Photo by Joy Ridley
88 Days
by Aleta Mayne

On January 1, 2009, Paul Ridley ’05 set out to cross the Atlantic Ocean. His mission: to honor his mother’s memory by raising $500,000 for cancer research. His challenge: he would be going it alone the whole way. In a 19-foot rowboat.

Standing in front of the congregation at Christ the King Lutheran Church, wearing a button-down shirt, jeans, and flip flops, Paul Ridley ’05 looked relaxed. But the topic of his talk — his 88 days rowing solo and unsupported across the Atlantic Ocean — had the parishioners on the edges of their pews. Having completed the row on March 29, Paul was spending an April weekend in his hometown of Binghamton, N.Y., addressing the community that had been praying for him throughout his journey. His father, Pastor Mark Ridley ’72, stepmother, Pastor Nadine Ridley, and sister, Joy, sat in the front row.
    During the next hour, Paul would admit things like the fact that he doesn’t enjoy swimming and gets seasick easily. He described how the Milky Way would illuminate the sky at night and how he’d make faces at himself in the reflection of the boat hatch for entertainment. As the sun shone through the church windows, the rapt audience listened to the young man who has grown up in front of their eyes and, at age 25, became the youngest — and only the third — American to successfully complete the expedition.
    Paul’s row was motivated by a cause important to his family. After seeing both of their parents battle cancer, he and Joy founded the nonprofit organization Row for Hope. Their mom, Katherine Ridley, died of malignant melanoma in 2001. A few months later, their dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Fortunately, Mark was successfully treated and is cancer free today.
    “We had a dramatic example of what the two different outcomes are when someone is diagnosed with cancer: my mom’s case, which doesn’t have effective treatments available and doesn’t get the research dollars that the other cancers get, versus my dad’s case,” Paul explained. “We want to have more cases like my dad’s and fewer like my mom’s.”
    Paul had been introduced to the idea of ocean rowing through a colleague at his workplace, Greenwich Associates. He said it started out as a joke, but he soon realized that this was how he could “do his part” for cancer research. Paul had been in the rowing seat before, having rowed for the Raiders and after graduation with the Norwalk River Rowing Association. His discomfort with the ocean only added to the appeal of the challenge. “I knew it was something outside of my comfort zone, and part of what attracted me to the ocean in the first place was the fact that it was so far beyond what I was accustomed to,” he explained.
    When Paul started planning for the approximately 2,950-mile journey from the Canary Islands to Antigua, he informed the partners at Greenwich Associates and told his dad of his ambition. They all agreed to support him, but no one quite believed that three years down the road they would be praying for him to make it across the ocean safely. “I’m a great believer in denial, and so I said, ‘That’s fine,’ and just assumed it would never happen,” Mark said. Through the years of preparation, he added, it started to become a reality. “But he convinced me from a safety point of view that he wasn’t taking a big risk,” Mark explained. “I think he was as prepared as anybody could be for the expedition that he undertook.”

The birth of Liv
Preparation began with the craft that would carry Paul across the ocean. He collaborated with British boat designer Phil Morrison for eight months to  design a boat with minimal accommodation for a single rower; at 19 feet, the yellow rowboat would end up 5 feet shorter and significantly lighter than most ocean rowing boats. The aft cabin had just enough room for Paul to lie flat to sleep — with a half inch of clearance — and sit up. The fore cabin stored 95 days’ worth of 8,000 calorie-per-day meals as well as his sea anchor. Although he had no chase boat or means of resupply, Liv was equipped with the technology of an ocean racing yacht. A solar-power system provided electricity for an expedition-style PDA, an Automatic Identification System transponder (radar that sends data through radio signals to other ships), a satellite phone, and a position indicating beacon. The solar-powered system also juiced up Paul’s Panasonic Toughbook laptop — on which he would post daily updates on his blog at Rowforhope.com — and his 160-gigabyte iPod filled with music and a number of books on tape, from Shakespeare classics to Into the Wild. He named the boat Liv, which means “life” in Norwegian and translates in old Norse dialects to “protection” and “defense.”

(Photo by Erik Olsen)
    The second important part of the equation was Paul’s physical stamina, which he built through training with a rowing coach, weight lifting, cardiovascular work, and even Bikram yoga. “It’s a great way to relax, work on flexibility and core strength, and do some different mental exercises,” Paul said of yoga. After all, he knew that his mental strength would be the biggest challenge. Consulting with numerous ocean rowers, he was told many times that “you can train all you want, but if you can’t get your head on straight to get into that rowing seat, it will never matter.”

