Sylvia Cook is a British

ocean rower Ocean rowing is the sport of rowing across oceans. Some ocean rowing boats can hold as many as fourteen rowers; however, the most common ocean rowboats are designed for singles, doubles, and fours. The history of ocean rowing is divided into two ...

and

adventurer An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme sp ...

who, on 22 April 1972, became the first person to row the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

, in tandem with

John Fairfax John Fairfax (24 October 1804 – 16 June 1877) was an English-born journalist, company director, politician, librarian and newspaper owner, known for the incorporation of the major newspapers of modern-day Australia. Early life Fairfax was bo ...

. With this accomplishment she became the first woman to row any ocean. The journey took 363 days at sea from

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

to Australia.

Early life

Cook was born to a middle-class family, the daughter of a teacher and a secretary.

Pacific crossing

Cook and

started rowing for their cross-Pacific journey in San Francisco on 26 April 1971 in a specially designed tandem row boat called ''Britannia II'', a self-bailing, self uprighting vessel, designed by

Uffa Fox Uffa Fox, CBE (15 January 1898 – 26 October 1972) was an English boat designer and sailing enthusiast, responsible for a number of innovations in boat design. Not afraid of courting controversy or causing offense, he is remembered for his ec ...

Later life

Cook works for B&Q in Surrey, UK, where most of her co-workers had no idea she had rowed across the Pacific Ocean.

References

Ocean rowers British female rowers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-rowing-bio-stub