CHRISTMAS 2019 has been a memorable one for a North Berwick man who has written himself into the history books.

Jamie Douglas-Hamilton was part of the six-strong team who completed ‘The Impossible Row’.

The crew set off from Chile to mainland Antarctica across the Drake Passage and became the first group to row the body of water between Cape Horn and the South Shetland Islands by human power alone.

Together, the crew, which included 38-year-old Jamie, reached the finish line on Christmas Day.

The crew covered 655 nautical miles before reaching dry land. Along the way, the six crew members worked in 90-minute shifts around the clock, with little sleep throughout the day.

Waves were expected to reach 80-feet in the freezing cold conditions.

Ahead of the voyage, the former Belhaven Hill School pupil said: “When I was a boy I read Endurance about Shackleton’s rescue voyage when they sailed from Elephant Island to South Georgia in a small lifeboat and I couldn’t believe the hardship they went through.

“It is exciting but slightly scary that we are going in a similar size boat that is lower to the sea and that we are rowing against the waves and current which will be dragging us east as we will be rowing southwards.”

The adventurous spirit follows in the heels of Jamie’s grandfather, Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton and commander of 602 City of Glasgow Squadron, who was the first to fly over the summit of Mount Everest in 1933 in an open cockpit biplane.

Joining Jamie were Fiann Paul, who captained the expedition and has broken the Guinness rowing speed record on the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Arctic Oceans; Colin O’Brady, a four-time world record holder, who last year was the first to trek solo and unassisted across Antarctica; Cameron Bellamy, who has just completed the longest open channel swim in history when he swam from Barbados to St Lucia; Andrew Towne, an ultra-endurance athlete and rower; and John Peterson, who captained Yale University’s rowing team.