From the Associated Press:
GEORGETOWN, Guyana — A 22-year-old American rower completed a solo journey across the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday, touching a pier in the coffee-brown waters of Guyana to claim a record as the youngest person to accomplish the feat.
Katie Spotz, who spent more than two months alone at sea, hugged her father and brother as 200 people cheered her arrival in this South American capital.
"The hardest part was just the solo part," Spotz said, saying she struggled with boredom and had trouble sleeping inside the cramped, 19-foot (6-meter) row boat.
The athlete from Mentor, Ohio, set out from Dakar, Senegal, on Jan. 3 and endured rough seas during the 2,817-mile (4,533-kilometer) crossing. She traveled without any support boat aside from a Coast Guard vessel that escorted her to Guyana's coast.
She rowed to raise money and awareness for the Blue Planet Run Foundation, a nonprofit whose goal is to bring clean drinking water to the estimated 1 billion people worldwide who lack it.
"The records are just a bonus for Katie. Rowing the Atlantic and raising funds for clean water are the things she really cares about," said her coach Sam Williams...
Some of the most harrowing moments came near the voyage's end. As she approached the continental shelf, waves crashed over the boat and Spotz worried it would capsize. On Saturday, she had to use a fire extinguisher after a piece of tracking equipment caught fire.
