Photo by Debra Madsen
What kind of courage, toughness, and drive is required to row 2200 miles across the Pacific Ocean, all by yourself? Long Beach ocean rowing legend Angela Madsen is about to find out.
Madsen will be embarking from Santa Cruz, California on Saturday and expects to arrive at Waikiki Beach, Hawaii in 80 to 100 days. She’ll be alone in her 19-foot rowboat and will have no vessels accompanying her.
Ocean crossings of this magnitude have only been attempted by an elite handful of rowers throughout history. Long Beach athlete Madsen is the first paraplegic ever to do so. She’s aiming to add to her growing list of Guinness World Records, which she began collecting in 2007 when she and a male rowing partner traversed the Atlantic Ocean in 67 days.
In 2009 Madsen became the first woman ever to row across the Indian Ocean when she skippered a mixed eight-person crew on a 58-day voyage. In 2010 she and three other women set another record for the fastest rowing circumnavigation of Great Britain (51 days), and in 2011 she helped set yet another Guinness record, skippering a mixed crew of 16 across the Atlantic in only 47 days.
A dominating center on the Marine Corps basketball team before her 1993 spinal injury and a versatile field-events athlete who brought home a bronze medal in the shot put from the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, Madsen knows how to compete at the world-class level. And, having spent many nights sleeping at the bottom of rowboats on the open sea, she’s no stranger to the sensation of whales and sharks bumping against the hull of the boat in pitch-darkness, using it as a sort of scratching post.
Angela finished packing her boat last week; 100 days of individually-sealed food rations, flares, compressed-air horns, a Go-Pro camera, a pressurized bed, two water desalinators, spare oars, a solar panel to charge the boat’s batteries, and a satellite phone with a tracking service that will plot her position on Google Maps. The ultra-light boat is made with foam-core flotation and fiberglass overlay. While sleeping or enduring intense weather, Angela will “batten down the hatches,” sealing the rowing compartment so the boat will right itself if capsized.
On Saturday in Santa Cruz, Angela will get a send-off from four paralympic sport clubs as well as some local rowing and canoe clubs. “I’ll have a flotilla joining me for the first mile,” she says.
Angela may row as many as 24-hours straight on the first day, getting as far away from the mainland as possible in order to get a good first night’s sleep without being interrupted by a tanker or cargo ship. Then she’ll settle into her daily routine: Two hours of rowing, two hours of rest and recovery.
Angela Madsen displaying her London 2012 Paralympic Games hardware with coach Aaron Volkoff. Photo by Matt Cohn.
The only time she’ll interrupt this routine is if rough seas require the use of a drag anchor, which floats underwater behind the boat and keeps it from getting sideways to the waves. If she receives a text message about adverse weather conditions approaching (surfline.com will provide Angela with reports from weather buoys floating in the Pacific), she may put in a multi-hour rowing stint to take advantage of favorable conditions while she can.
USMC vet Madsen will be drawing considerable inspiration from the photographs adorning her boat, which are there at the request of the parents of 25 Marines from the “3/5” (3rd Battalion, 5th Marines) who lost their lives in Afghanistan. Some individual soldiers from other service branches are depicted as well. Angela sees a comparison between her journey and a military mission.
“It is like a deployment,” she says. “You’re away from family and friends. You have a satellite phone, but other than that you’re just out there ’til you reach the other side, which is like a soldier coming home, with family and friends waiting.”
2200 miles–maybe a lot more, if weather and currents dictate it. At 30 strokes a minute for 12 hours a day, that’s two million strokes, give or take a few hundred thousand. It’s traditional among ocean rowers to celebrate at the half-way point of a crossing. Has Angela packed any luxury items for that occasion?
“Well, I’m going to learn to play this,” she says, pulling out a brand-new, beautifully carved didgeridoo. One can picture her 1000 miles out to sea, serenading the moon, the stars and the creatures of the deep.
To learn more about Angela, get updates during her journey, and find out about donation and sponsorship opportunities, please visit www.rowoflife.com
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