NEVEREST

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Perseverance, spiritual strength and a positive attitude helped them to reach the end of this adventure, and Max to become the youngest person to have rowed across an ocean.

Ralph Tuijn, many times record holder in ocean rowing; NEVEREST land based navigator

These two men proved that a person is as big as his dreams.

Victoria Dimitrova, world rowing champion and Stefan’s and Maxim’s rowing trainer

You overcame the ocean, unbelievable, you are the pride and inspiration for millions of Bulgarians!

One of the thousands of opinions published in the social media

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Stefan and Maxim Ivanov are father and son, who like to travel, challenge themselves and live outside the box. With no rowing, boat building or seafaring experience, they constructed the ocean rowing boat NEVEREST in their garage in Sofia with which they crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the summer of 2020.

MAXIM IVANOV was born in Brazil on the 25th of August 2003. Max is a pupil at St. George International School in Sofia. He likes debating and spending time with his friends.

STEFAN IVANOV was born in Sofia on the 24th of August 1972. Educated in finance. Managing Partner of the advisory boutique, Challenger Capital Management, and before that, CEO of Citibank in Bulgaria. In 2011 he became the second Bulgarian to swim the English Channel and in 2019 he completed one of the most difficult mountain ultramarathons UTMB-PTL, 300 kilometres in length with a cumulative elevation gain of 25,000 metres. He loves nature and challenges.

