Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii

sspeckx about 2 hours ago 26 commentsRead Article on theguardian.com

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CharlesW•about 1 hour ago

It's kind of buried here, but Kelsey is the fastest human to do this. She beat the male record holder's time by 6 days.

js2•29 minutes ago

In endurance running, the longer races become, the more competitive they are for women. Women semi-regularly win multi-day and 100+ mile races, even if women don't have course records at these times/distances. In an event of sufficient time/distance, factors besides strength dominate the outcome.

So, (and knowing very little about rowing), I am not surprised that a woman could take the record here. You can only row so fast. Other factors like weather, currents, nutrition, mental fortitude, navigation, and boat design overcome muscle strength.

All that said: props to Kelsey Pfendler! She definitely knows how to embrace the suck.

Here's a nice diary of her trip:

https://www.kcra.com/article/kelsey-pfendler-record-breaking...

Love these updates:

> Day 21: Kelsey gave an update on a lesson learned about her mental state, saying she had beaten herself up for sleeping in. But she realized that wasn't productive thinking. "When you're out here, you're not in control," she said. "You are in control of you." She said she realized that the way to respond to problems is much more important than the problem itself.

> Day 44: Kelsey could see O'ahu as she closed in on her goal. "If any part of this made at least one person feel a little bit more powerful in their own skin, I couldn't ask for anything else and I'm happy," she said. "Think about trying to find your own big, hard, scary thing. You might not think that you are strong enough to finish it right now, but you're definitely strong enough to start it and you'll find everything else along the way."

stackghost•8 minutes ago

>Other factors like weather, currents

I'd be interested to know how much progress she made/lost due to drifting overnight. I feel like that alone would have a drastic impact. It would really suck to check your GPS track in the morning to discover you'd lost a day's progress overnight.

Someone•14 minutes ago

It’s quite an accomplishment, but this is done rarely (https://oceanrowing.com/statistics lists less than a thousand completed rows world-wide), and the weather hugely affects how long it will take to do it.

Also, my geographical knowledge may be lacking, but it appears “to Hawaii” is essential here.

https://oceanrowing.com/filter?id=1415 shows a row from Monterey to Hanalei, Kauai in 32 days. That’s in the state of Hawaii, too, but about 200km closer.

vmg12•about 1 hour ago

I used to row and even the tiniest of waves could make it annoying. You'd slide to the front of your seat and try to insert your oar and catch air instead of water. Then if you overcompensated by trying to insert your oar farther in you'd catch a crab (having the oar ripped out of your control). This is on a lake with tiny waves.

Rowing across an entire ocean is absolutely amazing.

AlotOfReading•27 minutes ago

I wonder if it's as much of an issue with those big boats at sea. The wavelength gets pretty long off the continental shelf, so I imagine it's a lot less adjustment than lake waves, with the exception being storm conditions you should probably avoid anyway.

herodoturtle•about 1 hour ago

Fellow rower here, affirming the above.

Thought folks would be interested in her boat, built for ocean rowing:

https://yourowkelsey.com/about/

reenorap•17 minutes ago

I happened upon her via Instagram around day 10 and watched her every day. It was really interesting watching her go through this every day and her authentic posts about what she was feeling. It’s truly great seeing people achieve their goals like this, she is amazing!

mobilemidget•about 1 hour ago

All i think about when people row, kayak or swim these distances in these waters is 'SHARKS'. Which i read and saw enough about that the chances of meeting one isnt that big, but my brain still associates these activities/areas with it.

echoangle•44 minutes ago

I thought sharks only attack stuff that looks like wounded animals. Would a shark really attack a boat?

ProjectArcturis•about 1 hour ago

I wonder what was going on in her life that made her say, "I want to spend the next 43 days rowing alone across the ocean."

lkjdsklf•44 minutes ago

This isn’t the first time she’s done it.

She spent 41 days making the same trip with 2 other people

fuzzfactor•39 minutes ago

I admire the ambition which likely preceded the trip over a long enough term to make the conclusive 43-day journey end up as the smaller amount of calendar time.

But that which obviously means the most from the standpoint of fulfillment :)

rr808•26 minutes ago

Usual answer is to get away from the wife (or partner), but she doesn't seem married so I'm baffled...

a-uz•about 1 hour ago

Kārlis Bardelis has rowed the Pacific, India and South Atlantic Oceans and cycled everything in-between. https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2025/11/record-bre...

yieldcrv•about 2 hours ago

Why do these extreme rowing and sailing boats look so weird

Its always a form factor I’ve never seen before

Where can I learn more about this scene?

thephyber•about 1 hour ago

It’s an ocean-going row boat with 2 cabins. Most row boats you’ve seen are probably hyper-light and designed for still water.

The model of this boat:

https://www.rannochadventure.com/boats-2/r25

jtokoph•29 minutes ago

I always assumed it was because they had storm resistant cabins for sleeping and supply storage.

Daily use boats probably don’t need as much in that respect.

nephihaha•30 minutes ago

Because there are big waves in the open ocean and people need to sleep?

justinhj•about 2 hours ago

There's a good book "The Pacific Alone" about a guy that did this in a kayak

ChrisArchitect•about 1 hour ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48790512

mailship•31 minutes ago

kelsey still holds the record btw, but yeahh another runner up is insane

drsalt•about 2 hours ago

great how the article doesn't explain any of the interesting aspects of this

rsstack•about 2 hours ago

Her rowboat is fascinating: https://yourowkelsey.com/ https://yourowkelsey.com/about/

drsalt•about 1 hour ago

then write about it in the article

oatmeal1•about 1 hour ago

Yeah, it is cool, but this article is not HN appropriate.