no air up there.

So when I dove up, I went to take a breath and I hit my head and I breathed in a bunch of water and I panicked.

So I dove underneath and came up on the outside.

In raise I came out.

I grabbed the rope, and we got hit by another wave and I hit my head on the side of the boat and I got knocked out again.

Chad: When Nick got in the life raft, I actually had the knife that I cut the life raft with.

And hindsight 20/20, I handed him the knife to get it out of my hand 'cause I had no harness holding me together.

It was just me holding the boat.

I had one hand on the boat.

I had to get two hands on the boat so I can help the guys.

So I handed Nick the knife.

Within a matter of 30 seconds I heard him yell he'd actually dropped the knife, punctured into the life raft.

Tommy was still in the cabin, Will was under the boat, and we all kind of looked at each other and we heard him say, "Man, I just put a hole in the life raft."

And that's your safety net at that point.

Like, you're trying to get away from something sinking to get into something else that's sinking.

In our mind we're like, "Do we just stay with the boat or do we get in the life raft?"

'Cause we don't know how bad it was.

And then within 10 seconds he said, "I plugged the hole with my thumb."

And we were like, "Let's get the patch kit."

Once we got in the life raft, we realized there was no patches.

We did an inventory.

We went through all the gear, realized the SAT phone wasn't working.

At that point, we looked for patches.

They had little plugs.

They are great if you have a little round hole in there, but when you have a slit in the top portion of your life raft it didn't work.

Luckily there was a two-layer life raft.

The bottom layer was still inflated.

So there was no back support for the remainder of the time in the life raft.

Every wave that hit the side, whoever was on the side of the wave, which I spent a lot of time on that side, it felt like a grown man just punching you in the back of the head repeatedly for hours.

Thomas: Now, my cabin was taking in a little bit of water.

There's 20 jars of peanut butter.

There's food everywhere.

My mattresses are wet, and now they're on top of me.

So I'm fighting the mattresses trying to put--push those away, and I knew there was things that in that situation we have to have these items or you're probably not going to do so well.

Those items were the VHF radio, a satellite phone, a GPS.

If you can, grab some batteries for that GPS too 'cause we know that's going to eat AAs quick if you need to use them.

So I started trying to figure out how to turn on the lights.

Normally our instrument panel is just to our left right inside the door, and I kept hitting the wall, "Where are the light switches?"

Oh, yeah, I'm upside down.

The light switches are now down here.

So just the disorientation, trying to grab everything you can, get ready to go out of this boat that's not doing what it's supposed to do, I'll never forget that.

Those are the images of being in that dark cabin.

And then when I found that light switch and the lights coming on and just seeing the situation that I was in, it was pretty scary.

I grabbed Will's immersion suit as well 'cause I knew--him and I had been communicating.

So I knew, "Okay.

Well, Will's not going to come in here and get his own stuff.

Let's look out for our teammates, grab what I can for him."

So I grabbed his immersion suit.

I have my immersion suit on.

And he tells me, "All right, on the count of three we're going to get you out of there."

Janssen: I said, "On the count of three, I'm going to undo the--" There's two latches on our door.

"On the count of three I'm going to do the bottom one and then undo the top one, and you're going to reach out, holding your harness clip in your hand, and I'm going to grab your hand and I'm going to clip you to our boat."

Thomas: Well, where I messed up with training kicking in and putting on that immersion suit, my harness is now underneath that.

So I had to unzip my immersion suit, pull out the tether for the harness; and that is how I gave that to Will.

Thomas: Whole point of an immersion suit is to keep you dry.

Zipped all the way up with a hood on you're almost waterproof, but as soon as you break the seal of that zipper you become a giant balloon.

Counts to three.

I see that latch move.

I reached out, he grabbed the clip, and I supermanned as far as I could out the door.

As far as I could was about 10 inches 'cause dry bags I had around my arms didn't want to fit through the door.

So I have the entire angry ocean coming at me and I'm stuck in a door.

That man right there saved my life.

Pulled me out through that door.

Janssen: But as soon as you open up the door, the cabin fills with water.

