– My feet were very heavy. It was like I had concrete blocks on them. I wasn’t dizzy, but I was very off balance. This is how Linda Evenstad Emilsen (35) describes what it was like to set foot on solid ground after 113 days alone at sea in an eight-metre rowing boat. Trønder has just made history as the first Norwegian woman to have rowed across the Atlantic alone. She has taken part in the competition Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge, where the participants will row from the Spanish island of La Gomera to the island of Antigua in the Caribbean. It is a distance of approximately 4,700 kilometers. – I really want to be an outdoors person, so I thought I had to do something extreme to get a steep learning curve, because I’m not an outdoors person, says Emilsen. In 1999, Scottish Diana Hoff also rowed across the Atlantic alone. She has lived in Norway for over 50 years and today has dual citizenship, but at the time she only had British citizenship. Thus, she was not considered Norwegian at the time the crossing took place. – Just have to continue Emilsen has rowed through several storms, capsized twice, got big blisters on his hands and lost two oars. Nevertheless, she made it to the finish line in one piece. – It has been very strong. Lots of strong impressions. I have been close to nature and close to myself, she says of the experience. – On day three I broke my first vein and on day thirteen I broke my second. Fortunately, I haven’t broken any veins after that, because I only had four, she says. The map shows the distance Emilsen rowed across the Atlantic. It is approximately 4,700 kilometers long. The rowing boat “Brugda” is designed so that Emilsen has rowed outside and slept inside. She has tried to get between four and six hours of sleep every night, but it hasn’t always worked. – I’ve had many nights where I haven’t slept either, because you’re caught in some bad currents or the like, so if you don’t row you can be dragged too far back, she says. – I probably have the water blisters of all time on my hands, but when you get them, you just have to keep going anyway. Several hours of rowing over many days takes its toll on the body. Emilsen has developed several water blisters on her hands and says she has a sore back after sitting so much. Photo: Private Being praised by Birgit Skarstein Birgit Skarstein brags about Emilsen’s performance and calls it extreme. She herself is an Olympic champion and has 11 World Cup medals in rowing. – It is absolutely incredibly impressive, she says. – It is extremely physical, because moving a boat over such a long distance on your own requires quite a lot, and it is under quite demanding conditions. Birgit Skarstein is Olympic champion in rowing. She is very impressed by Emilsen’s performance. Photo: Ørn E. Borgen / NTB Skarstein explains how arms and hands show signs of rowing. – I have never done anything like that, but I have seen what the hands of an elite rower look like, how many cracks, blisters and calluses there are in them. – After rowing so many days and so many hours a day, I can only imagine what her hands look like, she says. Skarstein also points to the psychological challenge of being completely alone for so long. – Being able to be isolated for such a long time is also very special. Being out there in the dark in the wind and weather alone for such a long time is absolutely absurd to think about. Emilsen is embraced by close friends as she disembarks in Antigua. Photo: MKS / Atlantic Campaigns Photo: MKS / Atlantic Campaigns – Has held her breath When Emilsen rowed ashore, several close friends were waiting for her on the quay. They have all been important to her in the time before, during and also now after the sea crossing. – I have thought that if there is anyone who can do it, it is Linda, says Marion G. Stavsøien. She has been worried about Emilsen since she left on 12 December last year. – I’ve been holding my breath a bit since she left. When I saw that she rounded the corner where we were standing and looked for her, I thought, “Now I can breathe again”, I just snapped, says Stavsøien. Ruth Eva Prestvik, Viktoria Wahl and Marion G. Stavsøien are Emilsen’s best friends. After Easter, they travel home to Norway together. Photo: Privat Together with Viktoria Wahl and Ruth Eva Prestvik, she has traveled to Antigua to welcome Emilsen. They were confident that she would make the crossing, but the miss for her has been great. – I haven’t thought so much about a person or talked so much about a person since the last time I was extremely newly in love. That’s a bit how it has felt, laughs Prestvik. – Hugely proud Big sister Vibeke Emilsen Wetterwald has had almost daily contact with Emilsen while she has been at sea. She is very proud of her sister. – I will always be enormously proud of this here, and I will certainly not hide it either, so people will be bored, she laughs. Now she is happy that she is safely ashore. – She has been out for such an awful long time, much longer than expected and it is eating away at everything, so I am very happy that she has come ashore, she says. Emilsen says she is very tired after the long journey. Now she will rest for a few weeks before returning to her job as lecturer in Halden. Photo: Privat Back to the lecturer job After Easter, Emilsen travels home to Norway again with her friends. Here awaits her job as a lecturer at Østfold University College, where she teaches language, literature and culture. – It will be a huge transition, she says. Nevertheless, she is looking forward to it. – One of the first things I started to miss there was my job. Research and teaching are so much fun. I am looking forward to seeing my students again and developing myself in that way, she says. – You did this here because you wanted to become a real outdoorsman. After this trip, you have to present yourself as an outdoors person, right? – I don’t feel like that, but I think it would be too arrogant not to do it. I am an outdoors person, she concludes.
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Linda Evenstad Emilsen is the first Norwegian woman to have rowed across the Atlantic alone – news Trøndelag
