20 minute read
How does paddleboarding 32 miles across the Channel of Bones sound?
Dangerous, let alone extreme, right? The Ka’iwi Channel (Ka’iwi translates to “bones” in Hawaiian) between Molokai and its neighbouring island, Oahu, is one of the most treacherous bodies of water on the planet.
The deep and narrow channel has been known to destroy entire ancient canoe fleets as well as cause numerous fatalities of modern-day fishermen and watermen. It’s where the great Hawaiian big-wave rider and waterman Eddie Aikau was last seen before tragically disappearing during the 1978 Polynesian voyage of the Hokule’a sailing canoe.
Despite the channel’s perilous history, the iconic Molokai 2 Oahu challenge (M2O) attracts hundreds of athletes from across the globe to attempt it. The annual race invites the world’s best stand-up paddleboarders (SUP), foilers and prone edition athletes to make haste across the channel.
2024 was the 25th edition of the sellout event, and for the first time ever, the foil race was held separately from the Prone and SUP races. We were proud to partner with this epic event for the second year as the official towel and changing robe of the 2024 races.
Intrigued to find out more about one of the most respected challenges in the waterman community, we were fortunate enough to speak to an M2O paddleboarder, Andrew Byatt, after completing the race for a second year in a row.
Putting UK paddleboarding on the world stage, Andrew Byatt is a World Quadrathlon Series champion, a silver medalist in the ISA World Paddleboard Championships, and a top-six finisher on the M2O. If you want to find out the inspiring but harsh reality and dedication of participating in and training for an event of such magnitude, read on and get inspired to push yourself.
What inspired you to take on this epic challenge? How does the Molokaʻi 2 Oʻahu Paddleboard World Championship differ from other events?
I’ve always liked seeing what your body and mind are capable of, and this is one of the ultimate tests for it. It’s 52km across the channel of bones, through wild waves, currents and paddling from tiger sharks with some of the best watermen and women on the planet. That’s a great start for your body and mind to overcome.
Then there’s the sense of adventure of this race, like everything it involves, all the steps leading up to it. As soon as you sign your name on that dotted line, that’s when you start living. Everything is about getting out into the ocean, being out in the environment, being with your friends, paddling, training, and being as fit and healthy as you can be. It sets you up with all those things every day, you start every day with a purpose and on an adventure amongst the normal daily routine.
And then particularly this race, it’s the most prestigious paddle board race out there, and if you are a paddler, it’s the most respected one. Obviously, not many other people in the world know about it, but if you do, it’s the one. So that side of it is pretty cool.
The people you’ve seen doing this over the years also inspire me, it’s been going on for 25 years, and seen so many inspirational people doing it. So you see it, and you’re like, “Aw, I want to do that!” and it became a bucket list for me. When I first started thinking about it, I was 17, and I remember seeing the Aussie guys and thinking, “One day, one day!” Now I’m one of those people who has done it, too.
That’s so cool. Someone is probably now looking at you thinking the same thing!
It’s funny, actually. A few people have messaged and said thanks for inspiring us and showing us that Europeans and Brits can go out and compete, too. Because I think that people have always just thought that you can’t compete with these guys. I hope that getting a top 6 finish overall in 2023 and a 2x Silver Medal at the ISA World Paddleboard Champs shows that Brits can go out there and perform at the world level.
I guess on a much smaller scale, it’s a bit like the Lukas Skinner thing with surfing. Loads of kids now believe that a Brit can do it. I know I’m no Lukas Skinner in surfing, but it’s a similar kind of result at the world level and some similar motivation for others in our sport, haha.
How did you prepare physically and mentally for the race? What was your training regimen like?
Numerous ways, but nothing beats doing what you’ve got to do for your event. So mainly lots of board paddling up to 60 or 70km a week, and Cornwall has great conditions for this, similar to that of Hawaii, just a little cooler, haha. I also swim around 10-15km a week, and then cycling and running to bolster up, as there is only so much time you can spend on your knees paddling.