The way our boat was designed, there was a couple step downs and upside down it creates, like, a pocket of air.

But now the cabin is filled with water so the whole boat drops down now and there's 6, 8 inches of headspace in there.

Thomas: Will pulled me out, and I just popped up.

When looking right at him, I was like, "Hey, bud.

How are we doing?

Let's get to the life raft."

He says, "Yeah, go to the life raft.

It's to the right."

I looked left, and I'm pretty sure Will wasn't happy with me when I did that.

I was looking at our life jackets.

They had inflated and they had flashing lights on them.

I thought that was the life raft.

He said, "No.

To the right.

I promise just go right."

So I trusted Will, took one big--another big, deep breath and swam under the boat.

Thomas: So you have the gunnels where our oars were, then about a 2-foot rail that would hold the parallel rails of the boat.

So it was about a 2-foot gap I had to get through looking like the Michelin Man.

So that was probably miracle number six for me.

When I swam underneath the boat to get to the life raft I would have got stuck, but that rail wasn't there.

Chad: I was in the life raft when he came out.

His head came clear probably about this far underwater.

There's no way he cleared that rail.

That rail was not there.

I don't know what you believe.

I know what we believe because we all saw this dude skip through where a rail used to be.

Thomas: And when I popped up, I realized, "I am full of water right now.

I can't swim."

So I used the grab line on the outside of our boat, kind of just walked myself down to get to the life raft.

Chad and Nick are in there yelling, "Get in here.

Get in here."

I said, "Guys, I can't move.

You got--I'm full of water.

Get me up."

So Chad and Nick both hoisted me into the life raft and, I mean, all of the water that I had in my immersion suit now filled the life raft.

William Janssen: I remember looking up.

I got 6 to 8 inches of air.

I thought it was couple of seconds or whatever.

I unhooked and I dove under, and I was like, "Well, at least there's a tether I can follow."

Follow Tommy, you know, right behind him.

And I don't remember the rail being there.

I don't know if God snapped his fingers right then and there and made the rail disappear.

I don't know.

So then I came up, and the guys grabbed me and pulled me in.

Janssen: The race coordinators had told us that worst-case scenario try to stay attached to your boat in whatever capacity.

It's a bigger target to see, there's emergency water on the boat, and we sawed food rations.

So we tied a line from our life raft to the nose of our boat trying to stay attached.

Well, with the wind and waves and our boat weighing way more than we did in the life raft, we just started to drift at different speeds and the line eventually got super, super tight and then just snapped.

And the last we saw our boat it was upside down, floating away from us in the dark.

Yep.

And we're still on 30-foot waves and we're in a 5 foot by 5 foot life raft, four grown men.

Chad: When we were in the life raft we had found out that Will had his phone on him, and I quickly realized I had mine too, and they both worked.

We attempted to use the SOS feature on there.

Obviously no service.

It wouldn't go out.

So that's when they were sitting in the life raft together and they said, "Let's make a video on the life raft."

Nicholas: So this isn't going the way we wanted it to.

We're in the life raft.

About 4 o'clock in the morning we got hit with about a 50-mile-an-hour gust and it rolled the woobie.

All hatches were closed: the top hatch, both front hatches; and the woobie still did not recover on its own.

Chad and Will got launched over the side and they both tried to Flip the woobie back over, but it wouldn't work.

My cabin started to fill up with water.

I was dead asleep, and I hit my head pretty hard.

But the woobie started filling up with water in my compartment, and Chad swam back underneath and saved my f--life, man.

Thomas: We're all in the life raft right now no major injuries.

Still waiting rescue.

That's where we're at.

Janssen: I got launched.

I was on the other side of the boat.

I tried to flip it.

I was rocking on the keel, the daggerboard.

We're drinking, huh?

Thomas: Yeah, we're drinking.

Janssen: Tommy was in the cabin.

So Chad got the life raft out.

I yanked down the rope, pulled, pulled, pulled, finally got it to deploy.

Chad got Nick out and into the life raft.

And then Tommy was still in the cabin and so I started pumping the bilge pump.

