HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – With a thin layer of sunscreen still clinging to his skin, Loren King raised his arms in celebration as he officially etched his name into Hawaii swimming history. <\/p>\n
It took 13 hours, 18 minutes and 55 seconds for the 57-year-old philosophy and political science professor from Canada to cross the Kaiwi Channel; the fastest time ever for an Oahu-to-Molokai route.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel very sore. Your mouth tastes of salt, your tongue is mangled by the seawater, and you and your crew really just want to crash and sleep for 12 hours,\u201d said King <\/p>\n
The more than 26-mile journey started with stars still in the sky along the shore of Sandy Beach on April 21 at 4 a.m.<\/p>\n
Beginning on Oahu was an unconventional choice but made based on preparation and scientific research gathered by Dr. Steven Minaglia.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrews will run swimmers into really strong currents, grind them down, you know, basically wear them out, all for the sake of landing at a predestined spot,\u201d said Minaglia.<\/p>\n
Minaglia, who works with the Hawaiian Channel Swim Association, coordinated logistics with Captain Jamie Barlow for more than a year. They began planning shortly after King failed his first Kaiwi Crossing attempt.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe motto of this swim in particular was \u2018the current giveth and the current taketh.\u2019 We knew a forecasted current, speed, and angle, and then recognizing how to try to provide a favorable course,\u201d Barlow said.<\/p>\n
Another focus of the swim was ensuring King reached deep waters by daylight, a strategy to avoid Cookie-Cutter Sharks, which are known for taking chunks out of Kaiwi crossers.<\/p>\n
Dr. Minaglia took us through his reasoning and dialogue with the King and the crew.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen do you start the swimmer in the dark so that the sun\u2019s up when they\u2019re in the deep part? And that was all about choosing that location and timing. And then you need a swimmer who\u2019s totally down for anything and competent and capable. If you don\u2019t have that, you can\u2019t pull it off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But even the best laid plans can go awry.<\/p>\n
King was able to avoid \u2018Cookie Cutters\u2019, but about nine miles into the swim, he was surprised by a Silky Shark.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, the encounter was brief, and King was able keep his distance and continue on unscathed. <\/p>\n
Helping keep King calm and on pace was his training partner, Lynn Rodgers, an intermediary, relaying messages from the water to the boat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m also assessing his sort of mental state as we\u2019re going along, I could tell by his voice if he\u2019s unsure of something,\u201d Rodgers said.<\/p>\n
With the help of many hands, King accomplished his goal.<\/p>\n
And even though it\u2019s his name in the record books, King wants the world to know he doesn\u2019t consider his feat a solo swim.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re never alone, and you\u2019re never really doing this on your own. It\u2019s always the team. None of this happens without this extraordinarily dedicated and experienced group of people,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n
Watch the full interview here:<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – With a thin layer of sunscreen still clinging to his skin, Loren King raised his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,11639,451,266981,266982,30388,3,12852,17164,61151,60124,42038,452,453],"class_list":["post-614991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-hawaii","tag-headlines","tag-kaiwi-channel","tag-loren-king","tag-molokai","tag-news","tag-oahu","tag-record","tag-record-breaking","tag-swim","tag-swimming","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}