Shoving off
On Saturday, November 8, 2008, Paul said goodbye to Liv as she got her first taste of the open ocean when he sent her to the Canary Islands in the belly of a cargo ship. A month later, Paul and his family followed her, to the departure point of the island La Gomera. 
 
    Blog entry, December 12, 2008: “I made it safely to the Canary Islands and got my first glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean that I’ll be living on for the next three months. My first reaction — let me at it!”

     The Ridleys spent the first few days on La Gomera wiring Liv’s electronics and packing her cabins. For safekeeping, Paul mailed a box of his personal possessions, including his wallet and Blackberry, to his home in Greenwich, Conn. Then came the waiting game. Although Paul had planned to depart on December 16, he spent the next couple of weeks biding his time until the Spanish government issued his port clearance and the weather forecast predicted enough northeasterly wind to help him progress west. The rest of the Ridley family eventually had to return home, so Paul was left alone to wait. On Christmas Day, he climbed to the top of a cliff overlooking La Gomera where a giant statue of Jesus watches over the town. Paul asked him for northeast winds at 10 to 15 knots, and then returned to his rental apartment to listen to Christmas carols.
    On December 30, Paul’s Christmas wish came true. He received his port clearance and the forecast looked favorable. Paul’s odyssey began on New Year’s Day. Departing simultaneously was another rower, 58-year-old Leo Rosette, who was attempting to break a different age record, the oldest American to cross any ocean. There to see both of them off was experienced ocean rower Simon Chalk of Woodvale Challenge, an organization that supports ocean rowing races.   

    Blog entry, December 31, 2008: “In college I went on a short cruise from Miami to Mexico and back. I was seasick the entire time and swore that I’d never go on any more silly ocean trips. Oops!”

    As anticipated, seasickness struck Paul for the first few days, preventing him from eating as much as he needed to maintain his energy. An inability to sleep through the night didn’t help. During his first night at sea, he was repeatedly awakened by the sound of his collision-avoidance alarm. Meant to detect the proximity of other boats, it was instead warning him that Liv was near herself. Until he figured out a way around the alarm glitch, Paul turned it off and set a timer to wake himself every 20 minutes so that he could visually scan the ocean for approaching boats.
    With no choice but to row through the queasiness and exhaustion, Paul began adjusting to life at sea. In this early part of his voyage, a few daunting events would mark certain days. Approaching the second week, just as Paul was feeling like he had his sea legs and that the “warm-up” was over, the wind and seas started building. After a particularly rough day of rowing and getting soaked by the crashing waves that were growing increasingly larger, cold and drenched, Paul crawled into his cabin to try to sleep. The next morning (day 13), he climbed out of the cabin and was aghast to see dark skies and 25-foot waves. “It was a scary time,” he said. As the day progressed, Paul watched the waves continue to grow. “When it got dark, although I had incredible faith in the boat and my rowing ability, I had the strong sense that I was going to need help,” Paul recalled. He saw the first star and started wishing, “Star light, star bright,” but couldn’t remember the rest of the rhyme. So he abandoned that plan and said a prayer, something he then did twice a day for the rest of the row. Within 24 hours, the winds calmed down and Paul was able to continue making progress westward. “I asked for help, and I got it,” he said.
    Two days later, another challenge would arrive when a high-pressure hose ripped out of the main water desalinator — a dangerous type of equipment failure that has forced the premature end of several past expeditions. Paul managed to fix his drinking-water maker temporarily so that he could again settle into his daily routine. But it would continue to present problems and he would often have to spend time away from rowing to fiddle with it. 

Rough waters ahead
Throughout the frustrating episodes, Paul’s blog entries would stay positive, but also hint at his challenges. The monotony of eating freeze-dried variations of chicken and rice soon became evident. His third week of blog entries focused on the foods he was missing from home — Dinosaur Barbecue chicken wings, pizza from Ye Olde Pizza Pub, and Binghamton’s famous spiedies. 
    As the weeks passed, Paul’s craving for human interaction also started to kick into high gear. Daily phone calls with his dad helped. Keeping in line with Paul’s one-day-at-a-time strategy, Mark learned to focus the conversation on what Paul had accomplished that day. News from land was kept to a minimum — Paul had given specific instructions to his team to not give him any bad news from home. “There was enough time out there to eat at my brain,” he explained.

