“Imagine the unyielding winds thrashing the ruthless Pacific Ocean waves, with no land or reprieve visible for miles. All you have to get through it is a rowboat, your partner and an unrelenting will to complete one of the most demanding physical and mental feats this world offers. Would you do it?”
The Tiger posed this question back in March when former Clemson crewmates Anna McLean and Jenny D’Anthony were in the process of planning to do just that. At around 4 a.m. on Friday — exactly 47 days, 17 hours and 37 minutes after last touching land in Monterey Bay, California — the duo landed at Hanalei Bay in Hawaii.
The pair are now the youngest female duo to cross the Pacific, at 28 and 29 years old. They lead comfortable lives in Florida, both working in STEM fields as a consultant and engineer. So when faced with nearly two months of calloused and bleeding hands, dehydration, limited food and no bathrooms, what pushed these young women to say yes to The World’s Toughest Row?
Their Clemson family, of course.
The alumni rowed for Hear Her Roar, a fundraising initiative for IPTAY that focuses on female student-athletes. Through corporate sponsorships, grassroots donations and thousands of dollars in Amazon wish list items, McLean and D’Anthony look to make a lasting impact on the lives of future female student-athletes at the University.
“Without an athletic scholarship, I probably would not have been able to attend (Clemson University),” D’Anthony said. “Having that experience and having those resources and opportunities as a student-athlete impacted us both while we were at Clemson and beyond, giving us the confidence and the skills to be confident with who we were as females in science fields.”
The two met on the rowing team at Clemson back in 2014 and have been the best of friends since. In 2020, McLean and her brother became the first brother-sister pair to row an ocean when they crossed the Atlantic in 43 days, 15 hours and 22 minutes. D’Anthony knew what she had to do next.
“I knew if Anna was in my boat we were going fast. I knew if Anna was next to me on the erg it was going to be a battle. I knew if Anna was around we were going to have a good time. I was so incredibly inspired by Anna’s Atlantic row that I simply could not pass up the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to row across the Pacific Ocean with my best friend,” she wrote on the United Row website.
She made the right call, as somewhere in week three, D’Anthony was faced with an infected hand that stopped her from manning the oars while it healed. To keep the boat moving 24/7, the women had been working two-hour shifts on and off, rowing together when necessary to fight through rougher conditions.
When D’Anthony was out of commission, McLean took over for 18 hours straight.
After launching their boat on the morning of June 8, the women’s lives were consumed by the unusual routines required to sustain their journey. It’s estimated that each rower burned 10,000 calories in a day, meaning they had to constantly consume calorically dense, freeze-dried foods — which then ended up in the “Chuck It Bucket” (enough said).
Every three days, one of them would strap themselves to the boat, jump in the water and scrape barnacles off the boat to prevent drag. Surprisingly, they didn’t see a lot of wildlife on their journey, mostly birds, squid and lots of whales off the Californian coast. After weeks of eerie silence, an interruption likely would have been welcome.
They were reminded they were not alone in an unexpected, yet appreciated way: when D’Anthony was on shift in the middle of the night, the boat received a call from the USS Sterett, a naval ship offering its support from thousands of miles away.
McLean and D’Anthony were welcomed by family and friends at Hanalei Bay and now look forward to lots of rest, recovery and planning for their next adventure together.