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PART 1

Preparation

Chapter 1

TWENTY ONE MONTHS BEFORE THE VOYAGE
SEPTEMBER 2018, MAX
“Dad, someday you’ll get to cross the Atlantic in a rowing boat!” I exclaimed one evening, as all my family were gathered round the dining table.
I saw the baffled looks from my mother Jenny and my sister Lara while on my father Stefan’s face, a smile spread.
It was the autumn of 2018, I’d only just turned fifteen. Our family dinner followed its usual pattern, discussing everyday matters and making plans for the weekend. Nothing presaged the start of an unforgettable adventure.
The evening, though, was quite different from any other.
I’ll go back a little in time, to share the fact that my father adores challenges. Although finance is his professional field, he’s been a fan of extreme experiences since childhood. He likes to experiment with different kinds of sport – from skiing and snowboarding, surfing and windsurfing to Taekwondo and mountain-biking.
When he turned 39, he got into long-distance running and not only did he run marathons, but tried his strength in mountain ultramarathons. I’ve always been impressed by his insatiable appetite for big challenges. I remember how happy he was when he succeeded in finishing the Vitosha 100, took part in the Pirin Ultra (67 kilometres), ran in the Lavaredo Ultra (87 kilometres), the UTMB-PTL (300 kilometres), etc. In Copenhagen, he finished the Ironman which comprised a 3.8 kilometres swim, a 180 kilometres bicycle ride and a 42 kilometres run, in excellent time. Although he never trained in professional swimming, in 2011 he swam The English Channel and became the second Bulgarian to cross this stretch of water between England and France. The first, was the legendary swimming contestant Peter Stoychev who, for 11 successive years, led the world rankings for marathon swimming in open water.
Of course, I threw out the idea of rowing the Atlantic as a joke initially, thinking that to cross an ocean in a rowing boat was an absolutely impossible undertaking. In spite of this however, the thought of the challenge nibbled away at the corners of my subconscious and that very evening I sat down and searched the internet for more information. I found out that there were people who had crossed not just the Atlantic but other oceans too in rowing boats. This discovery was unexpected and both amazed and excited me. I wanted to find out more about these extreme rowers and their experiences.
That’s how I found out about the Dutchman Ralph Tuijn, who on his own and with other rowers had carried out nine expeditions across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. On one of these, on the 26th of January 2015, he set out in a rowing boat from Lagos, Portugal and reached Cedros, Trinidad and Tobago. There were four other rowers participating in the expedition: Sam Greatrix, Tara Adams, Jim Alsford and Nicholas Sen. They crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 52 days and 6 hours, during which they managed to set a record for the fastest Atlantic crossing from Europe to South America, as before finishing their voyage in Trinidad and Tobago they touched on the Venezuela coast.
I came across the story of the Canadian, Mylène Paquette who managed a solo crossing of the North Atlantic. She set out on the 6th of July 2013 from Halifax, Canada and reached Lorient, France in 128 days and 22 hours. Thus, she became the first person from the Americas to successfully row solo across the North Atlantic. For 45 of the first 60 days of the expedition, the weather and navigational conditions were so bad that Mylène was forced to remain in the cabin, while the boat was held by a drogue anchor.
I admit that I was really surprised to learn, not only that there had been such expeditions, but all the details about them; such an undertaking seemed to me exceptionally difficult, almost superhuman. As I read the stories of these brave voyagers, I felt simultaneously afraid and attracted towards such an unimaginable adventure. I pictured how we would row for thousands of miles, a team, father and son, roaming across the endless ocean, relying only on our own strength and sometimes on luck and the weather’s benevolence. I was in awe of everything that remained to be learnt, of the difficulties that I’d have to face and try to overcome. Before my eyes a new world opened up, linked to navigation, to the seas and their inhabitants, and the exceptional opportunity to get to know our strengths and weaknesses.
I could not stop surfing the sea of information regarding these voyages. Ocean rowing boats were festooned with all kinds of antennas, satellite and navigational devices and looked more like spaceships than ordinary boats, which was fascinating. Some rowers had crossed the oceans solo and others in teams of two, three or even six. The stories they told were exciting and seemed genuine, unforgettable and unrepeatable. I wanted to feel and live through something as exceptional, and this sparked the adventurer in me.
There was no need for long deliberation or anyone to convince us, my father and I quickly decided we would not only row across the Atlantic together, but we would construct the boat ourselves. That way we would know exactly how it had been built and how strong it was, as well as gain experience of boatbuilding and seafaring, which would all be invaluable to us on the ocean. We did not underestimate the thousands of hours we would be working on the boat together which would also help us become a better team.
My summers up to this moment had been like those of a typical teenager: I adored going to the seaside, seeing friends and cousins, travelling through Bulgaria and sometimes abroad, mostly with my parents and sister, occasionally without my family. What perhaps sets me aside is the fact that I believed in myself and in my ability to overcome all sorts of obstacles, whatever they may be. I think people limit themselves too much and set up invisible barriers to achieving their dreams. That summer I had no clue I would be setting out on a long and boundless journey, but having accepted the idea I was ready for the challenge of escaping everyday monotony.
My paternal grandfather Nikolay, had been a Master of Sports in gymnastics and a professor of mechanical engineering in the Higher Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (currently the Technical University) in Sofia. There he met my grandmother, Karina, a student in electrical engineering. I believe this may explain our natural ability to construct machines, adapt vehicles, build electrical systems and take on any kind of engineering challenge.
We began to dream, to plan and to debate, we undertook serious research to learn as much as we possibly could about such an undertaking and to minimise the chance of nasty surprises. We discovered that about a third of ocean crossing attempts in a rowing boat were unsuccessful. Despite unearthing such worrying statistics of failure, we were not deterred. On the contrary, we found the idea more compelling even though the thought of crossing the ocean in a small rowing boat was terrifying. After more delving, we found out that of the several hundred rowing boats daring to embark on ocean voyages, only eight had lost rowers at sea and only two of them had more than one rower on board. One of the boats had six rowers – one of whom had fallen overboard, never to be found; the other had lost its pair of rowers – the only boat that had lost more than one person. This had happened however, in 1966, more than half a century ago, when communication and navigation technologies were of a much lower standard.
We were already convinced that without a suitable boat, we’d get nowhere so our time and energy had to be concentrated on the building phase; we would plan the voyage once this had been achieved. This decision brought me relief in the moments when I worried how we would manage the challenge, whether it was too much of a risk or just downright crazy. Deep down inside I knew that we would do everything possible to guarantee our personal safety and the success of the voyage.

