Ocean Rowing - Pacific Ocean Rowing

Pacific Ocean Rowing

Following his successful Atlantic Ocean crossing, John Fairfax set off from San Francisco in California on 26 April 1971 with Sylvia Cook. After three stops (in Mexico, Fanning Island and the Gilbert Island of Onotoa), the two arrived on Hayman Island in Australia 361 days later on 22 April 1972. In doing so Cook became the first woman to row any Ocean. One of her commercial sponsors was Yardley of London who had just introduced a new creme based moisturized make-up named "Next to Nothing". Headlines in the trade papers of the cosmetics industry touted "Woman rows the Pacific wearing 'Next to Nothing' ".

In 1976 Patrick Quesnel completed a crossing from Washington State to Hawaii, a journey of 2,200 miles (3,500 km) which took him 114 days.

In 1977 Colin Quincey became the first to cross the Tasman Sea, the segment of the Pacific Ocean between Australia and New Zealand. He departed Hokianga, New Zealand, on 6 February 1977 and 63 days later arrived at Marcus Beach, Australia on 10 April.

The first person to row the width of the Pacific Ocean solo was Peter Bird of Britain. Bird set off from San Francisco, California and arrived at the Great Barrier Reef Australia 294 days later on 14 June 1983. Bird would later die attempting the west to east journey across the Pacific.

Controversially, Briton Jim Shekhdar later made the claim to be "the first person to row across the Pacific single-handed". Shekhdar had rowed across the Pacific non-stop, solo and unassisted arriving in Australia on 30 March 2001. Some within the sport felt that Shekhdar had not given due credit to the achievement of Peter Bird and the term "unassisted" also came under some scrutiny.

Roz Savage rowed from San Francisco to Hawaii in 2008, the first woman to do so solo, and from Hawaii to Tuvalu in 2009. She completed the third leg her trip (from Tuvalu to PNG) in 2010 and so became the first woman to row across the Pacific Ocean unassisted.

Chris Martin and Mick Dawson rowed a 2 man boat from Choshi, Japan to San Francisco Harbour, USA in 2009. Their journey took 189 days and in doing so they achieved the Guinness World Record for being the first team to row across the North Pacific Ocean.