Row Hard No Excuses

USA 2007 / 88min.
Director Luke Wolbach / Producer Bill Wolbach, Luke Wolbach

At 51 and 41, John Zeigler and Tom Mailhot are among the oldest competitors to participate in the Atlantic Rowing Challenge.

The Atlantic Rowing Challenge is a race for the hard-core, an event for those who crave an adventure and are willing to pay for it financially, physically and emotionally — $19,000 to enter, another $150,000 to build your boat and every ounce of crazy determination to row non-stop from the Canary Islands to the Barbados. If you cross the finish line first, you get a trophy but if you abandon the race enroute, you’re required to burn your boat.

At 51 and 41, John Zeigler and Tom Mailhot are at the cross-roads of their lives and have decided to enter the race, each with a personal goal to meet. Director Luke Wolbach chronicles their journey in a film that is at one level an exciting sports-adventure story as well as being an intimate portrait of masculinity, midlife crisis and ambition. It is a meditation on human endurance, commitment and what it means to win or not to win.

The film is textured by the personal videos of the other teams made available to Wolbach. New Zealanders Steph Brown and Jude Ellis were the first successful all female crew in the Challenge finishing fourth overall and to this day still hold the women’s record.

“Row Hard No Excuses” is the slogan John and Tom wore on their t-shirts before the start of the race.

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