This page is a tribute to Roz Savage, an extraordinary woman.
Roz started out working in an office. She has now circled the globe in her 23 foot long rowboat, rowing by herself across the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian oceans. In 2010 she was named Adventurer of the Year by National Geographic. In 2012 she was a World Fellow at Yale. In 2013 she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to fundraising and the environment. In 2017 she took up a position at Yale, lecturing on Courage in Theory and Practice.
I got to know Roz in 2007 when she came to Tampa Florida to the MOSI. On April 2, 2007 I took my daughter and granddaughter to MOSI in Tampa, Florida where we met Roz. I was enthralled by Roz’s adventure – her Solo Atlantic Row. Roz sold me her DVD and autographed it “Best Fishes! – Roz”. Upon entering MOSI I had heard a voice of a lady talking about rowing the Atlantic. I was curious and stopped to listen. I did not know how it was to change my life and hers.
Her first row, 2005 across the Atlantic, took 103 days.
1. 3000 miles
2. 26 boats started the race, 6 did not make it
3. Roz was the only woman, she became the 6th woman to have done it
4. Day 12 her first oar broke
5. Day 15 the second (of four) oar broke
6. Day 20 the stove broke
7. Day 37 her navigation instruments stopped working
8. Day 38 the third oar broke ,
9. Day 41 the stereo quit
10. day 48 the forth and last oar broke, Roz patched two together to continue.
11. The trip line to her sea anchor broke, leaving her to climb onto the roof of the forward cabin and cut the anchor free, she could have been lost at this point.
12. Day 79 the satellite phone quit, leaving her with no communication the last 24 days.
From her web page:
“One day I sat down and wrote two versions of my obituary. The first was the one that I wanted to have. I thought of the obituaries that I enjoyed reading, the people that I admired. They were the adventurers and risk-takers, the people who seemed to have lived many lifetimes in one, the people who had tried lots of things, some of them successes, some of them spectacular failures, but at least they’d had the guts to try. They didn’t give a damn what anybody thought of them; their own opinion of themselves was all that mattered. They lived life with a greediness for new experiences, and gumption, and a gung-ho attitude that defied the attempts of naysayers and nigglers to pigeonhole them or put them down. These people really knew how to live.
The second version was the obituary that I was heading for – a conventional, ordinary life – pleasant and with its moments of excitement, but always within the safe confines of normality.
The difference between the two was startling. Clearly something was going to have to change.”
Roz Savage – www.rozsavage.com
After listening to her speech, and seeing her little rowboat I was stunned. I talked with Roz for a bit and got her autographed DVD. I had lived on a sailboat for 7 years and had thought about sailing around the world, but in a 45 foot sailboat, not row in a 23 foot rowboat!
When I went home I went online and started to follow her. She then took her rowboat in tow and traveled from Tampa, Florida to San Francisco. There she launched her Pacific attempt, only for it to end after 10 days when stormy weather causes her boat to capsize 3 times in 24 hours, losing vital equipment. She had posted that she was OK, even though she had hit her head. Someone called the Coast Guard who went out to get her in a helicopter. They dropped a swimmer down. She said that she did not want to be rescued, she was headed to Hawaii!
Finally she asked “How much time do I have?”. “Four minutes” was the answer. She was winched up but her boat, her home, her everything was left there out in the Pacific Ocean.
Roz found a ship to go out and get her craft. “There it is” the call rang out. They loaded the little boat onto the huge ship. When they got to the dock it was hoisted down to the dock, but spun around and was damaged.
Roz got it fixed up, and with a ton of Laura bars, took off for Hawaii the next year.
2008:Undaunted, Roz returns to the Pacific. Leaving from the Golden Gate Bridge on May 25, she reaches Waikiki in a time of 99 days, becoming the first woman in history to row solo from California to Hawaii. 2,324 miles.
Again, every day beginning May 25, 2008 Roz typed out a log of what had happened that day and typed in her coordinates. She uploaded the log to her mom in England. It was then published on the Internet where a lot of us stood by riveted to our computers for the next installment and plotting her progress on a map.
In July 2008, Roz was in the middle of the Pacific and had run out of drinking water Her water maker had quit, and her manual one had broken as well. I called and emailed any ship or craft I could find that was in the area, or headed to or from Hawaii, to try to get help. I kept getting negative responses. On August 1, 2008, when Roz was 1140 miles from Hawaii I contacted the raft “JUNK” (actually a raft made up of junk, bottles, old masts, old sails and an old airplane fuselage http://junkraft.blogspot.com/ who, happily, was also enroute to Hawaii) with a request that they meet up with Roz and give her some help if they could.
Anna, the landside contact for the JUNK , immediately contacted Rita to get Roz’s sat phone number to give to JUNK. It took two long weeks, and 500 miles, but on August 13, the JUNK and Roz did meet. It turned out that the two guys on the JUNK had underestimated how long it would take them to reach Hawaii and they were on their last bit of food – a jar of peanut butter. Roz had packed more than enough food and gave them three bags of food; they gave her 7.5 gallons of water and a manual watermaker. So after that, they both made it in much better shape than if I had not gotten them together!
In September 2008, as Roz was about to make landfall in Hawaii, I flew over to Hawaii to meet her. This was to be my favorite memory of Roz. First I met Anna who was very happy to meet me, she introduced me around and excitedly told everyone that “John got them together, he was the reason they survived!!!”
I also met the two guys on the raft, Marcus and Joel.
I then met Roz again, and her mother Rita. Roz was very surprised that I fathomed her distress and asked me, “How did you know I was in trouble, I did not tell anyone?” I just knew.
The next day I helped Roz tow the Brocade from The Waikiki Yacht Club to the Hawaii Yacht Club to get Brocade onto her trailer to get to the museum where it was to be displayed. Below is a photograph I took as I was towing Roz from The Waikiki Yacht Club to the Hawaii Yacht Club to get the Brocade onto her trailer.
Roz’s mother Rita had basically told me that I was not part of the team and not to come to Hawaii, but I went anyway, making a quick trip of it. Roz however asked me to stay and help her clean up the Brocade and get her ready for storage. Unfortunately I could not change my flight- luckily she had other volunteers:
I have her DVD, Roz’s rowing gloves, and her wonderful book. The paddle she re-gifted to me as memorabilia from that meeting I was able to give to her in England!
Roz has inspired me to be the best I can be. I have since retired and spend seven days a week volunteering. She got me to purchase cloth bags and get my groceries in them. I have cleaned up beaches and shores around the area on Roz’s behest. I have told everyone I know (and every seatmate on the 1008 flights I have been on) about Roz and her Herculean task, and people are always excited about her. It has been very exciting watching her complete her round-the-world row! Many other people have set out to do similar tasks, but so many fail where Roz has persevered! Roz is quite an inspiration, and a tribute to humankind. Watching her video and the tough times she went through in the Atlantic (including her cutting lose the sea anchor and going overboard in the process), and her jumping overboard in the Pacific to retrieve something – and her boat almost getting away from her…wow, heart stopping moments!
Roz did cross the 180th Meridian, so I presented this certificate to her!
