Woman scraps her bid to cross Pacific in a rowing boat

A steering system failure, bad weather and a sense that "things weren't going right" has ended a US woman's attempt to cross the Pacific by rowboat.

Sonya Baumstein departed from Choshi, Japan, one week ago, heading for San Francisco, California, in hopes of becoming the first woman to row solo across the Pacific.

She spent several days after her departure relatively close to shore as she waited for her sea sickness to subside, then made progress and was able to get into the Kuroshio current that crosses the Pacific west to east as planned.