    Blog entry, day 24: “For the first couple weeks my first thought after opening my eyes was always, ‘Where am I? Wait … don’t tell me I’m in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean … no, no, no…’”

    As he had been forewarned by experienced ocean rowers, one of his biggest hurdles became getting out of the cabin and into the rowing seat to begin his morning shift. He began using candies that his stepmother Nadine had given him in La Gomera as bait. From the cabin, Paul would take a Lifesaver — a delicacy in the middle of the ocean — and toss it into the seat. “I knew that if it sat there, it would wash away, so I had to get into the rowing seat to save the Lifesaver,” Paul said. But instead of popping it right into his mouth, he would stash it in a safe place and treat himself at the end of the four-hour shift.
    Other motivational tools Paul used while at sea were his iPod — he jokes that he’s now an expert on the American Revolution after listening to 1776 numerous times  — and the daily blog comments from his supporters who were writing from all over the world. “I’d read them about four or five times a day,” he said. “They kept my mind occupied for hours while I was rowing. That took the oars out of my hands physically and kept my mind in a completely different place.” Paul’s supporters could also follow his progress on a Google map that was updated every day through his tracking beacon. Everyone from K-Rock radio fans in Binghamton to elementary school kids around the country wrote in with inspirational words, philosophical quandaries to contemplate, and questions about what he was experiencing. 
    Wildlife became a main topic on the message boards, especially after Paul began describing the petrel birds and flying fish that he was seeing. The young son of a coworker sparked a lively discussion about sharks and what Paul should be on the lookout for. When Paul did finally report on a shark sighting, he had to admit it didn’t quite live up to the Jaws hype that had built online. As the shark swam near his boat, Paul went into the cabin to get his camera and came back just in time to take a picture of its dorsal fin moving away.
    Keeping a careful eye out for fins was a necessity several times throughout the row. Periodically, Liv needed some housekeeping that required Paul to jump into the water. Using a rope, he would tie himself to Liv and jump into the 14,000-foot–deep ocean, plastic cement spreader in hand, to scrape the barnacles that would build up and slow down the boat. “I’d spend the morning looking around for sharks, and then in the afternoon when the sun was out, sit on the gunwale for 5 minutes, giving myself  a little pep talk before actually going in,” he said.
    A picture of a Portuguese man-of-war, which Paul named Benny, also gained blog notoriety and even led to a joking comment about Paul sounding dangerously like Tom Hanks’s stranded character in Castaway.

    Blog entry, day 37: “The petrel is still here, and the seagull stops by once or twice every day. Neither are big talkers, though … yet.”

    Of course, the loneliness did engulf Paul at times. Breaking a 29-day streak without his seeing any sign of human life, a plane flying overhead brought tears to his eyes. “The thought of all these people in such a high-tech, human environment, sitting in perfectly straight rows, sipping drinks, was incredible,” he explained.
    Overall, his positive attitude and sense of humor helped Paul through the difficult times. And all the while, his true cause was never far from his heart. On February 5, the eighth anniversary of his mom’s death, he wrote: “I witnessed her struggle unfold at a particularly formative point in my life when, as a senior in high school, I was beginning to realize that the decisions I made in the next several years would go a long way toward determining who I’d be as an adult. The impact my mom’s death had on me was profound, and is single-handedly responsible for where I am at this very moment — 31 degrees 35 minutes West, 18 degrees 20 minutes North — in a 19-foot boat 359 nautical miles from the nearest land (Cape Verde) and 1,736 nautical miles from the end of my journey.”
    Almost to the halfway point, physical challenges began to test his resolve. Salt sores had developed on his legs and backside, making it difficult for him to sit comfortably.

    Blog entry, day 46: “I’m running out of ways to sit where I’m not directly on top of, or rolling over, a painful sore every time I take a stroke… Tonight I had the following arrangement as far as seat padding goes: wheelchair pad, mini-cell foam pad, gel pad, then two layers of sheepskin.”

    Luckily, he had managed to avoid the claw grip that inflicts many ocean rowers, but it did become a struggle to close his hands.
    On February 18, Paul crossed the east-to-west midpoint. The champagne he’d been saving for the occasion turned into a disappointment when Paul tasted the warm liquid that had suffered from 49 days in a hot boat. 
    The next 34 days would prove to become more difficult mentally, something Paul didn’t expect. “It got harder as I got closer to land,” he explained. “I felt less connected to everyone back on land. For them, the anticipation of my arrival was building. But for me, every day was exactly the same.” Accepting that he would have to adjust his outlook and not think about Antigua until the very end, Paul stayed focused on the task at hand. He also took the time to be grateful for his experience, writing about the blanket of stars he slept under, and showing his sense of humor with “beard watch” postings to his blog — photos showing his facial hair growth over the trip.