FIRST STEPS
17 SEPTEMBER 2018, STEFAN

When in the course of the family dinner Max ‘threw down the gauntlet’ of a rowing boat Atlantic crossing, the first thought that passed through my mind was: “Wow, what a great challenge!”
From the time when Max and Lara were quite small, I’ve striven to stimulate them into seeking out activities that would engage their thinking and creativity and develop them as individuals. I avoided slapping an immediate veto when one of them wanted to sleep in a tent in the mountains with their friends or learn how to snowboard. Rather, along with them, we would think through the idea and whether it was a good one and how to realise it in the most reasonable way. At first, Jenny and Lara didn’t take the idea seriously but Max and I got down to carefully researching the topic and once we established that such ocean rowing expeditions are possible and very rarely end fatally for the crew, and after lengthy discussions with several ocean rowers, the decision was taken to undertake the voyage.
At first, we didn’t know where to start. I wanted Max and I to construct the boat ourselves, to demonstrate that it is possible to build something with your own hands, even if you have no experience in the specific field. I hoped that this would give Max more confidence and show him that when you apply your energy and dedication to something, you can indeed succeed. Moreover, in this way, we would get to know every element of the boat’s construction and be able to repair it if it broke down or suffered damage during the voyage. During the construction process we would spend hundreds, even thousands of hours together, which these days rarely happens between a father and his teenage son. There’s no doubt, we would bump into really difficult stages in the creation of the boat and even more serious and stressful moments during the voyage, which would take at least a month, perhaps two or three, however this would make the whole experience even more exciting and rewarding. I strongly believed these efforts and difficulties would temper the steel in Max’s character and would be useful to him later in life, whatever professional path he chose to follow. Competition in every field is becoming more global and merciless and to succeed, you have to apply a combination of hard work, ingenuity and courage. I hoped he would be able to learn many useful lessons from the expedition, regardless of whether it was successful or not.
As we lacked experience and knowledge in boatbuilding, we feared that if we designed it on our own, there was a real possibility the boat would be too narrow, which would make the inboard oar-shaft too short and rowing very hard. On the other hand, if it were too wide that would be dangerous because if waves capsized it, it would not self-right. Other possibilities were that it might sit too low in the water, which would allow waves to regularly inundate the boat; or that it might sit too high, which would cause serious rocking and make rowing very difficult.
We decided, therefore, that the sensible thing would be to find one of the best designers of ocean rowing boats and purchase plans for a two person boat which we would then build on our own in our family garage. It turned out that the English boat designer Phil Morrison, had drawn up the blueprints for more than three quarters of all the ocean rowing boats in recent years.
There was no doubt as to Phil’s expertise and authority in this field, as nearly all speed records and first voyages had been established in boats he had designed. He was our man.
It wasn’t at all easy to get in contact with him though, as he had no social media profile, website or contact details in the yellow pages. Fortunately, we found out that he used to be an associate member of the Pevensey Bay Yacht Club on the English south coast and sent them an email on the 17th of September 2018, with a plea to put us in contact with him. The Club responded to our email and in a couple of days we were chatting to Phil on the phone.
We told him about our dream of building an ocean rowing boat in our garage and that we had no experience of rowing and ocean voyages. He let us know that at this point in time he was considering retiring and withdrawing from active work with boats and competitions. He made it clear that in order to help us, it would not be enough to send designs of boats he had drawn up previously as they had been prepared with specialised shipyards in mind, equipped with vacuum machines for applying the resins and special moulds. This would not be practical in the building of one single boat in our garage.
During the course of our conversations Phil must have become aware of our enormous desire to realise our dream, or perhaps our despair about not managing without his help, because ultimately he agreed to draw up and send us an authentic design of an ocean rowing boat that we could build in a domestic setting. We were amazed that he entertained two absolute beginners and agreed to help us without being sure we wouldn’t change our minds the next day!
We agreed the design would cost a modest sum, since Phil reasoned he would be able to sell the project to other enthusiasts afterwards. Several weeks later we received the first draft designs and to be honest, we didn’t like them, despite knowing nothing of boat construction. The boat seemed too big and it had an aft cabin which seemed too small for two people. It took some courage to share our concerns with Phil, especially as we had never actually set foot in an Olympic rowing boat, but luckily , Phil readily admitted that the design was based on archaic models he had used in the past, and agreed to design something more modern and functional especially for us. The second design he sent us had a bow cabin, but it was surrounded by a deck gunwale which made the cabin smaller and the boat look more like a fishing vessel than a sports one. Fortunately, Phil agreed to correct this design as well, to get rid of the gunwale around the cabin and send us a third variant, which we immediately fell in love with. The boat resembled an American war plane made with “Stealth” technology, which had a pared down design with sharp curves developed to reach supersonic speeds. It looked like a futuristic machine from another planet!