Thomas: He saved my f--life.

That's what happened.

If he didn't do that, I would have drowned.

Janssen: So I pumped for a while, and Tommy found a bunch of gear that we needed.

He got the SAT phone.

He got VHF radio.

He got immersion suits.

He got his harness on.

And then I just couldn't pump fast enough so we opened the door and quick tethered to each other.

And then Tommy got on the life raft, and I was the last one on the life raft and here we are.

Nicholas: I'll take that burger and a beer now.

[laughing] Eighteen hours to rescue, right?

Eighteen hours.

Chad: We all knew that it was 18 hours, what we were told, and we knew that we had had an accidental activation on day 2 or 3 on Will's beacon and they called us.

So we already thought--like, we knew at one point in time our beacon had gone off and they'd called us.

So in our minds that beacon worked, and we had multiple beacons going off.

And like Will and Tommy had said, we had activated those things so many times to where just to keep our spirits up we had joked around, like, "We're going to irritate this guy.

We're going to keep pushing these, and some dude is going to sit there and go, 'I know.

I know.

They're coming.'"

So--and we had one small window that we'd look out every now and then, and our whole thought looking out the window was, "We're waiting to see the sailboat coming, waiting to see somebody."

They did a 30-minute radio call in--with every hour.

It seemed to go by as the sun came up and every radio call when you got no response.

You could feel a little deflated, but you just didn't give up.

Thomas: It was on the charging cable 'cause we were using that satellite phone every day.

It had to be on from certain times so we could communicate with the safety officers.

So we had it on a charger.

So I ripped it off the charger, threw it in a dry bag.

And that was one of the things that I brought with me, but in all of that it got wet.

So the satellite phone, it was a big paperweight at that point.

The VHF radio, those work for line of sight.

So us being in a life raft just a couple of feet above water in 30, 40-foot swells, the line of sight range of that radio is pretty small.

So those are two of our, you know, communication devices.

One of them's not working, and the other one isn't going to work very well.

We all had personal location beacons.

I had one 'cause I had my harness on.

Will had his.

His harness was on.

Chad didn't have his, and Nick didn't have his either.

Our go-bag had one in it, and we also had another emergency location beacon that was just for the life raft.

So we had four beacons going off.

Now, how that works is you set off the beacon, it sends a signal to the satellite.

Satellite would send that to your country of origin.

For us it was the US Coast Guard.

Coast Guard says, "Well, they're not in the United States, so we're going to contact the closest country that could orchestrate a rescue for them."

In our case, we're about 700 miles off the coast of Africa.

So a little chain of islands called Cape Verde would have been the country to get a rescue going.

Now, the storm had been going on for a few days and I guess there had been other boats that had capsized and I guess the inopportune number of activations on these beacons that shouldn't have been activated.

So I think the boy that cried wolf situation is what got us because Cape Verde got the signal from the US Coast Guard that there's the four of us out there and need help and they said, "Well, that's probably just another accidental activation," and they dismissed it.

Ian: Every row also has a personal locator beacon attached to them, and the boat itself has two beacons.

Now, earlier that day there had been false activations of their PLBs and their EPIRBs, which had been--basically it goes to--it went to agencies in the US, then it went to agencies in Marine Rescue Coordination Center Delgada, then they called me.

I then spoke to the crew, confirmed it was a false activation.

Everything was fine.

It then happened again with--but this time with a different crew.

All happened at absolutely fine.

And then when it happened the third time, for whatever reason someone in the chain of command amongst the marine rescue coordination centers did not then act on that.

So whether it'd been the fact they had seen false activations and someone wrongly made the assumption that this was another false activation 'cause we never got the call at that point.

It looks as though the US Coast Guard received it.

It looks as though it was passed on to Delgada.

At that point it looks like they didn't do anything with it hence why there was no immediate reaction.

And that's a pretty high-level error because this is the Coast Guard MRCC link.

Covers all global maritime traffic, and for someone in a desk somewhere to make a decision not to respond is phenomenal.

We have never had the like of it.