The final strokes
In the last quarter of the expedition, just as Paul planned to start adding night shifts to shave off a few days, the weather dealt him another blow. On day 66, after spending four hours rowing and making no progress in the right direction, Paul lowered his sea anchor — an underwater parachute that filled with water to slow his negative progress while sleeping and in times like this. For three days, while he waited for the winds to change direction, Paul was unable to row.

    Blog entry, day 70: “I’m exhausted physically and, after all this weather nonsense, nearing the end of my rope mentally.”

    Following the 72-hour delay, Mother Nature started sending signs of land Paul’s way. Increasing numbers of seagulls hovered and attempted to land on deck, and Paul spotted a bug on board for the first time since leaving the Canaries. Signs of the human world gave him hope as well; in one day, seven airplanes flew overhead. But with just 130 nautical miles between the young rower and his destination of Antigua, the sea wasn’t ready to give him up yet. As the sun beat down on Paul daily, he became locked in a combination of winds and currents that were pushing him south in the direction of Guadeloupe, where he feared he might have to land. Adding to his frustration, the main water desalinator was on the fritz again. “It was the classic story of the fifty-cent part taking down the five thousand–dollar water maker,” he said. Not wanting to sacrifice time away from rowing to fix the desalinator, Paul relied on his backup water supply and a manual pump he brought with him. He had also run out of his favorite rowing foods of Ramen noodles, army biscuits, and chocolate bars. “At the end of an expedition that long, it’s not a deal breaker, but it didn’t help morale,” he said of his significantly decreased meal options.
    Feeling glum and defeated, Paul gritted his teeth and battled his way north, adding hours to his rowing shifts so that he was rowing 12 to 14 hours a day. “I had to deal with real questions about whether or not I’d actually be able to make it to Antigua, where friends and family and everything I’d been dreaming about for the whole trip were waiting for me,” he recalled. “The idea that I could potentially miss them was crushing.”
    Meanwhile, his family had arrived in Antigua. They enlisted the help of Antigua Barbuda Search and Rescue, which had advanced software to track the wind and weather patterns. “I felt like I was the most closely watched person on earth for the last few days,” Paul said. The search and rescue authorities predicted that Liv would hit a north-tending current, which Paul could use to overcome the winds from the northeast and make a turn to the northwest toward Antigua. They were right, and like the wind, Paul’s luck was turning around. That same day, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean Rowing Crossing Line — the official measure of a completed ocean row — which he hadn’t realized was so close until the previous day. His spirits lifted, and Paul concentrated on getting himself safely to Antigua. On the morning of day 87, just 49 miles away from Antigua, Paul came out of his cabin and saw a welcome sight — his first glimpse of land.
    Paul decided that he would accept a tow into English Harbour, so the next day Mark and Nadine, a few family friends, and two representatives from the company that built Liv chartered a catamaran to go out and bring Paul in. The rest of the 19-member welcoming party abandoned their poolside stations to get a glimpse of the yellow boat from the cliffs at the mouth of the harbor and then ran to the dock. Paul’s friends from Binghamton and Connecticut had traveled to Antigua, as well as six of his Colgate cronies: Sheila Chun ’05, Allison Kelley ’05, Anna Kolich ’05, Keely Lowe ’05, Katy Romano ’05, and Dan Solomon ’05. 
    An immediate feeling of relief swept over Paul when he saw people waving to him from the catamaran, he said. They towed him in and cut him loose at the mouth of the harbor so he could row the last leg into the dock. As he rowed into the harbor, photographers on dinghies swarmed around him. The search and rescue boat was spraying a fire-hose rainbow. People out on their sailboats waiting for his arrival and at the waterfront restaurants applauded. The Queen song “We Are the Champions” was being piped over a sound system, and he heard his Colgate classmates yelling coordinated cheers. Only expecting to see his friends and family there, Paul said “It seemed like the whole island had come out to see me.” Pulling into the dock, Joy was there waiting to grab his hand and guide Liv to the wall. A TV news crew was on hand with a bottle of champagne. It felt so cold to Paul when he grabbed it, he said, that it chilled him to the bone. Overcome by emotion, he sputtered out a few words, greeted friends and family with hugs, took “the longest shower of my life,” and within an hour was on the phone being interviewed by CNN. The “after” party began at a bar and grill fittingly called Life.


Land legs
A cheeseburger, a cold drink, and a soft bed gave Paul immediate satisfaction, but it took some time for him to readjust to land. For days, he would still wake up 15 minutes before sunrise. Having lost strength in the muscles that hold the body upright and provide balance, Paul had to get used to walking again. Another pace he had difficulty keeping up with was the quickness of conversations.    

