Woman plans solo voyage across Pacific in a rowboat

SAN FRANCISCO » A woman who rowed alone across the Atlantic Ocean last year is planning to take off this week on her next big voyage: a solo row across the Pacific that will take her well into 2009 to complete.

Roz Savage, 39, a former management consultant, plans to take off from San Francisco on the first leg of her endurance journey: a 2,300-mile trip to Hawaii.

She is not sure exactly when she will take off, but said the current and winds near the Golden Gate Bridge will likely be right only in the wee hours of tomorrow morning.

The first stretch should take Savage two to three months, and after taking a month to rest, she will depart for the final stages: a 2,600-mile trip to the island nation of Tuvalu, then 2,300 miles to Australia.

Her vessel is a souped-up, 24-foot-long rowboat named the Brocade after her corporate sponsor, San Jose, Calif.-based Brocade Communications Systems Inc., which makes computer networking gear.

Savage said the goal of her journey is to raise awareness about marine conservation efforts, and she teamed up with Brocade because of its commitment to reducing power consumption in corporate data centers.

She will not be followed by a rescue boat, but will carry a satellite phone, update her blog through a PC with satellite Internet access and be monitored online by Brocade employees and environmentalists through global positioning tracking technology. Her rowboat is equipped with a tiny watertight cabin for sleeping, a bedpan and industrial quantities of health food bars, nuts and freeze-dried meals.

Savage said she first took up rowing in college and rowed alone last year from Spain's Canary Islands, located off the northwestern African coast, to the island of Antigua in the Caribbean, as part of a rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean.