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Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

theguardian.com

31–40 of 118 posts

Re: Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

#31
That’s incredible.

What does one eat and drink on a trip like this? The article talks about her cooking. With a fire or one of those little butane stoves?

Can a small canoe carry enough water for a trip like this or do you rely on rain water too?

Re: Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

#32

All i think about when people row, kayak or swim these distances in these waters is 'SHARKS'. Which i read and saw enough about that the chances of meeting one isnt that big, but my brain still associates these activities/areas with it.

(I was replying to a child comment on fear of deep waters, seemingly deleted?)

I’ve heard this sentiment before, and can sort of intellectually follow, but man. I love scuba diving, I love the ocean and its varied and alien and multi-scale inhabitants. I’ve spent weeks on a live-aboard boat explicitly to seek out megafauna like sharks and rays (same subclass as sharks).

When I start my descent, I love to turn around and see my exhaled air bubble up, up towards the sun rays in the top layer of the water that slowly fade further away as the pressure on my ears builds and I enter the unknown ocean. It’s the most relaxing feeling, and I often remember it to go to sleep.

How beautifully individual our preferences can be. :-)

Re: Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

#33
post #31

That’s incredible. What does one eat and drink on a trip like this? The article talks about her cooking. With a fire or one of those little butane stoves? Can a small canoe carry enough water for a trip like this or do you rely on rain water too?

I don't know how to verify it, but I've been told that drinking seawater is acceptable to do and is just enough to keep you alive.

If I were to do it though, I would invest in some water filters which are fairly cheap and can remove a lot of things that you wouldn't want to be drinking.

Re: Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fellow rower here, affirming the above. Thought folks would be interested in her boat, built for ocean rowing: https://yourowkelsey.com/about/

That page was disappointingly sparse. I wanted pictures of the interior - what does it look like to sleep, how much space when it is fully packed with food, is there any accommodations for the bathroom, or do you just go over the edge, etc.

Heya, from the page I linked (her boat is named "Lily"):

> Lily is a Rannoch R25 built in 2019.

More info on Rannoch R25:

https://www.rannochadventure.com/boats-2/r25

There are several Youtube videos showing you the interior if you're interested.

Re: Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

#35

I wonder what was going on in her life that made her say, "I want to spend the next 43 days rowing alone across the ocean."

If you're young and not married, it sounds like a fun trip I'd love to make. I've done various canoe trips through like the Boundary Waters, but I've never been able to take off enough time from work to pull this off.

This is one of those cases where getting started is hard, but once you get started you probably can do more if you want it because you get a reputation and people will sponsor you. You end up in a lot of cases your job is to get sponsors for this trip and you live in the meantime cheaply just earn enough money that you can afford to take off a couple months to do these things.

That said, it probably isn't all that expensive. You do need to get a canoe, but those are not terribly expensive. You need enough food to last this long. The ideal way is if you're living with your parents or some other situation where you can just stop paying rent while you're on the trip. A large part of living expenses are things that she would not have when she's out on the ocean. Also, if th if this is your goal you're probably living for that so you might be working two jobs to raise money for the trip and then you quit both jobs, take your trip and then you go back to work.

Re: Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

#36
post #33
post #31

That’s incredible. What does one eat and drink on a trip like this? The article talks about her cooking. With a fire or one of those little butane stoves? Can a small canoe carry enough water for a trip like this or do you rely on rain water too?

I don't know how to verify it, but I've been told that drinking seawater is acceptable to do and is just enough to keep you alive. If I were to do it though, I would invest in some water filters which are fairly cheap and can remove a lot of things that you wouldn't want to be drinking.

This is false. Sea water is >3% salt and human kidneys can't produce urine with that much salinity or greater. Since they need more water to extract that much salt, the net effect is dehydration. This rower probably had a desalination machine, or just a big reservoir of fresh water.

(Though there might be some obscure edge case, and if you're about to die of dehydration that a little bit of seawater will buy you a minuscule amount of more time? doubt it)

Re: Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

#37

I wonder what was going on in her life that made her say, "I want to spend the next 43 days rowing alone across the ocean."

"Because it's there"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mallory

Some people are just driven to do things for the accomplishment. I don't think we need more psychologizing than that.

Re: Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

#38
post #31

That’s incredible. What does one eat and drink on a trip like this? The article talks about her cooking. With a fire or one of those little butane stoves? Can a small canoe carry enough water for a trip like this or do you rely on rain water too?

Portable desalinators exist.

Re: Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

#39
post #33
post #31

That’s incredible. What does one eat and drink on a trip like this? The article talks about her cooking. With a fire or one of those little butane stoves? Can a small canoe carry enough water for a trip like this or do you rely on rain water too?

I don't know how to verify it, but I've been told that drinking seawater is acceptable to do and is just enough to keep you alive. If I were to do it though, I would invest in some water filters which are fairly cheap and can remove a lot of things that you wouldn't want to be drinking.

I recall one article mentioning that there's desalination gear on board (that's what the solar panel is for?)

Re: Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

#40
My first thought on hearing about this was, "what's that boat like? I wanna see the boat."

Not to take away from Pfendler's incredible achievement. She's amazing. But, I'm the kind of nerd that immediately went to "surely that is a logistical nightmare, how are you going to carry enough supplies for months at sea in a boat that a human being can propel across the ocean at a decent speed?" It's a bigger boat than I imagined, at 21 feet long and 5.5 feet wide, and 730 pounds. It also has cabins at either end for storage and sleeping.

She gives a brief tour of the inside of the boat here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZBUJ2VJvp_/

And, she also discusses some of the technical problems she had in some other videos in the series, like not being able to run her desalination machine because not enough sun and having to dip into her emergency water rations.

The athletic side of a thing like this is incredible, but I always want to know the logistics.

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