    Blog entry, April 3: “On the boat I had all the time in the world to formulate my thoughts in great detail and in a very organized, but not exactly lightning-fast, way. After arriving, I couldn’t believe how quickly conversations would switch from one topic to another, leaving me struggling to keep my brain moving fast enough to keep up.”

        Social situations in general felt different, he said. Returning to affluent Greenwich, Paul felt uncomfortable amidst the expensive SUVs and material excesses. At sea, his most prized commodities had been Ramen noodles and army biscuits. “The most valuable things had to do with my sustenance, keeping myself alive,” he said. Back on land, with the ability to buy as many Ramen noodles as he desires, Paul said, he has developed a great sense of gratitude for his life — and for his changed viewpoint. “My perspective on this culture, this society, all this stuff we have, it’s a little different, and I’ll always continue to feel lucky for what I have, which is a great outcome.”
    Waiting in line at the DMV to get his new driver’s license (his wallet never made it back in the mail from La Gomera), Paul contemplated how much he missed the freedom of the ocean. “It sounds really strange because I was in a boat, getting thrown around by the weather, and if I wanted to get to land, I had to row,” he said. “But there, I at least had the sense that I was the captain and the final decision maker on what happened in the boat — I had my own little sphere.”

Paul’s 88 days by the numbers

Boat measurements: 19 feet, 4 inches; 400 pounds
Times listened to Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama: 5
Most hours rowed in one day: 15
Total pounds lost: more than 30
Amount of freeze-dried food stored in Liv: 276 pounds; 76 cases
Average calories eaten per day: 5,500
Most daunting day at sea: Day 13
Total miles rowed by Paul across the Atlantic: 3,500
Rowers who have attempted an east-to-west transatlantic crossing in the last 40 years: 85
Percentage of those attempts that have succeeded: 60 percent
Official Atlantic Ocean Rowing Crossing Line: longitude 59°37W
Times he washed his hair during first shower back on land: 4
Funds raised by Theta Chi brothers at their semi-formal dedicated to Row for Hope: more than $2,300
Donations matched by Bob Glendening ’71: more than $9,000
Total money raised to date by Row for Hope to support cancer research: more than $100,000

    He also missed Liv. Watching a truck carry her away to a container port in Antigua was an emotional moment for Paul. “She kept me alive for 88 days going through one of the harshest environments on earth,” he said. Liv will be back on the Atlantic Ocean next year, but without Paul. He sold her to 22-year-old Katie Spotz, who will try to break his record as the youngest American, and if so, could also become the youngest person in the world to row an ocean solo. “It would’ve been great to keep Liv and have my grandkids paddling her around a lake, but at this point, I can’t afford to have a $60,000 boat sitting around,” said Paul, who spent his life savings and took out a loan to fund the expedition. 
    He’s still not entirely comfortable with certain aspects of life on land — like sticking to such a busy schedule — but Paul has become more accustomed to life after Liv. After he was interviewed by everyone from Fox News to the Bonnie Hunt Show, graced the 25 fittest list in Men’s Fitness, and was used as an example of extreme fundraising methods by Forbes, the media frenzy has since died down. Greenwich Associates has given him leeway to continue his speaking tour, visiting classrooms, churches, and various organizations including Colgate alumni clubs. And, with all the work dedicated to building the nonprofit, Row for Hope is still a priority for the Ridley family. Paul raised more than $100,000 of his $500,000 goal. The organization will continue to fundraise for cancer research at the Yale Cancer Center by supporting regattas, and even athletes outside of the rowing world.
    Back in Binghamton, Pastor Mark delivers a Bible reading about Jonah, who discovers that even in the belly of a whale, he can talk to God, and God will listen. As the story goes, Jonah lives to perform the mission that God has in mind for him. Like Jonah, Paul learned that he could talk to God in the middle of the ocean, and he’s waiting to learn his life’s mission. He admitted that another expedition is likely — although it will be a different format than a solo ocean row. “Having been out there and back, I think that it’s going to be much harder to resist the urge to do something else,” he said. Paul added that he would consider rowing in a larger boat with a team of people. And he’s open to other ideas. “There are a lot of great expeditions that you can do to help advance science,” he explained. “People carry weather stations to the top of mountains and bring samples back from the jungle. I think there are a lot of ways to get out there and do some good, and that’s something I want to do.”
    The congregation joined in singing, “If the Lord had not been on our side, all the raging waters and the mighty flood would have swept over us.” And Mark closed by telling his son, “You were the youngest and the third American to row across the Atlantic solo and unsupported, but you were not unsupported and you were not alone.”