Rest In Peace Jean-Jacques Savin

The 75-year-old solo ocean rower Jean-Jacques Savin was found dead in his upturned rowboat near the Azores. He had left from Portugal on January 1st in an attempt to row the Atlantic Ocean.

I often quote the below passage by John Fairfax which I find fitting in memory of Jean-Jacques.

John Fairfax, who was one of the pioneers in ocean rowing (First man to row an ocean single-handed, Canaries-Florida, 1969 and, with Sylvia Cook, first to row across the Pacific, San Francisco to Australia, 1971-72) said at a press conference in Las Vegas: “I DON’T think that those of us who have felt the need to climb a mountain or row an ocean have done it, or will do it, “because it’s there” but “because we are here.” Without us mountains and oceans have no meaning by themselves: they “are there” and always will be but, for a very, very few, their presence inspires a dream of pitting our puny strength against their might, and to conquer not them but ourselves. The quest to prove worthy of an almost inconceivable challenge is our greatest reward.

To us it is not the final result that matters but how we measure up to our self-imposed task to confront and do battle with Nature at its rawest. And those who die in the attempt do not die in defeat; quite the opposite, their death is, in many ways, a triumph, the symbol of that indomitable human spirit that will break before it bends. To test what we are made of, that is our pursuit.“

May John-Jacques rest in peace. My sincerest condolences go out to his family and friends at this time.

Erden.