In terms of the paddling, the longest training paddle I would do is 37km, and do big adventures down the coast. That’s what I enjoy about it all, it makes you get out, and I've done some crazy paddles. I’ve done Hartland Point to Woolacombe, and then we’ve done St Ives to Newquay and then right across the bay at Penzance, which was about 35km, and from the Manacles on the Lizard over to Caerhays. They’re huge paddles, and they get you out doing really cool stuff out in the middle of the ocean for some really cool adventures down one of the most beautiful coastlines you can find.
When you’re in those training sessions, are you on your own?
There are two bits to it. Normally, not completely on my own, in the sense there will normally be a group of paddlers. We look at all the conditions and figure out what we’re going to do, like the winds, tides, waves, and best spots to get in /out. And then figure out where it’s going to be. So for the first little bit of each paddle, we’ll be together, and depending on what kind of session you’re doing, we might just say, “Right. We’re all going to meet at the end, as it’s better to follow your own line.” So then you are on your own in the middle of the ocean, which is an exciting and liberating feeling, but also sometimes daunting all at the same time.
But there are other days when we do shorter sprint sessions as we’re training for speed as well, so you don’t just do the long, crazy ones—they are the ones that are unique to this Molokai to Oahu Paddleboard Race.
Do you have to space out the long training ones throughout the course of the training?
Exactly yeah. Last year I got ill a lot more, likely from overreaching, so one of my focuses this year was not to get sick as much. And I didn’t get ill once in the training, a win in itself. I didn't do as many long ones close together as I did last year. I kinda left 2 weeks between the longer ones. A long one I class is over an hour and a half or two hours.
You’re training every day for at least an hour or two. I normally swim three or four times a week in the mornings. We go at 6:30 a.m. and swim about 3 - 5km. Then, in the afternoon, I typically do a paddle board set for an hour to two hours, or cycle, like on the static bike, cycling for half an hour to an hour.
When you say your goal was not to get ill, how do you do that?
Not over-stretching yourself. Spread out the hard training sessions and spread out the long training sessions. So not going flat out every day or just plodding miles every day. Obviously, you also have to balance everything else in life because we’re not professional athletes. So you’ve got to balance family, friends, social life, work, sleep, and all the additional stressors. So getting all those things without too much stress and trying to make sure it gets the best out of everyone.
What was the atmosphere like around the event?
I think what's really cool is how friendly everyone is, well nearly everyone, haha. There’s always one or two, it’s always like that! I think for some, there is a portrayal of Hawaii not being the most friendly place to go in the water and surf, but that definitely wasn’t the case for paddle sports from my experience. So the winner of the men’s is a really friendly guy, I stayed in the same building as him and the winner of the two women’s bits, they were really friendly. I trained with those guys each day, along with a lot of the NZ, Aussie, and American paddlers, amongst others. There would be crews of 20 of us all going for paddles together, all going for meals together. It’s a really big social thing and really fun.
And then the vibe of Hawaii—everything is about being in the water. You wake up, and all you see is people going in outrigger paddling, paddling on SUPs, foils, surfing, sailing, anything—it’s just nonstop all day. The whole island is just based around that, which is cool.
Once you get on the actual race day and the island of Molokai (after travelling on one of the smallest wobbliest planes I’ve travelled in, haha), there’s a lot of excitement. For some people, like me last year, it’s their first time, and they’re like, “What's going to happen, what's it going to be like? You’re waiting for your board to arrive. Is it going to arrive safe? Is it broken? And then they turn up on a stream of small boats, and you swim out, and everyone is trying to get their boards off, and they’re being thrown around off boats and swam back to the paradise remote island beach. Ready for the start the next day.
