Posted on: Friday, May 20, 2005
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD ATHLETES
Paddler falls short from O'ahu to Kaua'i
| • | Mothers, mothers-to-be making strides in fitness |
| • | Around Town: New motorized 'XBoard' on display this weekend |
By Catharine Lo
Special to The Advertiser
"A living nightmare" is how Chris Owens described the midnight crossing attempt of the Kaua'i Channel on his 17-foot fiberglass paddleboard.
Catharine Lo • Special to The Advertiser "It wouldn't have changed the respect I have for him if he had made it," Bob Owens said about his son. "This only confirmed that respect."
Many veteran paddleboarders are skeptical that the Kaua'i Channel crossing is possible. The only person in history who was reported to have completed the journey is Gene Smith in 1940. Besides a failed attempt by two others in 1998, no one else has ever tried.
Though Owens has finished the grueling 32-mile Quiksilver Moloka'i Paddleboard Race across the Kaiwi Channel six times, the journey to Kaua'i is almost three times the distance. The dangers of a man paddling on a board in the open ocean are considerable: unrelenting currents, winds, waves, sun, and stinging Portuguese Man-o-wars, not to mention giant predators. The biggest challenge for Owens, however, was paddling through the night.
Owens kept a steady pace of 3 knots per hour, switching between Australian-style knee paddling and prone paddling, gliding up and over the choppy, white-crested indigo bumps. During the day, he was joined by iwa birds and dolphins. Occasionally, he paddled over to the boat to replenish his fuel. Around the 20-mile mark, Owens joked, "I figured this out. It is a race. It's me against this boat!"
As night fell, conditions worsened. With winds approaching 23 to 29 mph, howling rain squalls and 6- to 8-foot seas blowing across his path, Owens paddled ferociously for the first several hours of night. After several more hours, motion sickness and cold took a toll.
His body, out of fuel and thoroughly fatigued, resisted— "bonking," as athletes term it.
"I couldn't believe that I could fall asleep at the wheel like that," Owens said. "I couldn't keep my eyes open while I was paddling."
His friends on the escort boat, captain Rick Stevens and Brian Emery, who represents Owens' main sponsors Mendo Mate and Hawaiian Soul Surfing, pulled him out of the water at 4:45 a.m.
On Tuesday at 12:40 p.m., the 45-year-old O'ahu paddleboarder departed from Sunset Beach to embark on the feat of a lifetime — paddling from O'ahu to Kaua'i across 89 miles of open ocean. After 16 excruciating hours and 54 miles into the journey, extreme fatigue and hypoglycemia prevailed, and the experienced waterman called it quits.
Chris Owens completed 54 of the 89 miles from O'ahu to Kaua'i on his paddleboard.
