Dawn Landes A song for my hero the woman who rowed into a hurricane
In June of 1998,
Tori Murden McClure left Nags Head,
North Carolina for France.
That’s her boat, the American Pearl.
It’s 23 feet long and just six feet across
at its widest point.
The deck was the size of a cargo bed
of a Ford F-150 pickup truck.
Tori and her friends built it by hand,
and it weighed about 1,800 pounds.
Her plan was to row it alone
across the Atlantic Ocean –
no motor, no sail –
something no woman and no American
had ever done before.
This would be her route:
over 3,600 miles across
the open North Atlantic Ocean.
Professionally, Tori worked
as a project administrator
for the city of Louisville, Kentucky,
her hometown,
but her real passion was exploring.
This was not her first big expedition.
Several years earlier, she’d become
the first woman to ski to the South Pole.
She was an accomplished rower in college,
even competed for a spot
on the 1992 U.S. Olympic team,
but this, this was different.
(Video) (Music) Tori Murden McClure:
Hi. It’s Sunday, July 5.
Sector time 9 a.m.
So that’s Kentucky time now.
Dawn Landes: Tori made
these videos as she rowed.
This is her 21st day at sea.
At this point, she’d covered
over 1,000 miles,
had had no radio contact
in more than two weeks
following a storm that disabled
all her long-range communications systems
just five days in.
Most days looked like this.
At this point, she’d rowed
over 200,000 strokes,
fighting the current and the wind.
Some days, she traveled
as little as 15 feet.
Yeah.
And as frustrating as those days were,
other days were like this.
(Video) TMM: And I want to show you
my little friends.
DL: She saw fish, dolphins,
whales, sharks,
and even some sea turtles.
After two weeks with no human contact,
Tori was able to contact
a local cargo ship
via VHF radio.
(Video) TMM: Do you guys
have a weather report, over?
Man: Heading up to a low
ahead of you but it’s heading,
and you’re obviously going northeast
and there’s a high behind us.
That’d be coming
east-northeast also.
TMM: Good.
DL: She’s pretty happy to talk
to another human at this point.
(Video) TMM: So weather report
says nothing dramatic
is going to happen soon.
DL: What the weather report
didn’t tell her
was that she was rowing right into
the path of Hurricane Danielle
in the worst hurricane season
on record in the North Atlantic.
(Video) TMM: Just sprained my ankle.
There’s a very strong wind
from the east now.
It’s blowing about.
It’s blowing!
After 12 days of storm
I get to row for four hours
without a flagging wind.
I’m not very happy right now.
As happy as I was this morning,
I am unhappy now, so …
DL: After nearly three months at sea,
she’d covered over 3,000 miles.
She was two thirds of the way there,
but in the storm, the waves were
the size of a seven-story building.
Her boat kept capsizing.
Some of them were pitchpole capsizes,
flipping her end over end,
and rowing became impossible.
(Video) TMM: It’s 6:30 a.m.
I’m in something big, bad and ugly.
Two capsizes.
Last capsize, I took the rib
off the top of my ceiling with my back.
I’ve had about six capsizes now.
The last one was a pitchpole.
I have the Argus beacon with me.
I would set off the distress signal,
but quite frankly, I don’t think they’d
ever be able to find this little boat.
It’s so far underwater right now,
the only part that’s showing
pretty much is the cabin.
It’s about 10 a.m.
I’ve lost track of the number of capsizes.
I seem to capsize about
every 15 minutes.
I think I may have broken my left arm.
The waves
are tearing the boat to shreds.
I keep praying because
I’m not sure I’m going
to make it through this.
DL: Tori set off her distress beacon
and was rescued
by a passing container ship.
They found her abandoned boat
two months later adrift near France.
I read about it in the newspaper.
In 1998, I was a high school student
living in Louisville, Kentucky.
Now, I live in New York City.
I’m a songwriter.
And her bravery stuck with me,
and I’m adapting her story
into a musical called “Row.”
When Tori returned home,
she was feeling disheartened,
she was broke.
She was having a hard time
making the transition
back into civilization.
In this scene, she sits at home.
The phone is ringing,
her friends are calling,
but she doesn’t know how to talk to them.
She sings this song.
It’s called “Dear Heart.”
(Guitar)
When I was dreaming,
I took my body
to beautiful places
I’d never been.
I saw Gibraltar,
and stars of Kentucky
burned in the moonlight,
making me smile.
And when I awoke here,
the sky was so cloudy.
I walked to a party
where people I know
try hard to know me
and ask where I’ve been,
but I can’t explain
what I’ve seen to them.
Ah, listen, dear heart.
Just pay attention,
go right from the start.
Ah, listen, dear heart.
You can fall off the map,
but don’t fall apart.
Ooh ooh ooh,
ah ah ah ah ah.
Ah ah,
ah ah ah.
When I was out there,
the ocean would hold me,
rock me and throw me,
light as a child.
But now I’m so heavy,
nothing consoles me.
My mind floats like driftwood,
wayward and wild.
Ah, listen, dear heart.
Just pay attention,
go right from the start.
Ah, listen, dear heart.
You can fall off the map,
but don’t fall apart.
Ooh.
Eventually, Tori starts to get
her feet under her.
She starts hanging out
with her friends again.
She meets a guy and falls
in love for the first time.
She gets a new job working
for another Louisville native,
Muhammad Ali.
One day, at lunch with her new boss,
Tori shares the news
that two other women
are setting out to row
across the mid-Atlantic,
to do something that she
almost died trying to do.
His response was classic Ali:
“You don’t want to go through life
as the woman who almost
rowed across the ocean.”
He was right.
Tori rebuilt the American Pearl,
and in December of 1999,
she did it.
(Applause)
(Guitar)
Thank you.
(Applause)