Yeah, we--that race we'd had--I think already it had 26 activations--accidental activations of EPIRB.

Every single one of them they result to a call to us, a call to the crew and finding out what happened.

Nicholas: We had to scoop water out every once in a while 'cause we'd get hit by a wave and we'd fill up with water and we had to dump it all out.

But it was when the sun went down at the end of that first day--you know, we were all sitting in the raft and when the sun finally went down, you know, I was thinking like--we had maybe 30% battery life at this time on the radio and our beacons all went off.

You know, it was confirmed by the Coast Guard that our beacons did go off.

But there was a moment where, you know--none of us could sleep, and every time my eyes would close I couldn't help but start, like, thinking about my family and thinking about the kids.

And, you know, every time my eyes would close I would start having visions of my own funeral, and, you know, I kept thinking, like, I can't do that to my family.

Chad: I wonder what our wives and kids think right now.

Like, we're sitting in this life raft.

And, like, did they tell them we're lost at sea?

Like, I have kids that are out on Christmas break.

Like, are they at home right now thinking that, "Dad's lost in the ocean?"

And we didn't know what they knew.

Little did we know they had no idea.

And like they had said, the only people that knew we were even out there was us.

Thomas: So yeah, the 16 hours that we were just floating along in our life raft, the only ones that knew we were in that life raft was us.

Nobody had any idea that our boat had capsized and that we had abandoned it and ended in the life raft and that we were calling for help every 30 minutes.

Nobody knew except for us.

Being out there with the sun down--I mean, it was cold at night.

We were all soaking wet.

We were doing what we could to keep--to get all the water out of the life raft.

So that was just kind of adapt and overcome.

But once that sun came up, I knew it was going to be a long day that we--all in our minds had been--and we had been told with all the shipping traffic that's going through the Atlantic where we're at, you know, rescue should be--you should have made contact with somebody within 18 hours.

Maybe not picked up by then but at least somebody out there trying to get you within 18 hours.

I just knew that was going to be the longest 18 hours ever.

I never really lost hope, I never gave up, but there was definitely some times in that life raft where dark thoughts take over.

You start playing that what-if game with yourself.

There was a point where--you know, at this time, like, I'd been awake for a long time, and I started closing my eyes and I had some pretty, pretty sad visuals going on.

And I remember just shooting my eyes open, I looked across the life raft and Chad looked at me and said, "Are you okay?"

I said, "Yeah, I'm okay.

I'm just not going to close my eyes anymore."

And I didn't.

Chad: 'Cause it gets really dark really quick, and you spend a lot of time in the life raft you start thinking, like, the mundane stuff.

Like, I thought about my daughter wanting to go out in the summertime and it was too hot and I didn't want to go outside, I'm like, "Man, I should have just went outside."

And, you know, as the day goes on, you're 10 hours in and we're checking the watch to pump the life raft with the hand pump that was in there, make our radio calls.

And every time you look at your watch, it's been another hour and you're realizing quickly that your time is fading and that this life raft is not going to last forever.

And come nightfall, as the sun's starting to go down we realize, me, and Will, and Tommy, and Nick are all sitting closer together than we thought.

The bottom was starting to deflate a little bit as well and the top was starting to cave in.

So at that point it was--you start thinking, "Is this going to be around in the morning?"

'Cause you know you lose the life raft, it's four guys floating in the water for however long you float and no one's going to see four individuals floating.

So then you get in that mindset of, "Well, I'm not going to give up hope, but I do know that there's a good possibility that I leave this life raft and that's it.

And I got to be okay with being 35 years old and, like, going out this way."

Nicholas: I'm big on manifestation and meditation and stuff like that.

So I just laid my head back and I started to meditate and just think about the situation.

And, you know, I've seen my future and I know that that's not how it ends and kept saying it, like, "I've seen my future.

This isn't how I go."

I just kept holding on to that.

Chad: You want to be the guy that build your guys up.

I tried to stay as positive as I could.

There would be times that I'd look over and Will would put his hand on my leg.

He'd see I had tears in my eyes, where thoughts were just trying and he's like, "We're good."

