Adventurers of the Year Update: Roz Savage Reflects on Rowing Her Third Ocean

By Samantha Cook; photograph courtesy Roz Savage

Last year, Roz Savage, 43, was named one of National Geographic’s Adventurers of the Year for rowing solo across both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Impressive enough as that was, Savage wasn't ready to retire her oars. On October 4th of this year, she completed her goal to row the Indian Ocean.

Adventure: Why go for a third ocean?
Roz Savage: Seven years ago I set out to row the world’s “Big Three” oceans—the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian. After having spent 11 years of my adult life working in an office, I had woken up to the fact that I was doing a job I didn’t like to buy stuff I didn’t need. Around that same time I had an environmental epiphany, realizing that if we carry on treating the Earth as we do now, we are going to face a very bleak future. So I decided to take a new life course, rowing across oceans and using my adventures as a way to raise consciousness and inspire action on environmental issues.

A: What route did you take for this row?
R.S.: Originally I was going to row from Australia to India, but due to the rapid escalation in pirate activity in the Indian Ocean—including the murder of four Americans at the start of this year—it seems wise to change my plans. I set out from Fremantle in Western Australia, and, after brief stops in Geraldton and the Abrolhos Islands to address equipment issues, I then rowed nonstop 4,000 miles to Mauritius.

Meet the Adventurers of the Year: Oarsman Leven Brown

Each day we will feature one of the 2010 Adventures of the Year here on our blog. Get to know them all in our photo gallery, then vote for your favorite for the People's Choice award—every day. You can even vote for a new favorite each day, if you can't pick just one. Photograph courtesy of Leven Brown

The Oarsman

Leven Brown and his team rowed across the Atlantic faster than anyone, ever.

The North Atlantic is not a kind ocean. So unpredictably wild and unforgiving are its seas that after a pair of Norwegians rowed across in 1896, their record stood for another 114 years. Jump to July 2010—a two-man boat filled with four bearded oarsmen leaves New York and hits England nearly 12 days faster than the Norwegians managed. Its crew, a duo of Brits, a Faroese man and an Irishman, consists of Leven Brown, Ray Carroll, Don Lennox, and Livar Nysted. Their hands are cracked and swollen and their rears are so sore that sitting has become an exquisite test of pain management. They stand as often as possible. In all ways they are exhausted and haven’t slept more than two hours at a time in over six weeks. Their skipper, Leven Brown, relates how they pulled off such a voyage. —By Ryan Bradley

Read more about Leven Brown >>

 

Team Sets New Speed Record Rowing the North Atlantic, the K2 of Ocean Rowing

By Tetsuhiko Endo; Photography courtesy of Leven Brown

In 1896, Norwegians George Harbo and Frank Samuelson rowed across the North Atlantic Ocean in 55 days and 13 hours, setting a speed record that would stand for 114 years. Last week the record was smashed by the four-man Artemis North Atlantic Rowing Challenge, skippered by an unassuming, 37-year-old Scot named Leven Brown (pronounced "Lee-ven" and standing at far right in the photograph). Brown and his teammates--Irishman Ray Carroll, Englishman Don Lennox, and Faroe Islander Livar Nysted--rowed from New York to the British Scilly Isles in 43 days, 21 hours, and 26 minutes. Now back on dry land, Adventure caught up with Brown to get a run down of the voyage.

Why did you choose to take on this record?

Leven Brown: There are two recognized speed records in the Atlantic--the Trade Winds Route, which goes from the Canary Islands to Trinidad and Tobago, and the North Atlantic Route (from the U.S. to Britain). Ever since we broke record for the Trade Winds Route in 2008, we always figured, to be complete, we really had to go there and back again. Also, the North Atlantic Route was always interesting for busting up boats and busting up people. It’s the K2 of ocean rowing, the toughest route there is and the one that has claimed the most boats.

A lot has been made of this record. Can you explain why it is so prestigious?

It’s the psychology of taking on the North Atlantic. This is the same stretch of ocean made famous by Sebastian Junger in The Perfect Storm. Before us, 30 boats had attempted to break the record and there had been seven deaths. The weather changes so quickly up there, it’s like mountain climbing. You can be rowing in a glassy, mild ocean, then 12 hours later you are in 40-foot waves and 50-knot wind gusts.

Did you guys ever get into serious trouble?

We capsized a couple of times and lost men overboard twice. The waves in the North Atlantic seem to be much steeper and much colder than any that I have encountered. During one storm, we had surfed down the face of a wave when the crest of another hit the bow of our boat which acted like a golf club and catapulted Livar 30 feet from the boat. The reason we were able to measure that with so much confidence was because he was wearing a safety line that measured exactly 30 feet and it stopped him. If he hadn’t had that on, he would have been thrown even further.