Set Our Feet on Lofty Places 88 Days A Writer and His Image - Alumni

88 Days By
Aleta Mayne
On January 1, 2009, Paul ridley ’05
set Out tO crOss the atlantic Ocean.
his missiOn: tO hOnOr his mOther’s memOry
by raising $500,000 fOr cancer research.
his challenge: he wOuld be gOing it alOne
the whOle way. in a 19-fOOt rOwbOat.
32 scene: Summer 2009
Joy Ridley
Standing in front of the congregation at Christ
the King Lutheran Church, wearing a button-down
shirt, jeans, and flip flops, Paul Ridley ’05 looked
relaxed. But the topic of his talk — his 88 days
rowing solo and unsupported across the Atlantic
Ocean — had the parishioners on the edges of their
pews. Having completed the row on March 29, Paul
was spending an April weekend in his hometown
of Binghamton, N.Y., addressing the community that
had been praying for him throughout his journey.
His father, Pastor Mark Ridley ’72, stepmother, Pastor
Nadine Ridley, and sister, Joy, sat in the front row.
During the next hour, Paul would admit things
like the fact that he doesn’t enjoy swimming and
gets seasick easily. He described how the Milky Way
would illuminate the sky at night and how he’d
make faces at himself in the reflection of the boat
hatch for entertainment. As the sun shone through
the church windows, the rapt audience listened to
the young man who has grown up in front of their
eyes and, at age 25, became the youngest — and
only the third — American to successfully complete
the expedition.
Paul’s row was motivated by a cause important to
his family. After seeing both of their parents battle
cancer, he and Joy founded the nonprofit organization
Row for Hope. Their mom, Katherine Ridley,
died of malignant melanoma in 2001. A few months
later, their dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Fortunately, Mark was successfully treated and is
cancer free today.
“We had a dramatic example of what the two
different outcomes are when someone is diagnosed
with cancer: my mom’s case, which doesn’t have
effective treatments available and doesn’t get the
research dollars that the other cancers get, versus
my dad’s case,” Paul explained. “We want to have
more cases like my dad’s and fewer like my mom’s.”
Paul had been introduced to the idea of ocean
rowing through a colleague at his workplace, Greenwich
Associates. He said it started out as a joke, but
he soon realized that this was how he could “do
his part” for cancer research. Paul had been in the
rowing seat before, having rowed for the Raiders
and after graduation with the Norwalk River Rowing
Association. His discomfort with the ocean only
added to the appeal of the challenge. “I knew it was
something outside of my comfort zone, and part
of what attracted me to the ocean in the first place
was the fact that it was so far beyond what I was
accustomed to,” he explained.
When Paul started planning for the approximately
2,950-mile journey from the Canary Islands to
Antigua, he informed the partners at Greenwich
“I knew it was
something outside
of my comfort zone,
and part of what
attracted me to the
ocean in the first
place was the fact
that it was so far
beyond what I was
accustomed to.”
Associates and told his dad of his ambition. They
all agreed to support him, but no one quite believed
that three years down the road they would be
praying for him to make it across the ocean safely.
“I’m a great believer in denial, and so I said, ‘That’s
fine,’ and just assumed it would never happen,”
Mark said. Through the years of preparation, he
added, it started to become a reality. “But he
convinced me from a safety point of view that he
wasn’t taking a big risk,” Mark explained. “I think
he was as prepared as anybody could be for the
expedition that he undertook.”
The birth of Liv
Preparation began with the craft that would carry
Paul across the ocean. He collaborated with British
boat designer Phil Morrison for eight months to
design a boat with minimal accommodation for a
single rower; at 19 feet, the yellow rowboat would
end up 5 feet shorter and significantly lighter than
most ocean rowing boats. The aft cabin had just
he named the bOat liv, which means “life” in nOrwegian and translates in Old nOrse dialects tO “PrOtectiOn” and “defense.”
Erik Olsen
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