An island adventurer has set off on his third attempt to row solo across the North Atlantic Ocean to his home in the Hebrides.
Niall Iain Macdonald, 44, began his new bid on Wednesday when he left Norfolk, Virginia, in the US at 6am local time (10am GMT) bound for the Isle of Lewis.
He hopes to complete his 3,400-mile challenge in three to four months rowing for 12 hours a day on a two-hour on/off rotation.
Mr Macdonald, a freelance broadcaster, signalled the start of his challenge with a simple post on Twitter and Facebook – “How long should you try? Until. 36°55′17″N 76°11′19″W”
This is a third attempt at the epic North Atlantic row, previously named NY2SY, as he planned to go from New York to Stornoway.
His first attempt at the challenge in 2014 ended when he suffered a bad accident on board just nine days into the trip.
In 2017 he spent six weeks in New York waiting for a weather window that would allow him to clear land safely – but it never came due to a series of low pressure systems.
He returned again in April this year and spent another two weeks on stand-by before deciding to move further down the US coast to take advantage of better weather conditions.
His 24ft rowing boat, Alba, finally set off from Norfolk on Tuesday.
Before leaving, he said: “There has been a lot of interest in the boat and my challenge, and lots of offers of help from other boat owners in the marina.
“I was a bit nervous about coming down to Norfolk as it was a bit of a gamble, but one that we felt was worth taking.
“I had already spent two weeks sitting in New York on stand-by and there was no sign of a weather window appearing there any time soon.”
The adventurer is undertaking NY2SY to raise at least £100,000 for the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH).
Although he will be rowing solo, he has a shore-based support team led by Leven Brown, who was part of Mark Beaumont’s assistance for his Around Britain cycle challenge.
Mr McDonald added: “The main motivation for NY2SY Solo North Atlantic row is to raise at least £100,000 for SAMH and also hopefully this will encourage people to seek help or find out more about mental health issues.
“Any donations are very welcome. I’m going to be struggling out there at times.
“What will be driving me forward is knowing that there will be people back here who’ll be supporting me and also the wider issue of SAMH.”
Julie Macdonald, SAMH senior fundraising manager, said: “We want to say thank you to Niall Iain for choosing to support SAMH during this unique personal challenge. We wish him luck and every success in his venture.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here