I look over at one of the guys.

I see him put their head down for a second and be like, "Hey, we're good."

So it's just--it was just hours and hours of just building each other up, but it tears you down pretty quick, especially when you're getting hammered by waves and you get to the point where you can hear a wave rolling in.

And everyone just braces the life raft, put your head down in hopes to God that it's not going to hit you 'cause we already knew what it could do to a boat and now we're on the life raft and that thing flips.

With a hole in it, we knew it wouldn't last very long.

[waves crashing] Chad: Like I said, we've been doing our calls every 30 minutes.

We did a call at one point in time we got a little bit of static, early evening.

And we've started to get the static, and everyone--you know, we got hopeful.

And then we had to shut the radio off 'cause our battery is starting to deplete on that.

We waited.

And the very next radio call we made, I don't think we got anything the next one, and then we made another radio call.

We actually got a lot of static, which is new for what we've been getting.

We hadn't gotten anything.

Now we're getting static.

Nicholas: We had about 10% battery life left on our radio.

And Will was the one calling on the radio, doing the Mayday calls and we heard a double--we heard a click, and I was a 911 dispatcher for the Minnesota State Patrol for about 8 years so I know what that means.

It means somebody heard us, but we can't hear them because you assume ships have--you know, they have transmitters, but they also have farther distance than we do.

So it's like they can hear us, but we're not going to be able to hear them.

Chad: Will ended up saying over the radio, he's like, "Hey, I can hear you--I can't hear you if you can hear me.

Give me two mic clicks."

And we waited.

It seemed like we waited for 5 minutes for it.

We got two mic clicks.

At that point it was--you know, we've been in there for well over 13, 14 hours.

To get the two mic clicks at that point it was like, "Okay, someone knows we're here."

Nicholas: And we heard that click click and all of us start crying, you know, laughing, and then we were so excited.

Chad: And in our minds it's the race committee and they're out there with their sailboat and they're looking for us.

So we already expected someone to find us.

And so we get the two mic clicks, radio starts to go down.

We end up making another call a little bit later and we finally heard him come over the radio.

"This is Papa Charlie, Papa Kilo."

And Will was able to get the grid out on our little handheld GPS.

And once we gave him the grid, it was like, "Okay, now they know exactly where we're at and they're coming."

Thomas: We came together as a team.

We said prayers.

I think we sang some church songs out there.

And lo and behold, miracles happen and we got picked up.

Yevhenii Feshchenko: Just a regular day after a big storm was passing by and chief officer called me.

"Captain, I have some strange signal, very weak but really suspicious."

I came on the bridge and really was recognized, like, Mayday in the middle of Atlantic.

And it was really strange because we did not receive any distress signals 'cause normally if any vessel in distress, first we would receive through the Inmarsat distress.

And after we were searching by VHF, but we received Mayday through the VHF what is not so long distance for what you can hear, and it was suspicious.

And chief told me, "Maybe it's some kind of joke.

Maybe it's another vessel make fun or something."

But I said, "Can you stay on radar in next 100 miles, a vessel, any?"

"No, and no any vessel around.

Nothing."

I said, "So could be something."

Okay.

And I make decision, not even 1 minute for we can just start search-and-rescue operation.

It was my first time as a captain position.

And honestly, I used to work with captain whose whole--working all their life at sea as a captain and they never did it.

It's only one chance in a billion.

It's never happened.

It just happens one in a billion.

Chad: Couldn't find out they were quite a ways away.

And they laid on their horn and you could hear it, and that was huge sign of relief.

Knowing you could hear the horn you knew it was just a matter of spotting us.

And we were in a 5 by 5 life raft in 30-foot waves and a 6-mile radio.

So we weren't sure exactly where they were at, but the second time we gave them a grid it kind of gave them an idea of which way we were floating so that they could approach.

And once they started to approach us and we could actually see the ship, the guys looked out the window we had and they said, "That's a huge ship."

Yevhenii: I decided, "Okay, we will come really close to give them water."

And only two ways.

