ABOUT
HOLD FAST
Built on a mindset forged under pressure
Hold Fast is about resilience, teamwork, and forging your character by doing hard things well, together.
Our challenges are designed for everyday people. You do not need to be military, ultra-fit, or fearless. You just need to be willing to show up, commit, and give your best.
OUR LOGO
UPWARD ARROW
The upward arrow represents the journey every participant makes — rising higher than they ever thought possible. It symbolises courage, progress, and the commitment to keep moving forward. Hold Fast exists to help people reach their own mountaintops and discover strength they never realised they had.
ALPHA FLAG
The Alpha Flag colours mirror Navy tradition and signals “diver below” — a universal marker recognised throughout maritime culture. Its presence in our identity nods to the Clearance Diver roots of the Hold Fast Challenge. It blends heritage, authenticity, and a quiet confidence that those who know will instantly recognise.
LIGHT & DARK
Life has peaks and troughs. Hold Fast helps people move from the dark into the light by embracing challenge, not avoiding it. Growth often comes through difficulty, and this symbol represents the movement from struggle to hope, from uncertainty to confidence, and from limitation to possibility.
ANCHOR: ROOTED
The anchor reflects our Naval heritage — strong foundations, excellence, discipline, and calm in uncertain waters. It reassures participants while reminding them that resilience begins with being firmly rooted. With solid foundations, people can withstand pressure, lead well, and pull others up with them. Strength starts deep.
Where “Hold Fast” Comes From
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The phrase Hold Fast has long been used within the Royal Navy. It speaks to steadiness under pressure, staying the course, and doing your duty even when conditions are tough.
That mindset sits at the heart of everything we do.
Hold Fast Challenges draw inspiration from the Clearance Divers of the Royal Navy, an elite specialist unit responsible for some of the most hazardous underwater operations in the world. Their work began during the final stages of the Second World War, when ports and harbours across Europe were littered with unexploded bombs and booby traps.
What emerged was a small group of individuals tasked with finding and rendering these devices safe, calmly, methodically, and under immense pressure. That ethos continues today. Clearance Divers operate globally, in both wartime and peacetime, carrying out dangerous work quietly and professionally, often out of sight.
It is that mindset, not the danger, that inspires Hold Fast.
What We Are (and What We’re Not)
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What we are
Hold Fast Challenges are a positive, community-driven experience focused on:
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Mental resilience
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Physical wellbeing
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Teamwork and leadership
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Pride, confidence, and perspective
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Getting back to basics: outdoors, movement, and shared effort
Our challenge days are inclusive, supportive, and genuinely fun. People leave tired, smiling, and proud of what they’ve achieved.
What we’re not
We are not a militarised beasting.
We are not a bootcamp.
We are not about shouting, humiliation, or breaking people down.
Everything is scalable. Everyone finishes. Nobody is left behind.
The Hold Fast Community
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The Hold Fast community is deliberately broad.
We welcome:
• Every age
• Every fitness level
• Every background
• Every mindset
What matters is effort, attitude, and willingness to support the people around you.
Over more than 60 challenge days, we’ve seen strangers become teams, teams become communities, and individuals surprise themselves with what they’re capable of.
Health.
Outdoors.
Water.
Movement.
Laughter.
Pride.
Belonging.
OUR FOUNDER
Hold Fast was founded by Rob Hinton, whose life has always revolved around the water, challenge, and the outdoors.
Rob learnt to swim at 4 years old, was a competitive swimmer for many years and discovered diving whilst playing rugby in South Africa in 1999. That passion led him to enter the Royal Navy as a direct-entry Clearance Diver candidate. Of 29 candidates on his aptitude course, only three passed. Rob was one of them.
He went on to serve as a Royal Navy Mine Clearance Diver, carrying out mine clearance and bomb disposal operations both at sea and on land, serving with Fleet Diving Unit 2, HMS Inverness, and the Northern Diving Group.
After leaving the Royal Navy, Rob spent 14 years as a commercial diver in the oil and gas industry, working all over the world, alongside teaching and assisting on military rebreather courses across multiple continents.
Somehow, despite all of this, he has retained a sense of humour.
Hold Fast is the natural meeting point of Rob’s experience, values, and belief that ordinary people are capable of far more than they think, given the right environment, and his passionate mission to reverse the decline of mental and physical health in society.
ROB HINTON
FOUNDER