In the morning it’s kind of more of a spiritual thing. They all do the ‘pule’ thing, where we all stand in a big circle, hold hands, and do a Hawaiian prayer. So it’s more of a spiritual moment and they really push that element of this race, that you’re at one with nature, you’re in the middle of the ocean, it’s just you and the elements. And that it’s a channel to be respected and the ocean is to be respected, and you can only live in that moment while you’re on those waves. You’re riding waves for six hours, you don’t want to miss any, and you don’t want to fall off.
When you go off at the start, around 7 in the morning, you have to get your drinks together and have your gels and warm up. But there are 150 escort boats off the shoreline, plus all the paddlers. So you all paddle out with 150 paddlers and then 150 boats to the side, and then they all come in, and that’s organised chaos, but also adds a lot of excitement to the event.
The sea is wild. It’s everywhere, every angle. There are rebounds off the cliffs, off the differing currents; tides, off the waves. So chaos in terms of those boats, but also chaos in terms of the conditions you’re riding, but strangely all part of the reason you are in and quite a contrast to the super remote island paradise you just come from.
Can you describe the conditions you faced during the race? How did the wind, waves, and currents impact your strategy?
They said six to eight foot Hawaiian, is what they kept saying. I guess they always imply that ‘Hawaiian’ is always a solid six to eight foot rather than six to eight foot in other places.
So quite big rolling swells, but then you’ve got a wind of about 35km - 40km an hour, and it’s a diagonal side wind that’s trying to blow you slightly in the direction, but often seemingly trying to blow you sideways or off as well. You’re trying to manage that with side chops, and they call it runners- as in lots of waves. You’re trying to join these up and ‘jump’ from one wave next with the most speed and least energy. And then when you get closer to the island, which is strange, you’re 25km out at sea and then you get rebounds from the other island. So you’ve left Molokai island, you’re heading to Oahu and somehow the rebounds are hitting you 25km from shore, which is the most surprising thing for me in the event. The rebounds get stronger and stronger the closer you get to the shore. Luckily, I felt better the closer I got to those rebounds while other people were tiring. So that, for me was fortunate. The rebounds can be really demoralising otherwise, halving your pace and psychological state.
How did you manage your nutrition and hydration during such a long race?
There’s a company called Precision Hydration, and they’re the ones who supported me. They said you’ve got to take 90g of carbs an hour if you can, which is basically three of the sports gels an hour. You don’t have to take just those gels, but then you have to get that amount in per hour. The other bit is the electrolytes, so effectively the salts that you get in as well so the muscles can still contract and not just have the energy to contract, it allows the signals to go through.
So you have a drink with electrolytes and carbs in a bottle holder and tube on the board, then taped to the board I had a load of gels and carb chews; there’s a stack of them that just rip off every time scale to get them in.
You also have a drinks holder on the front of the board with a tube for you to drink from.
When you’re paddling together, is it quite competitive, or does it feel like you’re all bonded?
I think pretty much everyone wishes everyone the best. We all will be going as hard as we can to beat each other, but at the same time you want everyone to share the love of it and also stay safe. You start on the line, you’re together, and you can get caught up in that moment of racing, but really, once you’ve gone for about 10 minutes, all you can do is your own thing and focus on the wave you’re on or about to be on and enjoy the privilege of being out there.
I just think how lucky I am to be one of those people who’s experiencing that, one of those people who gets to do it and can do it, and everything has come together to allow me to be there.
I think most other people are like that out there as well. You’re with a similar group of people. When you get across the line, you might be disappointed or unhappy with your performance, but you can’t really blame anyone else.
At the end, we all have a big meal together right by the water's edge at the Outrigger Canoe Club, and pretty much everyone is really friendly and supportive.
It sounds like such a special experience.
Yeah, it really is. I don’t think many people get into prone paddleboarding to be cool. They do it because they love it and all that it has to offer. They love being out in those environments and doing all that stuff, and you’re in with a load of adventurers and super fit like-minded people, so it’s just a great thing to be part of.
