A mother's anxious moments

By MALUM NALU

 

It will be one of Rita Savage’s proudest moments when daughter Roz rows into Madang tomorrow (Friday).

“I am proud of what she is achieving, but still have sleepless nights when she is having problems at sea,” she said.

When Roz Savage first talked about rowing across the Atlantic in 2005, her mother Rita thought it was just a wild idea that would soon go away.

“Then she stated that she did not want to be part of the Atlantic Rowing Race, but would do it on her own,” Rita told me from London today (Thursday).

“I was totally dismayed.

“But that idea did not work out, the race organisers would not allow her to buy the boat unless she joined the race.

“So she was committed.

“Leading up to the race, she invited me to spend a month with her to help with work on the boat.

“During that time we became a team, working together to help her to succeed and that is the way it has remained since.

“There have been bad moments: as the race went on she was totally reliant on me for support, there was no one else, a couple of people who had promised to help had let her down.

“Then her satellite phone failed about three weeks before she reached the end in Antigua. “Fortunately the race website showed the position of all boats, and hers was moving in the right direction, so that was a relief.”

Rita recalls that there have been many anxious moments for her as a mother.

“In 2007 her boat capsized three times in 24 hours off the coast of California, and she was taken off by helicopter.

“In 2008, on the way to Hawaii, her water maker failed and she was running out of drinking water which caused great anxiety until she met up with a craft that could give her enough to finish the voyage.”