The 74-year-old only rowed twice across the Atlantic

• Frank Rothwell, a 74-year-old from Great Britain, was not sporty as a child, but took up sailing in his 30s.
• He took up rowing in his 70s – he has now rowed solo across the Atlantic twice.
• He raised money for Alzheimer’s Research UK by driving for 12 hours a day for 56 days.

This essay is based on a conversation with Frank Rothwell, a 74-year-old British businessman who owns Oldham Athletic Football Club. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I didn’t have many opportunities to play sports as a child. But when I reached my 30s, I became interested in sailing. And now, at the age of 74, I have rowed solo across the Atlantic twice.

In 1990, my family chartered a yacht off the coast of the Whitsunday Islands in Australia for two weeks. We loved it so much we bought a yacht.

I started doing longer sailing trips, about six weeks. At this point it was just a hobby, and I was using all my vacations to sail. I own my own business, so I could take as much time off as I wanted, but I was still close to retirement.

I met a guy in a pub who had just sailed the Northwest Passage, the sea that runs between Alaska and Russia. I couldn’t stop thinking about doing it either, so I did. And then I sailed from Great Britain around South America, and then a figure eight around America and through the Panama Canal.

By the time I got home, I had had enough of sailing. It’s really hard to find people willing to come sailing with you because they think it’s going to be an advertised holiday – but you need someone with sailing experience who can take months off work and who will still want to go out when it’s raining hard and pouring and they’re seasick. So I wanted something I could make myself.

I switched from sailing to rowing

One night I met a woman in a pub who had a friend who was going to row across the Atlantic alone. I thought it should be doable if someone with no sailing experience was planning to do it.

So a few weeks later, in 2020, I entered the same race, the hardest row in the world. I was just doing it for my own benefit, but when I realized that all the other teams were raising funds for a charity, I thought too. I knew it would be easy for me to raise money because I am a rich man and have rich friends.

I decided on Alzheimer’s Research UK because Alzheimer’s affects everyone – the person who has it, their family, their neighbours. On my first trip I raised £1.1 million.

You had to log 100 hours of sailing to take part in the race, but I enjoyed the training so much that I ended up doing 400 hours in the right offshore conditions.

I also trained by doing hill runs and weight lifting – doing a lot of pull ups with heavier weights than I would pull when rowing.

I drove all day, every day, for 56 days

For my first row in the Atlantic, I left on December 12, 2020, from La Gomera, one of the Canary Islands. It took me 56 days. I arrived in Antigua on February 6, 2021. At 70, I was the oldest person in the race.

I did my second row aged 73 – I completed it on 15th February 2024 after 64 days of riding and raised over £383,000.

On a boat, you’re either rowing or sleeping. I was trying to row eight to 14 hours a day, depending on the sea conditions. Some days I made good progress and went 70 miles ahead; some days I ended up going 8 miles back.

On a typical day I would wake up around 7:30am and check the phone base to make sure I was still there. Then I would call my wife, Judith, within 10 minutes of her waking up and have breakfast – dry granola from a tin and iced coffee.

Then I would drive until 10 or 11 in the morning until the sun got hotter and I had to wear more clothes to fully cover my skin. I would have a snack, maybe a few bars of chocolate, and continue driving.

I had to drive quite slowly, about 2.5 mph. If you’re going to drive for 12 hours, you should go at a speed that you can easily maintain. It’s easier to row a boat than a rowing machine because you have inertia to help you.

While driving, I ate macadamia nuts because they are full of calories. I’d take a kilo of that a week for lunches. If I wanted to sleep, I would try to take a nap just after noon, when the sun is hottest.

I would drive up to tea, when I would have two or three noodles in the pot made with warm water. All the water I had was 23 degrees Celsius, or 73 degrees Fahrenheit – always warm. One of the things I looked forward to when I was done was to drink something cold.

I was completely alone

I called my son every day for advice. He would spend an hour every day checking the weather, and so I would call him for five minutes when he was talking about the route I should take.

I had no other support. A security boat came to check on me while I was asleep once, but other than that, I didn’t even see a plane.

During my second row across the Atlantic, the ship capsized twice in 24 hours. I was in the cockpit so I was fine. The boat would always go back, but I lost one of its safety features and my anchor overboard.

Afterwards I felt a bit down, so my wife suggested I take a day off. But I spent half the day thinking, “What am I doing?” So I went back to the oars, stopped being gentle, and crashed.

My family is not keen on it, but I would like to drive again.