Girl in a boat

Three world records, 124 days and around 500 bars of chocolate

Earlier this year, 24-year-old Sarah Outen rowed across the Indian Ocean. Alone. In doing so, she became the first woman to row the 3,500 miles across the Indian Ocean alone, and the youngest person ever to do so, and the youngest woman to row across any of the world's oceans. Here, she talks to WideWorld about food rationing and her motivation for spending 124 days at sea.

Three world records, 124 days, and around 500 bars of chocolate.

It can only be Sarah Outen’s “very exciting, record-breaking, and ever so slightly crazy sort of challenge.” It involved her boat Serendipity, the Indian Ocean … and, of course, lots of chocolate.

The 24-year-old Oxford Graduate travelled from Australia to Mauritius - covering over 4,000 miles of open ocean and breaking two oars along the way. The sailor, who refers to herself on her website as 'girl in a boat', tells WideWorld the experience was “raw and elemental – just as adventure should be.”

Outen held no reservations about setting sail on April Fools Day; instead she shunned any superstitious nonsense, playing her own prank on the masses - pretending to load an outboard engine on to the boat.

Depending on weather conditions, she rowed between eight and 12 hours each day. Her late father, Derek, was the motivating force for the solo expedition: she raised nearly £16,000 for Arthritis Care and a further £10,000 for Arthritis Research Campaign.

Outen lost her father to Arthritus and describes him as being “an unstoppable force … he was courageous, determined and stubborn in his fight to keep going through the trials and setbacks of operations and illness. Without doubt, he has been and will remain, one of the greatest inspirations in my life, and my row.”

A self-confessed “tomboy” in her youth, Outen found interest in activities usually deemed boyish. Sports dominated her time out of the classroom, however it was only in her teens that she discovered sailing, and took to it; well, like a duck to water.

At Oxford, Outen decided she would row the Indian Ocean. Her University summer holidays were spent sailing in the Hebrides with the Hebridean Whale & Dolphin Trust, conducting marine mammal and seabird surveys.

Working alongside Oxford-based sports psychotherapist Dr Briony Nicholls, she discovered methods to deal with the “craziness” at sea:

“I have heard ocean rowers say it is 99% psychological getting across an ocean, the body will just follow,” she says.

Outen felt ecstatic to be so well supported and humbled by people's generosity. She was consistently motivated towards completing her goal: “I wanted certain things to stop sometimes i.e. storms, but never was I going to give up.”

Getting to Australia was one of her biggest challenges – the row was the final straight, she says. “If the mind can keep going, the body has no option but to carry on. There were a lot of mind games out there.”

A few hundred yards from the finish line in Mauritius, Serendipity was hit by 40ft waves, capsizing the boat and hurling Outen against coral reefs and dragging her under water. She says she should have died, but miraculously managed to get back into her boat.

In addition, she knew that if she didn't make it safely to the reef under her own steam, her 124-day gruelling trip may not qualify for any record. She says she wasn't about to ask for a rescue a few hundred yards from the end.

She called for an escort and managed to steer her way to land. It was over. And it had been a success.

Outen jests that one of the main lessons she learned was that she can’t ration chocolate. “I'm also more patient now and look at life with a greater sense of equanimity - you've just got to let some things wash over you and really focus on what matters,” she says.

Outen’s own webpage offered a tracking system allowing people to keep tabs on her progress, using live satellite updates. Regularly updated blog entries kept Outen’s keen followers on tenter hooks through the most testing parts of the sail.

“Ending a journey always comes with mixed emotions,” she says. “I was elated at completing and reaching the goal, but sad to leave that unique world behind. I have been on a real rollercoaster since landing - readjusting to land life is not easy.”