Tom Hester - PBS Documentary “Defying Death On The Atlantic”

It's eight thirty nine, almost e thirty nine. Here fifty five KRCY Talk Station. A very happy Monday to you.

Oh.

I have been intrigued by this since I saw him on the rundown. I'm happy to welcome to the fifty five Carscsey Morning Show. Since any native an Air Force veteran, he did service in Iraq, he is well also kind of crazy. I will tell you that Tom Hester welcome to the program. By way background, He's currently the vice

Thank you very much for having me something I've been looking forward to for a while now.

And I said, kind of crazy. You're gonna be at the lunch with a veteran event on Sunday, May twenty fifth, and this takes place at Arlington Memorial Gardens. Have I got that correct?

Yes?

And Arlington Memorial Gardens has obtained exclusive rights to something I'm sure near and dear to your heart. It's a PBS documentary called Defying Death on the Atlantic and you were a crew member on the team that's featured in this PBS documentary. Is that correct?

That is correct, and probably why you and many others call me crazy.

That's it, okay? How many of us would sign up for what is described as a perilous three thousand mile ocean rowing race called the World's Toughest row. I mean that that's bad assery or craziness right there? My friend tell us all about what this race involves before we get to the details of what happened to you on that team in twenty twenty two.

Well, I think you're absolutely right. Not many people would sign up for that amount of craziness. A three thousand mile row, no sales, no engines, just you and your team.

And if you ain't rowing, you ain't.

Going three thousand miles from Lagamera and the Canary Islands to Antigua in the Caribbean. That was the goal to help motivate fellow veterans to.

Get out of their little bubble, out of their own world, go do.

Something cool like you got to do while you were in the military, overcome your challenges.

We set out to help guys get over trauma, and we came home with just a little bit more of our own.

Yes, you did. How many men are on the team?

You've never cooperated the way we needed it too.

Well, it's the ocean. You don't have no idea what you're going to run into out there in the ocean. How many men are on your team? We're on your team.

We were all deployed together in two thousand and eight, so by the time the race started in twenty twenty two, we had known each other and become lifelong friends, ready to go do some badassery together.

Yeah. And there were a total of how many of you?

There were four of us four.

Yeah, So there were always two guys rowing and there were always two guys resting, rotated in two hour shifts twenty four to seven.

So how long, okay, how long did you anticipate this three thousand mile Because I know you didn't make it in twenty twenty two, and we're going to get to that in a moment. And I'm keeping my powder dry on what happened to you, But the expectation of the time it would take to complete when you when you started out, Oh, it's going to take us about how many days to complete this?

We were shooting for under fifty fifty days, yes, unsupported. So we had all of our own food packed in the boat. We had solar panels, so we had energy on the boat, and we also had a desalinator on board so we could drink fresh water made right from the ocean.

Now, in terms of the size of the craft, how many feet was it and was did it come with some form of shelter because you get inclement weather, as we're going to find out. But so what does a general description of the of the boat look like.

The boat was twenty eight feet long by five feet wide. The rowing portion the deck of the boat was completely open.

There was no overhead shelter or anything.

But each end of the boat had a cabin in it and that's where you would spend your off shift, so you were enclosed on either end.

Of the boat.

Okay, Now, the name of your team, which I got a big chuckle out of, and I know it was done done tongue in cheek. But let my listeners know.

The team and organization that we rowed for was called Fight or Die or isa.

AR right, all right, So that makes perfect sense considering you're going on a three thousand mile ocean rowing race. So in twenty twenty two when you embarked on this at the outset huge challenge, let my listeners know what happened what's depicted in the Defying Death on the Atlantic documentary.

Sure, So, like you had said, the race started in December, I don't The reason it starts at that time frame is because the trade winds off of Africa should have formed by then. Well, what had happened to us? Right around Christmas Day? There was a giant storm that passed over Buffalo, New York. I think it dropped like eight feet of snow on them, and then the jet stream

And so this is the middle of the night and you're out in the middle of the ocean. Obviously there's no light going on around there. Can I ask you, because I know exactly if I would, that would be a I have to change my shorts inducing moment in time. What were your emotions like at the time that that happened. And I know you were out at sea for a while there after. We get to that in a minute, But what were your emotions like at the very moment that that happened.

I was in the cabin and I'm very grateful that I was inside when it happened.