The sea is amazingly blue. You see all the flying fish going through the air, and you see a tuna jump out, you see turtles and dolphins. On the training days, three days in a row, we saw Tiger Sharks. You see loads of stuff, stuff that most most people never would and you get to be really close to it.
What was it like seeing the sharks?
For me, it’s worrying. The Aussies are like, “Ah, it’s a shark, don’t worry about it!” But it does make you worry, doesn’t it? But at the same time, there’s very little you can do about it.
When I was younger, I wanted to do this race, and one of the things that put me off was all related to my own mind. I was scared of what the conditions would be like in the surf, which doesn’t bother me now, and then the other thing was thinking about sharks. But for some reason now, I don’t know why, my mind can deal with it. I don’t like the thought of the sharks, I’m scared of them - I don’t like them because I’m scared, but at the same time, if you can focus on what you are doing, your race, you’re alright.
I don’t think I could swim across that channel, though, stuff that!
The other thing that is great is that when you come to somewhere like the UK, you don’t worry about what might be in the sea because you know nothing here compares to that, so it makes you relax in these oceans a lot more.
How did you get to the point of not being scared of the surf anymore?
It's just gradual desensitisation. When I was a kid, I grew up in Perranporth, and my dad used to take me out. It would be virtually flat, and I’d be like crying at him, “No, Dad, don’t! It’s too scary! I want to go in!” In some ways, I look back and laugh at myself now, but it’s only natural to feel like that at first, too.
As a teenager, my friends would all go out in average-sized surf, and I’d be too scared sometimes to even go out. But then there came a point when I was racing for my country, and I had to gradually go in and train and race in tougher and tougher conditions, and that gave me a reason to gradually overcome those fears. I remember at one point racing at Hossegor, and the surf was about 4 times over head height, and all I was doing was thinking about how to go faster while waves were smashing down everywhere. I realised the gradual desensitising had worked.
When you’re out in Hawaii in this race, they’re not powerful top-to-bottom waves like Hossegor, they’re just big rolling lumps and lots of movement everywhere, which is just fun to chase, and it's just more of a challenge to make sure you catch as many as possible rather than feeling any danger.
What were the biggest challenges you encountered during the race, and how did you overcome them?
I think I thought of all the challenges the day of my last race and then I think I resolved them all. These were things like my board wasn’t right, so I got the finances to get the right board. My nutrition wasn’t right, so I sorted the nutrition. I thought about the ways of training, and I did altitude training because I won the World Quadrathlon series years ago. I did altitude training for that, and that worked really well, so I thought, “Right, I’ll try that.” So, I basically did the maths to do all those things, and you add up all the things you can improve.
So, for me, most of those challenges were before getting to the start line. What was the other challenge? I guess you’re just chasing the elements and trying to make the most of every runner, getting every wave you can to make the most ground.
Another challenge would be pacing it because you want to go as hard as you can but don’t want to die. So maybe those are the challenges on the day. But I didn’t really think of them as challenges, I suppose they’re just part of it.
How did it feel to cross the finish line?
I find that a bit weird about this race because it’s not the same as many others. It’s amazing. You’re like, “Ah, thank god, I’ve completed it, done something incredible.” I felt pleased I’d done well, but at the same time, it’s a bit sad that the event and adventure were coming to an end.
I’d say there’s a little bit of a mix of emotion there. Then it goes back into seeing all your other friends there, and you have a post-race chat, sharing all of your race stories and you’ve all got something in common, that unique connection only a handful of people have. Then it’s back to normal. But then you’re onto the next!
What are your plans for the rest of the year? Do you have any specific races or challenges in mind?
We’ve got ISA World Paddleboard champs in September in Copenhagen. So this year, the two main events for me are that and Hawaii.
Next year, I’ve booked a new challenge and adventure already that I’d prefer to be a bit quiet on for the moment, but I’ll definitely let you know when it’s confirmed. I just need to figure out all the funding and everything because it involves new boards and boats for another cool challenge.
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Published on September 09, 2024