“Explore and get out of your comfort zone,” said Tori Murden McClure.
McClure traveled across the Atlantic Ocean not once, but twice on a 23-foot-long, six-foot-wide homemade rowboat. On her first trip in 1998, McClure completed 3,000 miles before she was stranded for days in Hurricane Danielle; the rest of the trip was cancelled due to the injuries sustained by McClure after she capsized at least five times in the storm.
“To be human is to be helpless,” said McClure.
On Friday, Feb. 9, McClure visited three groups of students, then had lunch with students and faculty before giving a presentation in Blackwell Ballroom. Throughout each session, she discussed her adventure and her book, “A Pearl in a Storm, How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean.”
After her first attempt to cross the Atlantic, McClure said it was difficult to go back to hanging out with her friends and being a part of everyday society. She said she couldn’t decide to try the trip again until she started working with famed boxer Muhammad Ali the next year. Rather than go her original route from North America to Europe, she chose to use Christopher Columbus’ route from Africa to the Caribbean.
Ultimately, she succeeded, and became the first women the row solo across the Atlantic on Dec. 3, 1999.
Junior Austin Daisey said McClure was “very, very humble; she would be a nice person to learn from, a mentor.”
Throughout her presentation, McClure discussed her own struggles. She told the audience it wasn’t tragedies that made people special, it was the reaction to the tragedy. Her stories credited mentors and friends for being there to help her up when she was down, and how she would do the same for anyone unless they refused to help themselves.
“People only ask you why you’re doing something when they don’t approve of it,” said McClure.
When asked how she taught herself nautical skills for her two trips across the Atlantic, McClure stated it was from books and her own experiences. Now president of Spalding University, she is a huge advocate of learning and doing one’s research.
Before her second trip across the Atlantic, she studied hurricanes to avoid the same situation she ran into the first time. Along with being the first woman to row across the Atlantic, she was the first woman to directly experience the first hurricane going from east to west, Hurricane Lenny.
Daisey said, “The fact that she had the mind to go through with this, the motivation.”
For the presentation in Blackwell Ballroom, it started with a video about a musical being made about McClure, then went onto a few readings from the book itself, before the floor opened up for questions. While some asked about the trip itself, others would had asked about how she felt about the trip now or what her reasons were to go.
“Always do your homework because no one does it,” said McClure. “It’s almost like cheating, almost like taking an unfair advantage.”
Arthor of “A Pearl In The Storm”, Tori Murden McClure spoke to faculty and students on Wednesday night Feb. 8th.
Arthor of “A Pearl In The Storm”, Tori Murden McClure spoke to faculty and students on Wednesday night Feb. 8th.
Arthor of “A Pearl In The Storm”, Tori Murden McClure spoke to faculty and students on Wednesday night Feb. 8th.
