Madsen triumphs in Atlantic row

Madsen and Festor in their Atlantic rowing boat

Madsen, from the United States, is no stranger to pushing the limits and as a paraplegic she pushes them daily. When she decided to join the 2007 Atlantic Rowing Race, few doubted her.

Finding partner, amputee Franck Festor of France, the duo trained together and individually leading up to the race. Speaking different languages was the least of their issues.

As the start of the race loomed, Madsen and Festor’s boat was still being completed. They were the last boat on the water at the La Gomera start line in the Canary Islands – only an hour before the race began on December 2nd, 2007. Then Festor got seasick soon after leaving. He remained that way for three days before Madsen gave him a shake up.

“I told Franck, ‘you’ve gotta get going or we’re gonna have to quit.’ He got going.”

Madsen can’t single out the hardest day. “There were so many. One time we stayed up rowing for two days in a row waiting for the weather conditions that were taking us off course to change. We were not far off course,” admits Madsen, “but it still felt depressing.”

“Another time we’d gone 21 miles and winds blew us back, so we lost half of the work we’d done.” But Madsen says they were fortunate, some of the 22 boats entered in the race lost many more miles than that.

Unlike the standard shifts of two hours on and two hours off that many of the boats adopted, Madsen says their shifts varied by the situation, based on weather conditions. Sometimes they rowed together going for an hour followed by a fifteen minute rest all day, sleeping at night. Sometimes they would follow the two hours on, two hours off regime. When winds were bad they would work together through the day and night.

To handle this workload Festor consumed 8000 calories a day while Madsen needed 5000. At the end of the race Madsen had lost so much weight she was 10 dress sizes smaller.

So did Madsen have any epiphanies while rowing the 2,900 nautical miles? Madsen laughs, “I thought about things that are on my mind all of the time. I did think that I was lucky to be able to do this race. I did think about my hospitalisation (Madsen had surgery on her back that left her paralysed). At that time I felt helpless, like a victim. But we’re not really as helpless in life as we think we are. At sea you’re pretty helpless. You’re at the mercy of the conditions.”

“Both of us thought a lot about our situation and we talked about it.”

With one good leg between them Madsen and Festor’s 68 days at sea put them in eighth place of the 15 pairs boats that began the race and the duo also finished ahead of one four person boat. Madsen says they had a few details that helped in their competitive advantage.

“We made our oars longer to take a heavier load (350cm long). They were basically sweep oars with the handles changed. We also rigged the oars with complete body clearance to row in choppy water.”

The duo managed to stay on course well. “We didn’t zigzag as much as the other boats,” says Madsen and they never had a negative day from being blown backwards.

Madsen admits at the beginning she did not feel confident with the boat but once they got going her confidence grew. At times the boat would get swamped and a couple of times Madsen thought they may flip. But the boat held up, self righting and self bailing and allowing them to surf the waves – some up to four metres high.

Before Madsen heads back to the United States to work on her cardio base ready for 1000m flat water racing she is enjoying a few days on solid ground in Antigua, regaining her feeling of being on land.

“My balance in my wheelchair has been a little off and doing wheelies and dancing is probably not a good idea for a little while,” says Madsen who admits that she did fall out of bed the first night on land.