Four men who cross the Atlantic Ocean together in a boat for almost 38 days. Tom Rijnders (28) has lived this story in recent weeks, as if it came from an exciting boys’ book. The adventurer from Klundert rowed together with three buddies to raise money for the Princess Maxima Center. They have now set foot on land again for the first time. And from his adventure bubble, Tom enjoys it with us for a while.
Calluses on the hands, heavy sea legs and an incredible experience under your belt. It’s still a bit of a landing for Tom, now that he is on land on the Caribbean island of Antigua after more than a month. “It’s going well,” he says, over his girlfriend’s phone. He himself has not been online for a while. First land quietly.
He participated with his companions World’s Toughest Row. A rowing competition in which teams race from the Canary Islands to the island of Antigua, across the Atlantic Ocean. They raise money for a good cause and draw attention to topics that they find important. And in addition, they mainly push their own mental and physical limits.
“Your body can do so much more than you think.”
“Your body can do so much more than you think,” Tom summarizes his experience. He is very stiff, has lost weight and has just had a somewhat reasonable night’s sleep for the first time in 40 days, but otherwise he is doing fine. His team had no rest days and therefore no time to get muscle pain, he thinks. “You’re going all the time, with a lot of aches and pains in between. But we haven’t suffered any injuries.”
“If you have to relieve yourself in a bucket in front of each other’s faces, you overcome all the embarrassment very quickly.”
So everything went well, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was incredibly intensive. All limbs hurt at least once, the men got little sleep and the fledgling friendship between Tom and his fellow group members gained enormous momentum.
The four of them sat on a 12 square meter rowing boat for more than a month. Shared a bed, a boat and, above all, a lot of conversations. “But if you have to relieve yourself in a bucket in front of each other’s faces, you quickly overcome all the embarrassment.”
“Sometimes you had sessions in which you didn’t say anything to each other at all, other sessions you just chatted with each other for two hours. About how our lives turned out, or what your school days were like.” And that was necessary, to keep each other awake. Sleeping on the boat was not entirely ideal. “We laughed a lot about simple humor, but also talked about life and geopolitics. All with the same mission and with a very good connection.”
He lived with the position of the sun and the moon. Felt how important it was to take good care of his body. But above all I had a lot of time to think. “We didn’t hear anything else about what was happening in the outside world. You have no contact with others, so at a certain point you run out of thoughts. What am I going to think about now, I thought. Maybe I still will. miss.”
“I will never forget this whole experience.”
The team raised 50,000 euros with the adventure, although they hope to eventually raise double that amount. They were unable to set a record time due to the weather, but they were the very first boat to cross the finish line. And to the left or right, they are especially proud of the performance, the drive and the preparation. “I will never forget this whole experience.”
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