We did a thing. We did it together and we couldn’t have done it any other way.
That was the motto of Team Human Powered Potential as 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 who made up Team Human Powered Potential reached the shore in Kauai to finish the World’s Toughest Row after 41 days, one hour and 57 minutes of rowing through the Pacific Ocean.
“I’m feeling pretty cooked,” Cusick said. “The biggest thing has been getting used to adapting to being back on dry land, which is kind of like getting on the water, but in the reverse. Balance is off and I’m feeling pretty frazzled. But generally in good spirits and really happy with the accomplishment. It was extremely difficult. We never really had your classic crossing conditions this year with a nice tail wind coming down off California and then trade winds across. The trade was really never materialized, so it made it really challenging. We really had to earn every mile.”
The foursome began training in their boat, the 28-foot-long, 1,300-pound American Spirit made of carbon fiber and fiberglass, in March of 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 has had Parkinson’s since 2019. He found out that his tremors became less frequent while on the water training.
On June 8, all nine of the teams competing in the World’s Toughest Row took off from Monterrey. Cusick said there were mixed emotions of excitement and nervousness as the crew cast off into the Pacific. He said it was hard saying goodbye to family and not knowing how long it would take before he would see them again.
Then he and the rest of the team realized the journey they had been preparing for over a year was beginning and the nerves calmed.
Unfortunately for the team, there wasn’t any time for them to ease into the race. Right away, the crew saw waves up to 40-50 feet high and this caused a few teammates to get sick, according to Cusick.
Cusick said before the race the plan was for two members of the team to row in two-hour shifts nonstop. But the stress of the first week affected Morrissey and his Parkinson’s so the rest of the team gave him some extra time of the ores to rest.
“We gave him a full 24-hour rest period, and that really helped,” Cusick said about Morrissey. “Then occasionally we just say, ‘Hey, Pat, why don't you just take a morning off’ and then we’d fill in the gaps. He would come out and be on deck and fill the seat and if he felt good, he'd row for a little bit. Given the overall magnitude of what we did, he did exceptionally well. It was a challenge, but he adapted really well. I'm just utterly impressed with his overall success on this crossing.”
The first seven to 10 days of the row Cusick called a gut punch and said it was the hardest part of the journey with the conditions and the team was still trying to find a good rhythm.
But the seas calmed down and the team got into a good routine and rhythm in the second week.
During the first few days, the team saw a lot of whales and then saw a shark about five days in. After that, they saw a lot of birds that would sometimes land on the boat before taking off again. Flying fish were around the boat also and would sometimes land on the boat.
The team stayed in the boat except for two times. Durso jumped into the ocean to clean the boat of barnacles which slowed the boat down. Cusick did the same thing about 10 days after Durso did.
In the first week, Cusick said he lost close to 15 pounds as he didn’t have much of an appetite. The rest of the team lost some weight too as no one could eat much early on with the conditions.
“I definitely lost a lot of weight in that first 10 days, but then actually started putting it back on with my appetite going up,” Cusick said. “With hydration, we had a couple days that were hot out there. But generally, I would say we stayed up on it well as a whole. Toward the end, people started getting a little more picky with what they were eating. But as a whole, it turned out well and we certainly had tons of food left.”
As the team started to eat more, they had more energy and were able to make some great time as the conditions lessened. Cusick celebrated his 50th birthday at sea on July 2 during the middle of the crossing.
Cusick said it was overcast the majority of the crossing with some storms in the beginning and rain at night during the journey.
Sleeping was a constant struggle for the team and Cusick said on a good night he’d get 1.5 hours of good sleep. He said it was usually too hot to sleep during the day, especially inside the cabin where there was no airflow.
Although there were nine boats in the race, each team was spread out enough so that Team Human Powered Potential never saw another team during the entire journey.
“It did exceptionally well,” Cusick said about the team’s boat American Spirit. “When we had waves crashing over the boat on top of you, she just cruised along. She instilled a lot of confidence in us that we didn't have and it just made it feel safer. These boats are just remarkable in their ability to handle just such adverse conditions.”
Once the team saw the glow of Oahu, it served as motivation for them to keep pushing and gave them an extra amount of effort. Soon enough, they wouldn’t have to rely on satellite phones to communicate with their loved ones.
Team Human Powered Potential had a goal to complete the voyage in 40 days. Although they didn’t reach that, it didn’t matter when they rowed to shore with friends and family members cheering them on as they completed their audacious goal Friday morning.
“Emotionally, it was just a huge sense of relief and it was like we could finally let ourselves go a little bit,” Cusick said. “We had to stay on really high intensity for so long. To finally be able to relax was huge. That made it just incredible. Once we were coming in and started to see people. We were elated, happy beyond words, just super cheerful and we had done it together.”
Cusick credited the team’s training for allowing them to be in the physical shape needed to complete the row.
After the team got to shore, they embraced their families and Cusick shaved the beard he grew as soon as he could.
Cusick said he felt really wobbly and didn’t have the best first sleep on land last night. He felt uneasy and uncomfortable. Cusick described it as land sickness, the reverse sea sickness. His appetite isn’t huge despite all the food that’s been available to everyone since they got to Hawaii. He said the key is to do everything slowly as he gets adapted to being on land and his appetite will eventually come back.
Before the team set off for Hawaii, they had 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 will be triple-matched, meaning a $25 donation will become $100.
The team has raised $24, 725,174 at the time this article was written.
“It means the world,” Cusick said. “It just shows having all that support behind us and that people were dedicated to supporting our cause and helping us, it truly was the tailwind for us to get in. At one point, our social media manager sent us just a ton of comments from social media in support of our crossing and that made a huge difference. People donating to the greater cause made it that much easier to row because we knew it was rowing for the entire community of Parkinson's and that just made it so much more incredible.”
The fundraising will continue through August. Click here to donate.
To read more about the team’s preparation, click here for a previous article.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
