6:20am Thursday 6th August 2009
By Reg Little
At Oxford University, Sarah Outen built quite a reputation as a college rower. But news of her father’s death as she was preparing to take to the water at Henley was to send her life on a dramatic and dangerous new course.
For it led her on a gruelling and audacious voyage over 4,000 miles of ocean in one of the most remarkable challenges ever undertaken in a rowing boat, culminating in the 24-year-old Oxford teacher realising her dream of becoming the first woman to row single-handedly across the Indian Ocean.
In March, she had set out alone in her 19ft rowing boat in search of a world record, to dedicate to the memory of her father, who died three years ago. After 124 days the remarkable solo epic came to a dramatic end on Monday night when she stepped on to the island of Mauritius, off the coast of Africa — the first land she had seen in four months.
As she climbed out of her boat, Serendipity, she was being hailed not only as the first woman to have crossed the Indian Ocean alone in a rowing boat. The former teacher at St Edward’s School, in North Oxford, could also celebrate completing the challenge in the fastest time to date, while becoming the youngest person ever to complete the trip.
But she also knew just how close all her hopes had come to being dashed right at the very end of her trip.
Miss Outen, who taught at St Edward’s last year after graduating from St Hugh’s with a degree in biology, covered 64 nautical miles in just 24 hours, an astonishing mileage for a solo ocean rower, in a brave final push.
Her attempt to make it through a narrow gap in the treacherous coral reef that encircles Mauritius and into the safety of a sheltered bay, however, ended in disaster when a freak wave caught the boat and capsized it, throwing Miss Outen clear and threatening to invalidate the journey under the sport’s governing rules, which call for unassisted crossings land-to-land.
“I knew that if I failed to get back into the boat, and make it to the safety of the reef itself under my own power, the row might be classed as incomplete,” said an exhausted Miss Outen, soon after completing her row. “Worse still, having rowed all this way, I wasn’t about to ask for a rescue when I was just 300 metres from the entrance to the bay.
“The boat rolled at least three times and a lot of gear was washed out of it, including my communications equipment. After the sheer physical exertion of the last 24 hours it was a real struggle to get back in, but I made it to the reef and set off flares to alert the support team waiting in the bay and signal the end of the adventure.”
At 24, she is now the youngest woman to row across any ocean, and only the eighth in history to have rowed an ocean alone. Of nine previous solo attempts to cross the Indian Ocean, only three have been successful — all of them by men.
On Monday night, Miss Outen described the moment when, 20 miles from the island, she saw land for the first time. “Each time I got a glimpse of it, I just couldn’t stop looking at it. It’s been an incredible journey and all a bit mind-boggling. I was swinging between laughing and smiling about it all, and bursting into tears with sorrow that the whole thing was about to come to an end.
“I’m so excited. It’s going to take a little while to settle in, to come to terms with what I’ve gone through and what I’ve achieved.”
Miss Outen said that apart from the landing, the most difficult part of the journey was a 40-day period in the middle, when rough weather saw her going around in circles and, at one point, being blown back along the route that had taken her a week’s rowing to cover.
“Repeating an entire degree of longitude is soul destroying. Shipping is another hazard, because my boat is so tiny. I’m always worried that these towering container ships are not going to see me — and its nerve-wracking being on the VHF radio, hailing them, ‘can you see me?’ and getting no reply!”
She was faced with rowing 12 hours a day, often in scorching heat, sometimes riding 30ft waves, as well as facing unfavourable winds.
Helen Outen, Sarah’s mother, spoke of her immense relief. She said: “At long last I have been able to have a real hug from Sarah rather than a virtual one on the phone. The last time I saw her was in February, when I waved goodbye at the airport as she set off for Australia “Emotions have been running very high and it was so wonderful to see Sarah rowing towards Mauritius. I am so proud of her and I know that Derek, her dad, would have been too.
“It scares me to think of my little girl completely alone at sea being battered by huge waves, but she has been so strong and determined. I am immensely proud of the way she has been so determined in her efforts. She has been a real inspiration to many people, both old and young, in completing such an impressive feat.”
She had decided to undertake the journey following the death of her father in 2006, to raise money for research into rheumatoid arthritis — the disease Mr Outen had battled for 20 years, first diagnosed when Miss Outen was a toddler.
This was her second attempt to cross the ocean; a previous effort starting on March 13 had to be abandoned after only ten days at sea when fierce currents threatened to push her into the Southern Ocean and the boat’s electrical systems failed. I’m a big believer that if you have to do something to survive, you will do it,” she said.
“I hope that one day people won’t have to suffer like my dad did. It cut short his career in the Royal Air Force and it really did take away his life in many ways. But dad was an unstoppable force, too, in his own right. Without doubt he has been and will remain, one of the greatest inspirations in my life.”
Miss Outen first took up rowing at the age of 14. “Seeing the famous Great Britain men’s four on television storming down a rowing lake in perfect time with an immense power and speed, I was sure I wanted rowing to be my sport once I got to Oxford. Some things you just know,” she recalled. “My time at Oxford was dominated by biology and sport.”
At St Hugh’s she rowed for the college first VIII, captaining them to ‘blades’ in the Oxford University Torpids and Summer Eights. At university, she spent summer holidays sailing in the Hebrides with the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, conducting marine mammal and seabird surveys for her dissertation research into basking sharks.
“All was well until dad died very suddenly just before part-finals in my second year. Dad’s death came just before we were due to row at Henley. It changed my focus. It became all about surviving. At that moment I decided to go solo across the ocean.
“I spent my final year generally trying to piece my life back to something coherent again and planning my ocean row.”
In 2006, she also learnt that she suffered from alopecia. Half her hair fell out, so she decided to have her head shaved. But nothing distracted her from the mission she dubbed “my crazy grief road”.
A handful of friends watched her set off alone in March from Australia. Her boat had desalination equipment to provide drinking water, along with a big food supply.
“I called my boat Serendipity because it sounds a bit like Sarah. I also like the word. It means finding something wonderful when you were looking for something completely different.”
The voyage has so far raised more than £11,000 for the Arthritis Care charity, with sponsorship coming from Natracare, the organic and natural feminine hygiene range.
Miss Outen revealed that as well as a vast supply of chocolate for the journey she had also carried three bottles of champagne — one to mark her 24th birthday, one for the anniversary of her father’s death and one for the halfway mark.
Arthritis sufferers around the world should certainly raise a glass of bubbly to Sarah Outen this weekend, and also to the father who gave her the courage to take on an ocean alone for them.
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