Burlap Heroes

 

I'm not sure how I missed this up to this point, but tomorrow, solo rower Kelsey Pfendler is expected to complete a 2,400-mile journey from Monterey, California to Oahu, Hawaii. Pfendler is the first American woman and third woman overall to attempt the solo trip, and will also be the youngest (32) woman to complete the feat. She is on pace to break both the men's and women's record for the trip. 

Her trip began, totally alone, on May 21 in her 24-foot fiberglass boat. Nearly 43 days later, she has traveled 2,258 nautical miles and estimates she will make landfall at Oahu around 11 p.m. on Friday.

The current women’s record was set in 2020 by the U.K.'s Lia Ditton, who completed the journey in 86 days, 10 hours, and 5 minutes. If Pfendler maintains her current pace, she will shatter that record.

She is also on pace to break the men's record held by Rob Eustace, also of the U.K., who completed the journey in 52 days, 13 hours, and 17 minutes in 2014.

Pfendler is originally from New York's Adirondack Mountain region and is a former whitewater raft guide. In an interview, she said, "On my 18th birthday, my mom took me on a whitewater rafting trip. I was infatuated. I cornered the guide after the trip to ask how I could become a raft guide. I showed up every day for the rest of the summer and worked for free to get my license." She went on to guide on the Arkansas River in Colorado and the Colorado in the Grand Canyon. 

I worked as an Adirondack raft guide on the Hudson River in the late 1980s and early 90s, long before Pfendler's fateful trip. I got the job in much the same way as she - hanging around after a rafting trip and bugging the guides on how I could become one of them. I got my license in 1987 and went on to guide for one season on the Cheat River in West Virginia. For the record, I've never rowed from California to Hawaii, so there's that.  

Burlap heroes are those who recognize living as a heroic act - the occupiers of sun-up barstools; the cubicle-planted; the ghosts of Greyhounds; the reasonably sketchy. A burlap hero is one who marches, consciously or not, back to the sea in hopes of making no splash, who understands and embraces the imperfection of being, and in that way, stretches the definition of sainthood to fit. - Nate Wooley