A DO IT YOURSELF ON TWO WHEELS
STEFAN

The boat wasn’t the first vehicle which Max and I had constructed in our garage. When he was eight or nine years old, we decided to fulfil one of my childhood dreams and make a motorbike out of spare parts – like the Lego models Max liked to put together. The bike was in the style of a chopper – similar to a Harley Davidson, but with its 2400 cc engine, looked more like its bigger brother. In comparison, it was as powerful as 48 Balkan bikes (Balkan was the first motorbike I’d ridden as a child) and 2.4 times bigger than an engine of a car like a Volkswagen Polo, for example.
We chose specific models among engines from Ultima, frames from Sander Motorcycle Works, carburettors from S&S, etc. and ordered them from the USA. The back tyre which we decided on for the bike was 30 centimetres wide – a lot wider than a car tyre. The electrical system consisted of dozens of multi-coloured cables, which had to be built into the frame. We had such boyish fun in the garage and felt like inventors. Max had his specific tasks, which he had to carry out without my help, for example, mounting the headlight on the bike. Sometimes I scratched my head over how to install certain parts, as we had no instruction booklet for every step of the construction. When the moment came to push the starter button, I felt an excitement, similar to that when Max and Lara were born. We had to change the configuration of the cables three times as the first two attempts yielded no signs of life. The third time however, it started up and the rumble and thunderous clatter of the engine was so strong that if we’d had amalgam fillings they’d have surely fallen out on the first ride.
Well, our fillings didn’t fall out, but the first trips with the bike were solo, until I made sure that everything was working as it should. The bike had some teething problems: sometimes, due to the vibration, this or that bolt would fall off, along with the part it was supporting. I had to use a special glue for the bolts and nuts, to eliminate this problem. After riding several hundred kilometres however, the engine stabilised and to this very day – almost ten years later – it continues to work with minimal faults. To my regret no one in my family shows any desire to ride with me on the bike. Every time I invite them, they turn me down with some excuse – that it was too noisy, that it is going to rain, etc.
Constructing a boat is not an easy undertaking and is not like assembling ready made parts. You have to build the body, the deck, the storage compartments, the cabin, etc. from scratch. It’s essential to apply exceptional precision in the construction of the designed hydro and aerodynamic shapes and ensure they are strong enough to withstand ocean storms. You have to select and install navigation and communication devices, equipment which is used in rescue operations, and to take care of dozens of details, which are essential for the survival of ocean voyagers. We had no idea what materials and tools to use or how to handle them. Therefore, once again we decided to seek the help of experts in the relevant fields and to benefit from their experience and knowledge. It would have been a huge waste of time and resources ‘to reinvent the wheel’ in every field.
We contacted Captain Nikolay Djambazov – the great Bulgarian seafarer who built his own yacht, Tangra and completed a round the world voyage, passing Cape Horn, with it in 1983. Apart from Tangra he had built and restored many other sea going vessels and completed dozens of voyages across seas and oceans. From his book With Tangra against the Wind, we not only gained inspiration about what a man can achieve, but also learnt some important lessons about seafaring. Captain Djambazov, from our first meeting, made us understand that sailing the ocean is a serious and dangerous business and that we could not possibly imagine what we had undertaken. When we asked him a question related to seafaring, his answer was always based on his personal experience of years spent building and sailing sea vessels across seas and oceans. He gave us instructions on how to manage in bad weather – to run downwind and tie the drogue anchor out from the stern, even if this resulted in a temporary divergence from the course we’ve set. He told us about the breaking waves, about the unpredictable situations which would surely develop during our expedition and about what a potentially insurmountable mental challenge a long sea voyage might have on the mind of a sixteen year old youth.
In spite of all the warnings and stories he shared with us, Nikolay Djambazov wanted to help us and immediately put us in touch with his friend, engineer Stoyan Voivodov, who agreed to give us practical guidance on the construction of the boat. To understand what kind of man Stoyan is, it has to be noted that he is the first Bulgarian to have had the courage to build his own hang glider and fly with it. In fact Stoyan made a number of better and better hang glider variants, the first of which he built from a photograph measuring 4×4 centimetres from the Paralleli magazine, extrapolating the hang glider measurements according to their proportions to the assumed size of the pilot, flying it. Following this, Stoyan took part in hang glider competitions and won several of them. His way of flying a hang glider was more innovative than was typical at that time. Instead of plotting a straight line from the start to the finish, as most of his fellow competitors did, he would analyse the winds in advance so he could use them effectively during the flight to carry him to his goal at maximum speed.
