Intrepid Oxfordshire adventurer Elisabeth Hoff came close to death when her rowing boat capsized in mid-Atlantic.

Cold, wet and perching precariously on the upturned keel of her stricken boat, Elisabeth decided it wasn't time to die.

In the middle of the Atlantic - 500 miles away from land - the 26-year-old burst into song, belting out the words to Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive.

Months earlier, the athletic British-Norwegian, who lives in Kirtlington, had decided to row single-handed across the Atlantic in search of "adventure and a break from normal life".

Elisabeth, whose father Stein Hoff rowed across the Atlantic with a friend in 1997, was bidding to be the first woman to row solo across the ocean. She quit her £25,000-a-year consultancy job in London and spent nearly a year getting herself into peak physical condition for the 3,000-mile voyage between Tenerife and Barbados.

But ten days after she started her voyage on February 7, disaster struck.

Elisabeth was awoken early in the morning by an almighty crash. She waited anxiously for the rolling boat to right itself but it didn't and she was trapped in an upturned hulk, which was slowly filling with water and rapidly beginning to resemble a tumble dryer.

She said: "To add to it all, my breathing was starting to become more and more frequent and I was feeling light-headed.

"I realised the oxygen level in the cabin was running out and the water level was still rising. I had to get out.

"I was being thrown all over the place. I was getting sea sick," she said. "So much goes through your mind. You're thinking 100 times faster than you would normally. I thought there was no way I was dying in this place."

She signalled for help using her beacon. But although she could see the machine blinking, Elisabeth had no way of knowing whether her pleas for help were being picked up and so decided to get out.

"I undid the catches and gave the door a push. Water was pushing from the outside and for a dreadful moment I thought that I would not be able to open it.

"I gave another much harder push and thankfully it gave way. Water gushed in and I somehow managed to push myself out."

Then, sitting on the upturned keel, wearing a survival suit, with her feet wrapped in foil and clutching a bag of flares, the young oarswoman began the longest wait of her life.

And it never crossed her mind that she wouldn't be rescued.

Elisabeth said: "If you lose faith you lose the ability to survive. The whole time I was looking for the plane or the ship that was going to come over the horizon."

The rower sustained herself by singing and telling herself jokes. She also imagined the reunion with boyfriend Hugh Chambers. She remained unaware that a rescue mission was already in full swing. The distress signal was received by Norwegian emergency services and Spanish coastguards were alerted.

After six hours, Elisabeth finally spotted the rescue aircraft. She said: "I knew at once it was looking for me. When it turned I knew I was going to be okay. I was sending up flares and screaming and shouting.

"It was a great moment. The Filipino crew all cheered when I was pulled over the side. I was just so happy to be alive."

Now Elisabeth's relief at being safe and well is tinged with disappointment at not completing her mission. But would she try again?

"I haven't decided," she said. "But if I want to be the first woman, I'll have to do it pretty soon."

Even if she decides to stay on dry land for a while, Elisabeth has no regrets about her adventure on the high seas.

In her diary, written aboard the Norwegian rescue ship, she wrote: "I have taken on the challenge, braved the wildest oceans and survived.

"So after all this I feel pretty lucky and pleased to be heading home in one piece, with my memories of the adventure of a lifetime."

Story date: Wednesday 03 March

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