I was kind of in between sleep and total fear at that moment. Yeah, we knew we were in probably.

Not the best of situations, so we were all kind of on edge the whole day.

The moment the.

Boat flipped over, there was probably a split second of oh my god, we're upside down. This is not good, but right after that training kind of kicked in. This is a race and a moment we had been preparing for for a couple of years that point.

So I was in a position where I knew.

The boat was supposed to flip back over, but it was totally dark and all I could see was the water line in the window of the hatch.

And it didn't move.

Oh my, Now you swam out then from the hatch, I presume.

So kind of like a car accident. Time slowed down a lot while I was in the cabin. I had to grab all of our gear that we were going to need. I had heard one of my teammates will, yeah, we need to get to the life raft. The boat's not flipping over. So at that moment it was time to go to work. I knew I needed to grab a lot of stuff for us. Turned out I had been in that cabin for about forty to forty five minutes before I left the cabin to get to the life raft. Wow, And I had no idea it was

Oh my, and it was all of you. Your crewmates were safe in the quote unquote safe sense under the circumstances, maybe not so safe considering the storm raging around you, in the fact that your boat was flipped over but you had the life raft. Did any point in time any of the crewmates like lose track of the boat or the craft get washed out that they were concerned that they might not be rescued or get back to the life raft.

So two of us were in the cabins and two of the teammates were actually on deck still in the rowing position. So when you are not in a cabin, you are required to be harnessed and tethered. So when the boat did flip over, two of the teammates were actually ejected opposite directions.

The other two of us were still in.

The cabin right, So them being tethered to the boat was paramount to everybody making at home.

Well, that's reassuring to know. I was kind of wondering how that worked out. So thank god for safety equipment and portable radio. Did you have an opportunity to communicate you weren't flying blind out there in the middle of the ocean before the vote boat cap size. Did you have a portable radio or something that went with the lifeboat or the lifeboat have one built in.

So We had a satellite phone that we actually had to use and keep on every day. We were part of a race hosted by Atlantic Campaigns, and they have very strict safety requirements, and one of those is you talked on a satellite phone with their.

Safety officer at least every other day.

And we had just spoken with him on the satellite phone the day before, so you know, we had the satellite phone on a charger. When I was drabbing gear to go to the life raft, that was one of the things I grabbed. I would grab the satellite phone, a VHF radio, and a handheld GPS.

That's about all we had. Now by the time we got to the life raft, though, the satellite phone had gotten wet and it didn't work.

Oh no, So our only community devices were two cell phones that weren't going to work in the middle of the Atlantic, and a VHF radio that works by line of sight. So that's actually not very far when you're still in thirty foot waves.

Jeez. So how many days were you on the or how long we were on the how long I should say we were on the life raft before you were rescued, and how did you get rescued?

Well, we had been in the life raft for approximately sixteen hours before ever making contact with anybody.

On about our.

Sixteen and a half, we made another May Day call on that VHF radio and we received a reply via two Mike clicks from who we had no idea who could hear us, but at that point we didn't care. About an hour later we were able to communicate with somebody. Still didn't know who it was, and then an hour later we were picked up by a six hundred foot cargo ship out of the Netherlands.

Wow, from a deflating life raft.

Oh my, And I'm sure all of this is in the PBS documentary to Fine Death on the Atlantic. Again. It's Arlington Memorial Gardens has got the exclusive rights to premiere this. You will be at the premiere if you show up at Arlington Memorial Gardens May twenty fourth, that's Saturday, one pm is the first showing. You got a four pm showing on the twenty fourth, and then on Sunday, May twenty fifth is a two pm showing. And that's the day when you'll be speaking at the annual luncheon

Maybe people would not.

I believe more people have been to space than have rowed a boat across an.

Ocean, and that sounds about right to be. Heroic Expeditions Dot Org for my veteran friends in the in the audience doing great things, Veterans united in resilience, bonded forged in adventure like the one we just talk about. It's been a real pleasure having on the program. And thanks again for your service to our country and your continued service to our country with your organization, Heroic Expeditions.

Well, thank you. The pleasure has been all mine.

Crazy man, Yeah, I got respect, There's no doubt about it. Eight fifty one fifty five KERR c DE Talk station fifty five KRC. What if you had an extra dollar