Stoyan had made a number of catamarans and boats from fibreglass in his garage and had accumulated extensive experience in building such vessels in domestic conditions. He had experimented with the widest range of resins and fillers, wood sheeting and special cores, stainless steel fastenings, etc. We told him that we didn’t want him to help us physically in the building of our boat, just to give us advice, so that we could succeed in building it on our own. Stoyan took our dream to heart and not only gave us directions for each construction stage, but out of his private stores, he shared with us the best quality materials that he’d discovered and tested – epoxy resins and fillings, light porous cores with cells like those of a honeycomb, strand mat and fibreglass cloth, etc. Stoyan liked to join us in head-scratching to find solutions for the different stages of construction and he’d always come up with alternative ideas through the course of hours, or even minutes.
When I return to the beginning of our adventure, I have to admit that we met people who, just like us, set themselves seemingly impossible goals but did not give up their pursuit. I realised that we wouldn’t have achieved either the construction of a motorbike or boat or the transoceanic crossing, if I hadn’t been taught by my family that one should never give in to boredom and become lazy, that even a child should be able to cope with challenges and that, as we help each other, life becomes happier. These are lessons I’ll remember all my life and which have helped me when I am faced with difficulty or I have a moment’s hesitation.
When I was eight years old, I lived through a very difficult moment. My father Nikolay died from a brain tumour. There followed several years in which my mother Karina had to bring my sister and I up on her own. Fortunately, from time to time, we could rely on help from our Grannie Emilia and Granddad Kolyo. Later on my mother married my wonderful, devoted stepfather Ognyan whose son, Kalin became our much-loved brother and we lived once again as one happy family. My mother never dropped her head and never allowed life’s battles to crush her. From early childhood, she encouraged us to try out new interests and didn’t try to stop me when I got obsessed with motorbikes or when I decided to leave home and study abroad. From an early age, I’ve loved challenges and I deliberately seek them out – that’s how I get more fun out of life. When I’ve succeeded in the latest challenge, irrespective of whether it was educational, intellectual, professional or sporting, I experience the sweetest feeling – fulfilment.
Max and I told my mother that we were building a boat and were thinking of crossing the ocean with it, and rather than dissuading us, she began to help in whatever way she could. She found all kinds of things that could be useful like, for example, an especially absorbent cloth, which we could wet and tie round our necks, to keep us cool in the burning sun. She gently conveyed her motherly words of wisdom and tried her best not to look worried, so as not to cause us unnecessary concern.
I’ll never forget the support which my mother gave me in all the big challenges throughout my life. I felt her love and strength and this has helped me overcome the most serious obstacles that faced me.
One such moment was my decision to go to study in an American university.
I graduated from the American University in Sofia with a BA in Business Administration; my next goal was to obtain a Masters in the USA. I shared my plans with my mother, telling her that I’d try to get a scholarship. She stood behind my decision, encouraging me to try and she gave me all her savings which were the equivalent of 300 dollars.
It was in the middle of the 1990s – the most poverty stricken years in Bulgaria. Hyperinflation had melted the value of people’s savings and the market economy couldn’t work to expectations. It was hard, as much for my family as for the whole of society, but I had my own plans and was ready to follow them. I wanted to get my MBA in Finance and I applied to 16 US universities in the hope of not just being accepted, but being offered a scholarship, because the annual tuition fee at those universities was around 20,000 dollars – more than my mother had earned in her life up to this moment.
Over the course of months I researched universities on the other side of the ocean, corresponded with them by mail, requested application fee waivers, wrote various essays, filled in countless forms, and underwent tests. In the end, 12 universities accepted me and four of these offered me almost full scholarships. I chose to study at Cornell University which is situated in the city of Ithaca, in New York State. Cornell was founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dixon White and is a member of the Ivy League, a group of eight elite universities in the US. Cornell did not offer me a scholarship, but I managed to get by somehow, by working part time at four places while I studied. I was a teaching assistant to the Entrepreneurship Professor, David Ben Daniel as well as his research assistant helping him with the book he was writing about international mergers and acquisitions; I taught statistics lessons as a private tutor; and I was a resident assistant at one of the university residence halls. When I talk of the sweet feeling of fulfilment, I have in mind the feeling after you have worked almost around the clock for three years – including the application process and the two years at Cornell. The time spent at the university and my life in the United States gave me the confidence to believe I could cope with anything, if I applied the necessary energy and didn’t give up. And this is what I also want to impart to my children.