Will I rescue them or will they die?

It's not so easy.

My propeller--it's a big vessel, and propeller always running.

And if something losing, if life raft escaping from us and it's going under a propeller and nobody can survive.

Chad: I didn't see the ship until we actually got ready to board the ship, but I could feel it when it came by.

The first time it had to circle and slow down.

It took a while for it to slow down 'cause they tried to match the waves, the blocks in the wind and the waves from us.

And when we finally got to the point that they backed the ship up almost next to us and when they opened the door and I saw the ship, the first thing I saw was the front of the ship and it was like looking up at a tower.

And you get that moment of, "Man, I just went through a lot already.

I'm exhausted.

There's absolutely no way I can get up on that ship, that I can climb."

And they said that they wanted to throw down a life ra--a line, we're going to grab the line, and they were going to throw a ladder down.

And we were expecting a nice, little ladder.

They threw down a pirate ship, wooden rung ladder off the side of this ship as we're fighting these waves.

And it was like--it's like a movie.

You're in these waves.

You're bouncing up and down.

The ladder is going this way and that way, and you're fighting to hold yourself close to the ship.

Nicholas: The boat had to circle around us.

And so they came around the backside.

Our raft was facing this way, and the boat came up this way.

And I was right by the door.

So they decided that, you know, since I'm by the door and I was probably in the worst shape, they made me go first.

And so I open up the door, and I had a glow stick and I was waving the glow stick so they knew where to throw the rope.

And we didn't know what kind of boat was coming for us.

So when this boat came into view, I look up, I'm like, "Holy--" I didn't realize how big it was, and I think they said it was like a 25 to 30-foot climb.

And they toss us this dinky, little, tiny rope and I'm like, "Do they expect us to climb up this rope?"

Chad: And Nick grabbed a hold of the rope, and we crusted the top of a wave as a life raft dropped.

He was holding it.

And Nick was there, and then he wasn't.

It was like he was shot out of a rocket.

[crew speaking foreign language] Nicholas: So as soon as the rope ladder came down I grabbed it, and the boat was shifting 10 degrees side to side.

And so when I grabbed the rope, it shifted and it pulled me out of the raft and I was dangling from my legs.

And so I climbed as fast as I could.

So I get up there as soon as I can and I see just a group of these Filipino guys, and they just grabbed me and pulled me over like a baby.

And as soon as my foot--my feet hit the steel, like, I grabbed the first guy and I gave him a big hug.

I'm like, "I love you.

Thank you so much."

male: Sit, sit, sit, sit.

Sit, my friend.

Nicholas: I love you guys right now.

I love you.

male: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chad: We were able to reach out, grab the ladder again.

Will grabbed the ladder, and he said--looked to Tommy, said, "You got to go."

Tommy is like holding the line to keep the boat--the raft to the boat and he said, "No."

He goes, "You have the ladder.

Just go."

So same thing.

Will grabs a hold of a few rungs, we dropped off a wave, and Will just gone.

He was there and then he wasn't.

So we got two guys out of a life raft.

Now the life raft is starting to tip because obviously it's lost almost 300 pounds.

In the raft we're starting to fight over this line.

We end up getting another rope down.

I end up reaching for it, started--I attempted to climb and I end up getting hit with a wave.

And as I've end up losing grip of the ladder, I look down.

I saw water.

I felt everything in my right shoulder start to tear as I got jerked off this rope and in my mind I'm hitting water.

Like, I'm going under the ship.

I fell, opened my eyes.

Tommy reached out with one hand.

And as a wave hit me, Tommy grabbed me with one hand and pulled me in.

I ended up on his lap.

He gave me a how-you-doing-bud look.

So I was like, "Okay.

Well, it's not what I was expecting."

I knew the shoulder hurt.

I knew I couldn't move it much.

Reattempted to grab the line, line jerked again, knew it was out of place, and he yelled up and said, "Hey, we got a guy that's hurt."

male: Sir, grab this one, sir.

Chad: And they end up throwing me a nice, little ring down, and I was thinking like, "This is perfect.

These guys just climbed this ladder.

