Question: what makes a former investment banker tackle one of the world's toughest nautical challenges by rowing alone across the Atlantic? Answer: it beats becoming a photographer, opening a chain of coffee shops or renovating a houseboat, which is what Roz Savage was considering when she had her light bulb moment. "I was searching for the next big challenge," she says, "and realised I wanted an adventure, not a house."
So the 37-year-old signed up for this month's Atlantic Rowing Race, a 2,550 nautical-mile solo slog from the Canary Islands to Antigua in the West Indies - a gruelling test of mental and physical strength.
It is unusual behaviour for someone who for many years had demonstrated a strong preference for "keeping a tight control and minimising risk". It's a trait that no doubt served her well during her years as a management consultant in financial markets at Accenture and CHP Consulting in the 1990s and as a project manager at UBS investment bank. But after a decade or so it occurred to Savage that she "wasn't really in the right job. I think I guessed that early on but I graduated from Oxford in 1989 when the workplace was dominated by a Thatcherite ethos - materialistic times. Working long hours in the City, socialising only with other consultants and investment bankers [she married one], you get tunnel vision."
Anyway, something seems to have clicked. She left her job and her husband, and spent some time relishing freedom and exploring her options before settling, with determination, on the least likely one.
Olympian fitness and great bulk would seem to be prerequisites for such a huge physical undertaking but, according to race officials, "with willpower and determination, anyone can achieve more or less anything... Previousrowing experience is not an entry requirement and many teams competing in the race had never set foot in aboat before."
So, alongside the usual professional rowers and sea dogs, the event attracts an unusual mix: a motley crew of married couples, mother-and-child doubles and on one occasion a convicted murderer with his parole officer. The fact remains, however, that more people have climbed Everest than rowed an ocean. Only 25 solo rowers have ever completed this race and only three of them were women.
Sir Steve Redgrave, the five-time Olympic rowing gold medallist, has wished her well but said he could not think of anything worse than trying to row across an ocean. However, Redgrave's fellow Olympic rowing hero James Cracknell is competing in a pair with TV presenter Ben Fogle.
"There's only one other solo competing and he's 6ft and 15 stone, so I guess everyone's expecting me to come last," says Savage cheerfully.
Although small (5ft 4in) and light (9½ stone after bulking up), Savage did row for Oxford and carried on with the sport over the following eight years as a member of the Thames Rowing Club, training four nights a week and at weekends. Less fortunately, she quit 10 years before inspiration struck and, anyway, as she points out, "rowing a 2,000-metre race is very different to rowing 3,000 miles".
She has been training since last winter to build up her stamina but says: "There's no beginner's guide to rowing an ocean, no definitive way." However, building endurance, increasing the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood and the absorption efficiency of muscles are fundamental. With the boat in the boatyard until last month, Savage trained on a rowing machine in her front room, building up from one hour a day to reach her target of 16 hours a day, broken up into four-hour sessions. Since the summer she has also been weight-training to build strength and cardiovascular fitness.
Due to the unpredictable nature of currents and the weather, there's no way of telling how long she'll be rowing. The race record is held by a male New Zealand doubles team at 40 days, five hours and 31 minutes. At the other extreme Debra Veal, who rowed solo after her husband had to be rescued from the boat 14 days into the 2001 race, took 111 days. In preparation, Savage has added 1½ stone in weight with a diet that's rich in fish oil, ginger, Vitamin C, phytase, bilberry and lutein. She will need a daily intake of 5,000 calories to ensure she doesn't drop below her base weight. Sensibly allowing for 100 days, that's 102kg of food - or rather wholefood: "Porridge for breakfast, dried fruit and nuts, pure hemp protein powder, seed bars and flapjacks, and a freeze-dried meal for dinner. I'm not really going for sports supplements."
Among the hazards facing a lone rower in a boat 23ft long and 6ft wide are waves the size of a house, trawlers and sharks. "Only one ocean rower has been attacked by a shark," she says "and he was trying to harpoon it at the time." There's also the chance or falling overboard, "the boat drifting off, and ending up looking stupid". But the most likely and potentially disastrous threat comes from the sun, which can lead to blisters, exacerbated by salt water abrasion. To combat this, Savage has packed talcum powder and alpaca fleece seat covers from Peru, and she plans to row naked, as many do, to minimise rub.
Sea sickness can strike anyone, especially during the first few days, and sleep deprivation, from rowing in four-hour blocks around the clock, may affect her morale. "I'm interested to see how I cope psychologically," she says, "although I love spending time on my own." She says she once holed up in a cottage in Sligo in the Irish Republic with a pile of books for a month but that hardly compares with up to three months of extreme endurance on the high seas. Savage says she's put a lot of thought into psychological preparation.
For a start, months on the rowing machine have raised her boredom threshold. She'll be buoyed up by a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and 10,000 songs on an iPod. Facing her as she rows there'll be a whiteboard listing the names of staunch supporters she can't let down and detractors she needs to prove wrong.
People are either driven by the desire for success or a fear of failure and she's fairly balanced between the two, she says. She's a firm believer in positive visualisation and, if that doesn't work, she'll take the advice of another Atlantic rower, Sally Kettle, and allow herself a wallow. To which end, she's read books such as The Art of Effortless Living by Ingrid Bacci and Mind Games by Sarah Perrin and Jeff Grout.
Her choice of challenge might have been arbitrary but she's motivated. "I worked 12-hour days in the City but at the end I couldn't see any intrinsic value in what I was doing. I underperformed and that affected my self-esteem. I've learnt a lot since leaving about independence and self-sufficiency and to be bobbing about in the middle of an ocean seems a good way to test it. I was like a sculptor with all the tools looking for something to use them on. And this is it."
