US Woman Attempting to Row Solo Across Pacific Rescued

NBC Bay Area ^ | Saturday, Jun 13, 2015

[nickcarraway]

A U.S. woman attempting to cross the Pacific by rowboat has ended her solo attempt because of expected bad weather.

Sonya Baumstein was rescued off the Japanese coast on Saturday after sending out a distress signal, Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday.

The 30-year-old Baumstein departed from Choshi, Japan, one week ago, hoping to become the first woman to row solo across the Pacific.

I’m afraid of losing my boat because I spent three years creating this thing,” Baumstein told NBC Bay Area before she departed. t She was headed for San Francisco but sent out the signal on Saturday around 2:20 p.m. about 155 miles off the coast of Japan.

A freighter traveling nearby rescued her at around 5 p.m. Saturday and passed her on to a coast guard ship around 8:55 p.m., the Japanese coast guard said.

Baumstein was hoping to finish the 9,600-kilometer journey by late September.

“It all depends on how you want to use the moments that you have in your life,” Baumstein said in her earlier interview, “and this is the moment in my life right now.”

[Dr. Pritchett]

At that rate, it would be what? About 6-7 months, even under constantly good conditions? That boat doesn’t look big enough to hold enough provisions for such a journey. Seems like a bold plan.

[Delta 21]

Tryin to prove she dont know squat about crossing the Pacific.

[tumblindice]

Stupid hippie

[Daffynition]

She should have been better prepared ....even *I* can see that.

[FBD]

Pretty disappointing to read some of the disparaging comments here, from some armchair quarterbacks who have probably never ventured anywhere in a small vessel by themselves. From the article:

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“An update posted to Baumstein’s Facebook page Sunday said that Baumstein had made the decision to abandon this year’s attempt after “long conversations, loosing a drogue, a critical steering system failure, and battling headwinds and typhoons.”

“While we were only eight days in, the progress against wind and storms was slow and the next few weeks promised more storms and potentially even slower progress. Furthermore, she was receiving constant AIS alarms which given the weather conditions so far made it impossible to see the many vessels near her.On top of the data, Sonya and some team members felt that things weren’t going right. While we couldn’t put our finger on it, something felt wrong. Our expedition experience has taught us that when that feeling doesn’t go away, you pay attention. As we prepared to leave normal Coast Guard range, that feeling only got stronger. As a team, we felt that combined with incoming weather, loosing a piece of critical equipment with a a single backup, it would be irresponsible to continue. Perhaps more importantly, none of us could justify putting responder’s lives at risk by pushing further.”