All I'm going to do is throw this ring on and they're going to hoist me up.

Like, I don't have to make this climb."

Wasn't the case.

They tied it to the rail.

I still had to climb.

I end up reach for the ladder again.

As I'm reaching for it, I'm climbing over Tommy.

We end up losing the line, and Tommy yelled out to them, "I lost the line."

And we just start floating down the side of the ship.

And now you got two guys that have rafted sideways floating, and you can see the back of the boat and you know you're coming up on--like, we're losing ground here.

male: Nice.

Nice.

Nice work.

Nice work.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Chad: They threw another rope.

We were able to catch it, got the ladder.

I was able to get back on the ladder, started climbing and--I started climbing the ladder.

As I got to the top, they reached over.

The crew grabbed me, bring me over the rail, threw me behind a line.

The other two guys were waiting on me.

And a lot of people asked, they're like, "Hey, how did it feel to be over that ship?

Like, what was the first feeling you felt?"

And I was like, "You don't feel anything 'cause you know you still got a guy down there."

[crew speaking foreign language] Chad: And Tommy actually was able to get on the ladder.

And the minute he got on that ladder, life raft was gone.

He's hanging.

They're yelling not to panic as he's climbing this ladder, and then they tell him to stop climbing.

Because Tommy is the lightest guy there, they reached over and literally pulled that ladder up in two pulls up over the rail.

And he came over the rail, and it was like the biggest sigh of relief.

male: Nice.

Nice.

Yes.

Okay.

Thomas: Thank you guys so much.

We love you.

Yes.

Yevhenii: I was on deck.

I was on the bridge.

I was operating with the engine, steering gear, and all commands.

Chief officer was in charge on deck under my command.

And when he met these guys, they pulled them up on board, and the first words of chief officer, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Yeah, because nobody expected in the middle of Atlantic somebody was rowing on the boat in winter time.

Chad: And a few of the engineers were from Ukraine, they had the chief who was from Croatia with a few other members, and then the rest of the crew was all from the Philippines.

And we call them the 19 Saints of Hans 'cause it was a Hans Gutenberg that actually picked us up.

And it was shortly after we got on board that we went in, they patched us up, they gave us food, and then they took us up to see the captain.

And we went up to see the captain, and that's when we realized the captain said, "You know, I never got any distress beacon."

And we're like, "Well, that's kind of odd."

But they have a SAT phone on board.

"Let's make a call."

We decided Will's going to call Evan, who was the current president of Fight Oar Die; and he was going to call him, find out what our families knew before we started calling them.

And he calls him and first thing Evan says is, "Hey, man.

How is the row going?"

And the look on Will's face said it all, and he said, "How's the row going?"

And that's when we all looked at each other and we were like no one knew we were gone.

Like, no one had any idea that we'd even flipped.

So they talked for a few minutes.

They called the safety coordinator.

We end up talking to him, and then we called the wives.

We gave them the quick, "Hey, we're not joking.

We're not rowing anymore.

We're riding on a ship right now.

We just talked to the captain, and they're actually on their way to Montreal, Canada."

And the ship had actually sent out a Mayday distress.

When we were in the life raft, we heard them put it out and no response.

They were actually the only ship within 500 nautical miles.

I think it was about 500 nautical miles is where they said that there was no other ships.

They were the only ship heading from south to north.

They were actually--only reason they were in the area was 'cause they were delayed because of paperwork at the previous port.

Yevhenii: We get delayed for more than 12 hours.

If no mistake and we pass that area very quick and we did not--we not receive that Mayday, then finito.

Ian: They prepared hard and well for the event, they trained well, but I think significantly as a team of veterans they have a slightly different understanding to most people to what it is to respond in a situation like that.

As a veteran myself, I always feel that I have a higher understanding of what people are going to do and how they're going to react if they had been in those sort of positions.

So the crew itself, I think, did an incredibly good job in what could have been an absolute tragedy, and their training for the race and their training as individuals in the military before that is one of the main factors that helped them survive.

Yevhenii: It was unexpectable, and I'm really happy that I helped someone.

