Roman Sadowy  (aka FFBear)
 

On Land - Roman at Alta, Utah in the 1960’s

Roman Sadowy was the first of the City College Outdoor Club members to be brought to the Gunks by Art Gran. He developed under his guidance into a good climber and became one of the three original Vulgarians. Roman had been a stalwart of the CCOC along with Al DeMaria and the two of them concocted AAA hikes such as the Storm King to Suffern 35 mile hike. In difficult caves such as Schoolhouse cave in West Virginia Roman usually became the expedition leader. He is noted in the Gunks Guidebook for being on the first ascent of MF and also for the first ascent of “Roman’s Climb Next To Across From The Fruit Stand” a singularly unimaginative name for a climb which is listed in the guide book as having no followers! It was a typical Vulgarian fiasco. Roman’s second was Claude Suhl who refused to climb the last pitch because it was a corner full of loose overhanging flakes. No amount of reasoning or threats could convince Claude to climb that corner so Roman had to climb back down thereby making the first descent of the climb also. In truth, the climb is pretty easy but it sure looks good in the guide book “No followers”.

Roman was also on the 1959 Bugaboo expedition. He returned to the Tetons and Wind Rivers twice but after a few years he drifted out of climbing because he developed an insatiable bug for for sailing after renting a Sunfish in Bermuda. At that time he worked for a Hudson Laboratories, a Lab run by Columbia University that did underwater sound research for the U.S. Navy which had a facility in Bermuda. Actually, Claude also worked at this Lab for a while.

Pretty soon his aim became to sail around the world.  He finally accomplished this feat by sailing around the world in a 37 foot catamaran named “Dragonfly” during a five year span from 2001-2006. He was accompanied by his second wife & First Mate Diane. His daughter Sasha loved being at sea also and once spent 5 months on the boat while sailing from Panama to the Kingdom Of Tonga where she was kidnapped by some Italians who took her to Fiji from where she flew back home. Roman always insisted that his position on the boat was Chief Dishwasher & Emergency Captain. He said that nobody would listen to him until the “shit hit the fan” & then everyone snapped to as if they were in the military. Roman has deep feelings about being at sea and it they are best expressed by his favorite poem about the lure of the ocean.

This poem is called “Safe in the Harbour” and is beautifully sung by a Canadian lady, Margaret Christi, but when Roman originally printed out the poem he deleted all the refrains about being “Safe in the Harbour” and ended up with his own version of the poem he called “Out There” which is where he wanted to be.

Below are two views from Dragonfly’s cockpit when you are “Out There” a 1000 miles from any land.