A jubilant Roz Savage, the British woman attempting to row solo across the Pacific Ocean, said she has found her boat adrift off the coast of Northern California. She abandoned it when she was rescued from rough seas by the U.S. Coast Guard on Aug. 23.
“Have a drink on me! We found her!” Ms. Savage said in a podcast posted to her Web site www.RozSavage.com on Aug. 29.
Ms. Savage, 39, who made her home in Woodside this summer, said she intends to continue to Hawaii, the first leg of her journey, if she can successfully repair her boat. The first hurdle was finding it before a salvage boat could claim it. A global positioning system led her right to the Brocade, her custom-built boat, she said.
Ms. Savage said she intends to make repairs to the Brocade while aboard the White Holly, a research vessel she chartered. She then plans to return to the spot where a Coast Guard helicopter plucked her from the water, so she can resume her voyage. She intends to cross the Pacific in three stages, ending in Australia. By having left her boat for nearly a week, she’s probably out of record contention for being the first woman to make a solo crossing of the Pacific, but that doesn’t matter, she said.
“In my mind I’ll know that I rowed across the Pacific,” she said.
Rough weather, several capsizes and the failure of key pieces of equipment, including her sea anchor, crippled her prospects less than two weeks into her journey. Ms. Savage said she agreed to be rescued because bad weather and distance were about to put her out of range. She was about 90 miles offshore, in the seas off Humboldt Bay.
