Woman Rower Sets Record From San Francisco to Hawaii

On Saturday, September 13, 40-year-old Lia Ditton arrived in Honolulu after breaking the women’s world record for rowing solo from San Francisco to Hawaii. She spent 86 days, 10 hours, 5 minutes and 56 seconds at sea alone. There was no support boat and she had to right her rowboat twice after capsizing.

Grueling On All Levels

From the start, Ditton faced myriad challenges, both physical and psychological. “It was very difficult breaking away from the California coast,” she told a Honolulu TV station. “There were currents that were going like ‘snakes and ladders.’ You could hit a snake and lose miles overnight and that happened to me for a week. Then other times you’re fling along with great conditions and you hit a ladder — it’s a board game.”

Perhaps the biggest physical challenge was having to tip her capsized boat back over. The first came from a rogue wave. “It was like a cliff of a wave that fell and fell and fell. I’ve never seen anything like it,” recalled Ditton. “It was an avalanche of water that came toward me.” She was thrown into the water, but somehow was able to right the boat.

In the second capsizing, the wave took her by surprise while she was sleeping. She righted the boat quickly but to keep it from turning over again, Ditton had to fill the boat with water to use a ballast.

Head Games

As she recalled the high points, Ditton also admitted that her journey was quite perilous, especially when it came to maintaining her mental state. “I massively underestimated what the challenge would be,” she said. “It’s very hard to let go to sleep, or to sleep and stay asleep. I battled that for the last thousand miles, which is a month and a half,” she said. She knew before setting out that sleep would be one of her biggest challenges because once the sun set, she would still wake up periodically through the night to make sure she was driving in a favorable direction.

Hallucinations aside, there were also real-world challenges including close encounters with sharks, including one that rammed her boat at night while chasing fish that were following it. Another time a shark feasted on a tuna alongside the boat and a different shark made laps around her boat.

Other Setbacks

Another challenge to her spirit came when a fellow solo rower Angela Madsen died on her own attempt from California to Hawaii. “I was massively impacted by it,” said Ditton. “Arguably, I should’ve turned off and gone back to land, but it’s hard to rationalize why you would do that. It’s a difficult call to make but I did think of her as I rode her line of longitude.”

Ditton packed enough food for 75 days and said she didn’t have to ration or go hungry. She took on the challenge day by day and focused on the present. While she rowed alone, she had contact with a sports psychologist, a weather expert and other consultants. To maintain her focus, she wrote every day and made videos that she sent out.

Living Color

Ditton said her greatest memory from the adventure were the rainbows that laid just beyond the horizon. “There were spectacular end-to-end rainbows of fantastical color…just complete arcing rainbows when I needed it most. It was like sending someone a hug in the middle of the ocean — I loved it,” she wrote.

To complete her mission, Ditton rowed the last 23 hours nonstop. As she made her way into Waikiki Yacht Harbor, Ditton described the scene as a wave of celebration and she wasn’t expecting the crowd that was on hand. “There were people everywhere,” she said. “You haven’t seen people for 80-something days and they want you to talk and walk and say something inspiring.”

The Next Journey

Ditton considers her 86 day journey as training for her ultimate goal of rowing solo across the Pacific from Japan to San Francisco. It’s double the distance and the time at sea and has never been done before.