Durango residents complete world’s toughest row from California to Hawaii – The Durango Herald

Brendan Cusick and Pat Morrissey rowed for a charity tackling Parkinson’s disease

We did something. We did it together and we couldn’t have done it any other way.

That was the motto of Team Human Powered Potential when Durango residents Brendan Cusick and Pat Morrissey rowed 2,800 miles from Monterrey, California, to Kauai, Hawaii, with their friends Scott Forman and Pete Durso.

On Friday at 8:30 a.m. Hawaii time, the four men of Team Human Powered Potential reached shore on Kauai to complete the World’s Toughest Row after 41 days and 1 hour and 57 minutes of rowing across the Pacific Ocean.

“I’m feeling pretty drained,” Cusick said. “The biggest thing is just getting used to being on dry land, which is a bit like going out on the water but the other way around. The balance is off and I’m feeling pretty exhausted. But overall I’m in good spirits and really happy with the performance. It’s been extremely difficult. We’ve never really had the classic conditions to cross this year, with a nice tailwind coming off California and then the trade winds. The trade winds never really came out, so that made it really challenging. We really had to earn every mile.”

The foursome began training in their boat, the 28-foot, 1,300-pound American Spirit, made of carbon fiber and fiberglass, in March 2023. The team knew they wanted to compete in the World’s Toughest Row to raise money for Parkinson’s research through the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Morrissey, who has been living with Parkinson’s since 2019, found that his tremors became less frequent while training on the water.

On June 8, all nine teams competing in the World’s Toughest Row set sail from Monterrey. Cusick said there were mixed feelings of excitement and nervousness as the crew headed out into the Pacific Ocean. He said it was hard saying goodbye to his family and not knowing how long it would be until he would see them again.

Then he and the rest of the team realized that the journey they had been working on for over a year had finally begun and the nerves calmed.

Unfortunately for the team, there was no time to relax in the race. The crew immediately saw waves of 40-50 feet high, which caused a few teammates to become ill, Cusick said.

Cusick said before the race that the plan was for two members of the team to row non-stop in two-hour shifts. But the stress of the first week took its toll on Morrissey and his Parkinson’s, so the rest of the team gave him some extra time off the ores to rest.

“We gave him a full 24-hour rest, and that really helped,” Cusick said of Morrissey. “Then every once in a while we’d say, ‘Hey, Pat, why don’t you just take the morning off,’ and we’d fill in the gaps. He’d come out, stand on the deck and fill in the seat, and if he felt good, he’d row a little bit. Considering the overall scale of what we were doing, he did exceptionally well. It was a challenge, but he adapted really well. I’m just really impressed with his overall success on this crossing.”

Cusick indicated that the first seven to ten days of the fight were a tough one. He said that this was the hardest part of the trip because of the conditions and that the team was still trying to find a good rhythm.

But in the second week the sea calmed down and the team got into a good rhythm and routine.

During the first few days the team saw a lot of whales and then after about five days they saw a shark. After that they saw a lot of birds that sometimes landed on the boat before they left. Flying fish were also around the boat and sometimes landed on the boat.

The team stayed in the boat, except twice. Durso jumped into the ocean to clean the boat of barnacles, which slowed the boat down. Cusick did the same about 10 days after Durso.

Cusick said he lost almost 15 pounds in the first week because he didn’t have much of an appetite. The rest of the team also lost some weight because no one could eat much at first due to the conditions.

“I definitely lost a lot of weight in those first 10 days, but then I started gaining it back as my appetite increased,” Cusick said. “As far as hydration, we had a couple of days where it was hot. But overall, I would say we held up pretty well. Toward the end, people were a little more picky about what they were eating. But overall, it worked out well and we definitely had a lot of food left over.”

As the team began to eat more, they had more energy and were able to put in great times when conditions worsened. Cusick celebrated his 50th anniversary at sea on July 2, halfway through the crossing.

Cusick said most of the crossing was cloudy, with some storms early on and rain overnight during the trip.

Sleeping was a constant struggle for the team and Cusick said he got 1.5 hours of solid sleep on a good night. He said it was usually too hot to sleep during the day, especially in the hut where there was no airflow.

Although there were nine boats in the race, each team was spread out so much that Team Human Powered Potential did not encounter any other teams during the entire voyage.

“It performed exceptionally well,” Cusick said of the team’s boat American Spirit. “When the waves came over the boat, she just kept going. She gave us a lot of confidence that we didn’t have and it just felt safer. These boats are just remarkable in their ability to handle such adverse conditions.”

Seeing the glow of Oahu motivated the team to keep going and gave them an extra push. Soon, they no longer had to rely on satellite phones to communicate with their loved ones.

Team Human Powered Potential had set a goal of completing the journey in 40 days. Although they fell short, it didn’t matter as they rowed to shore on Friday morning with friends and family cheering them on as they achieved their audacious goal.

“Emotionally, it was just a huge relief and it was like we could finally let go a little bit,” Cusick said. “We had to stay at such a high intensity for so long. To finally be able to relax was huge. That just made it incredible. When we got in and started seeing people. We were elated, indescribably happy, just super happy and we had done it together.”

Cusick was confident that the team’s training had put them in the physical condition needed to complete the rowing competition.

Once the team reached land, they hugged their families and Cusick shaved off his beard as quickly as possible.

Cusick said he was feeling very wobbly and that he didn’t have the best first sleep on land last night. He felt uncomfortable and uneasy. Cusick described it as land sickness, the reverse of sea sickness. His appetite isn’t great, despite all the food that has been available to everyone since they arrived in Hawaii. He said it’s important to take things slowly as he adjusts to life on land and that his appetite will eventually come back.

Before the team left for Hawaii, they set a goal of raising $28 million for Parkinson’s research in honor of the 2,800-mile row from California to Hawaii.

Thanks to an anonymous donor, all funds are tripled. That means a donation of $25 becomes $100.

The team had raised $24,725,174 at the time of writing.

“It means the world,” Cusick said. “It shows that we have all that support behind us and that people were committed to supporting our cause and helping us. It was really the tailwind for us to get in. At one point, our social media manager sent us a bunch of social media comments supporting our crossing and that made a huge difference. People donating to the bigger cause made it a lot easier to row because we knew it was rowing for the entire Parkinson’s community and that just made it so much more incredible.”

Fundraising continues through August. Click here to donate.

Want to read more about the team’s preparations? Click here for an earlier article.

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