Suffering a Sea Change (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine May 2002

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The Hard Way
Suffering a Sea Change (Cont.)

DAY 26: It is unbelievably beautiful today. I am driving along a glassy surface that hardly has a ripple. Blue sky and white cotton wool clouds are reflected on the surface and everything is silent. I have never known peace and tranquility like it.

TORI MURDEN, 39, was the first woman to row solo and unsupported across the Atlantic. She did it in 1999. "When I began my quest, more people had walked on the moon than rowed the Atlantic solo," she said when I called her at home in Louisville, Kentucky.

In 1989, Murden and partner Shirley Metz became the first women to ski to the geographic South Pole. Murden, who has a bachelor's degree from Smith College, a master's from Harvard Divinity School, and a law degree from the University of Louisville, had rowed in college and continued rowing afterward to stay in shape for mountaineering. She'd climbed all over the world by 1997, when she and Louise Graff became the only all-women team to enter the first Atlantic Rowing Challenge.

Food poisoning landed her in the Tenerife hospital for three days. After she and Graff once again pushed out into the Atlantic, they discovered that the electrical system for their water pump was shot. No water, no chance. That ended her first attempt.

"I still wanted to finish what I'd started," Murden told me. "I wanted to extend the range of what we consider physically and mentally possible."

In June 1998, with an Italian watch company as a sponsor, Murden set out alone from Nags Head, North Carolina, to row to France. "I wouldn't have gone solo or unsupported if it weren't for the sponsor," she said. "Let's face it: If you can't afford to pay for the trip yourself, you need a sponsor, and a sponsor is only interested in something that's never been done."

On her eighth day at sea her boat capsized in a storm. Slammed onto the ceiling of her cabin, she recalled, "I was too busy pleading for my life to worry about the fact that my communications equipment was soaking in saltwater." The next morning, when the storm passed, Murden did not turn back. She would have no communication with the outside world for the next 78 days.

"By early September," Murden continued, "I'd rowed more than 3,400 miles but covered fewer than 2,700. I was less than 1,000 miles from France when Hurricane Danielle swept across the North Atlantic."

With no radio, Murden had no idea what was coming. The sky blackened, and then hell came. Her rowboat was tumbled end over end in 70-foot waves: "Head over heels, heels over head. Wood, flesh, bone, it was all crashing." She stuck it out for four days before deciding she might not live through her ordeal. "I finally pushed the [emergency rescue beacon] button."

Murden set out again a year later, once more solo and unsupported. She left Tenerife on September 13, 1999, and rowed into Port de Plaisance, Guadeloupe, 81 days later.

"The pivotal distinction between ocean rowing and mountaineering is the sameness of rowing," Murden said. "You wake up on the ocean and you can't tell where you are or where you've been. It's all the same. There is no way to gauge the passing of distance. You never get any perspective on your progress."

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