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THREE and a half lonely and frustrating months
at sea paid off for Scotswoman Diana Hoff, who became the oldest person
to row the Atlantic solo when she landed in Barbados on Tuesday.
Silver-haired Diana Hoff, 55, from Glasgow, was full of smiles and
pleased at her achievement, though clearly relieved her ordeal was at an
end.
''I'm glad it's over,'' she said. ''It went on much longer than I
thought.'' She looked well, though on her Web site on the Internet she
said she had lost pounds and looked ''scraggly''.
She set off from the Canary Islands 113 days ago hoping to become the
first woman to cross an ocean solo.
But that honour was taken by 36-year-old American
Tori Murden, who left the same day but reached the French
Caribbean island of Guadeloupe on December 3 after 81 days.
Hoff surprised the rowing community by deciding to row the Atlantic
after her 26-year-old daughter, Elisabeth, had to be rescued just 10
days into her attempt when her boat capsized in February 1999.
In March, Hoff announced she would take up the challenge. That prompted
Murden to ask if they might leave together.
Murden chose a swifter route, though one more likely to be affected by
hurricanes. And the younger American, with many sponsors, was able to
afford equipment including satellite telephones.
With companies unwilling to sponsor an older person, Hoff's only
communications were via electronic mail, which didn't work some days.
''Tori is 20 years younger and stronger,'' Hoff, a mother of three, said
without bitterness on Tuesday.
She had expected to arrive weeks ago and had planned to celebrate
Christmas and the new millennium in Barbados.
Instead, she dined on freeze-dried cod and battled the foul weather that
bedevilled her odyssey up to the last minute.
On New Year's Eve night, Hoff was flung out of her bunk and banged her
head on the opposite side of the cabin.
Monday night, with Barbados in sight and her boat being buffeted by
squalls and rough seas, she decided to stay out one more night in an
effort to bring her boat to shore alone.
Currents and strong winds made that impossible and on Tuesday, within
three miles of shore, a boat towed her into Port St Charles.
First to greet her, with a long embrace and kisses, was her Norwegian
husband Stein, a heart surgeon from
Kristiansand and rower who crossed the Atlantic with a partner in 1997
and landed at the same port.
Other family members, tourists and islanders cheered and whistled
approval of her achievement.
Hoff, who has rowed 2,935 miles said she was inspired in part by her
husband's trip.
''I thought they were crazy. Then there were only three women who had
tried to make the trip across the Atlantic and failed - I thought,
goodness this can't be that difficult.''
In the end, though: ''It was a bit more difficult than I thought. A hard
trip for me.''
Her sole human contact during the journey was a November encounter with
people aboard a passing cruise ship, who gave her fresh fruit and a
cassette player.
Her first sight of land, the coast of Barbados on Monday, ''brought a
tear to my eye'', she said, as did the sound of Barbados radio playing
an old Paul Anka hit - Diana.
Hoff said she was thinking of others still rowing the ocean. According
to the London-based Ocean Rowing Society, they are:
Peggy Bouchet, 24, of France, who
cut 1,000 miles off the trans-Atlantic journey by leaving from Cape
Verde on November 19. She is within a day or two of reaching Martinique.
Andrew Halsey, a 41-year-old
Londoner who suffers from epilepsy, set off across the Pacific from San
Diego, California, on July 15 and had not been heard from since October
until his emergency beacon went off New Year's Day. The US Coast Guard
found him 1,400 miles from French Polynesia and he said he did not even
know it was the new millennium. Halsey said the beacon had gone off by
accident and continued his journey.
Frenchman Patrick Lihurt left the
Canary Islands on December 9 en route to the French Caribbean and
capsized within days, but the boat righted itself and he continues to
row
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