I helped some families that did not lose their father.

And before that position when we find the guys, woobie crew, one week no any vessel we met, and after saving them 3 days more.

They're really strong guys, but I'm not sure if they're able to survive 3 days more in life raft.

It was like God helped them for them that we were there.

Ian: There were a phenomenally unusual set of events that came together with this particular crew.

What they brought together, their teamwork was exemplary.

And seeing them in Gomera at the start, talking to them at sea, and then how they dealt with this situation, it--there was courage in the face of massive adversity and they looked out f--more than anything else, the way they look out for each other, that's a true team.

Everyone was there together looking out for each other.

Chad: We saw more miracles in 24 hours than most people see in a lifetime, just unexplainable things like the radio call.

The radio that they picked up was well over 9 miles to 6-mile radio.

In order for us to have a line of sight with the ship we would both be at--have to be at the top of a wave and we had good comms with them at a good distance.

So there was a lot of miracles that we saw.

Fichtner: In October 2022, the captain was awarded the Ruyter Medal by the king of the Netherlands.

His wife traveled from the Ukraine to accept the award for her husband who was at sea.

Yevhenii: And actually for 300 years of this reward--for existence of this reward, I'm the first Ukrainian who will receive this reward.

And only 110 person receive this reward.

Fichtner: The team was safe.

It would take the next 15 days to get to Montreal where they would be reunited with their families, but they still faced a few challenges.

All of their identification, passports, and papers were lost at sea, but this seemed a small challenge compared to what they had been through.

They would meet their goal to help other veterans and they thought about what was next.

Janssen: I learned we were rowing for veterans' mental health.

And if you're going to talk about the example, like, this is the ultimate example of going through a traumatic situation and being able to share about it and learn from it.

And I think that is one of the most important things; is learning from this and being able to share with others either lessons learned, things that can be changed either in procedure or equipment, but then talk about it, right?

It doesn't do anybody any good to go home, sit in your little--your room all by yourself and not share about it.

Like, this is the most important thing, is sharing it.

Thomas: I'd like to know what the finish line feels like.

That was the driving force for me to start that race, is to be able to finish it with those guys and know what every other previous rower has felt when they popped those flares at the finish line.

I want that.

I don't know if I need it, but I really, really want to know what that's like.

Chad: I definitely feel like there's unfinished business.

Like, I went out there, I wanted to accomplish something and then like--I think we--we've shown a lot more resilience than what we actually went out there to show veterans, but I think there's still that piece of, like, I miss the sunrises, the sunsets.

The wildlife out there was amazing, the stars.

You can't take pictures to show anyone what the stars look like.

And the conversations were key.

I talked to these guys for years and we've known each other for 15+ years and some of the conversations you have out there on the ocean are so deep, and there's probably no one that would call me on anything like these guys would.

And so if I had that opportunity to do it again with them, I absolutely would.

Hands down.

Janssen: We made it 16 days.

Our goal was to do it in under 50 days and cross that finish line and light the flares, and we didn't light the flares at the finish line.

There is unfinished business.

Nicholas: I've been a motivational speaker for a couple of years now so I got a pretty d-- good story to tell now.

I spent a lot more time at home and I'm--it definitely made me appreciate my family a lot more.

I always had an urge to leave and explore and travel and do all this stuff, and I still do.

I still traveled probably 30 times this year, but there's nothing I enjoy more now than just sitting at home with the family.

2015 I attempted suicide, and that's when I really started to do the work on myself.

And you know what?

This isn't my--wasn't my first near-death experience but definitely the most traumatizing one 'cause you're so helpless out there.

There's nothing we can do.

You know, everything else there's always, like, something I can do to make it better, but out there it's just you're just--you're at the ocean's hands.

You just got to hope.

You know, hope we can make it.

I'm focused a lot more on gratitude.

I'm very grateful for the life that I have.

I'm grateful to be alive.

And I had a long healing journey and my mental health took a pretty big decline, but all I got to say now--I mean, it's been almost a year and I'm doing better than I think I ever have been.