Pfendler, 32, has been at sea in the Pacific on a boat named Lily since departing from Monterey on May 21. Each day she’s provided updates about her journey to become the first American woman to make the solo trip unassisted. The video diaries have explored how she has overcome mental and physical challenges and showcased the immense preparation and discipline that is required to survive the ordeal. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, Pfendler acknowledged on day 43 of the trip that she wouldn’t just become the fastest woman to complete the trek as planned. She’ll also crush the previous record set by a man. <\/p>\n
“When I land I will beat the women’s record by 40 days and the men’s by around a week,” she said in the video. <\/p>\n
Pfendler will arrive at Ala Wai Harbor in Honolulu between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. PT on July 4, according to her team. <\/p>\n
She previously completed a California to Hawaii row in 2024 with three other women as part of the World\u2019s Toughest Row – Pacific. Back then she was the skipper. That trip took 40 days, 22 hours and 14 minutes, according to her website.<\/p>\n
Pfendler\u2019s online bio says she has been a professional raft guide since age 18 and has guided trips on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon for the past eight years. The solo row has raised money and awareness for the Whale Foundation, an organization that supports the Grand Canyon river guiding community.<\/p>\n
She told the San Francisco Chronicle<\/a> that in the winter she works as an emergency room technician.<\/p>\n See below for some of the top moments that Pfendler has shared from her trip. <\/p>\n Day 1<\/a>: This was the first video diary that was recorded about 12 hours into her row. She said that saying goodbye was emotional but she was excited to be on the water. <\/p>\n Day 2<\/a>: Kelsey showed blisters on her hands. “They will heal,” she said. <\/p>\n \t\t Day 5<\/a>: “It has been a hard day,” she said, noting challenges with heavy wind that made it hard to sleep. Her team called for supporters not to contact the Coast Guard with their concerns. <\/p>\n Day 8<\/a>: After a couple of days of positive updates, Kelsey spoke about more challenges that weighed on her. Her voice broke with emotion as she detailed how currents and winds pushed her east for hours. “I’m where I need to be,” she said. “It’s demoralizing to row all day, not to make miles, but just to keep what you worked so hard for.” But she said she knew the first week would be the hardest, “and it’s OK.” <\/p>\n Day 9<\/a>: Kelsey said she “turned a corner” and started to make a turn toward Hawaii. <\/p>\n Day 10<\/a>: Kelsey talked about brushing her hair for the first time in 10 days and also shared footage of the autopilot system that keeps her oriented in the right direction. <\/p>\n Day 13<\/a>: Kelsey showed how she prepares meals on the boat and where she stores her food. <\/p>\n Day 17<\/a>: Kelsey showed off the machine she uses to make fresh water onboard the boat. <\/p>\n Day 19<\/a>: Kelsey gave a look at her night shift of rowing at 1 a.m. <\/p>\n Day 20<\/a>: Kelsey said a pod of dolphins surrounded her boat. She said it’s the first mammals she’d seen in three weeks “besides myself.” <\/p>\n \t\t Day 21<\/a>: 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. <\/p>\n Day 24<\/a>: Kelsey jumped into the water, tied to a tether, to check her hull for barnacles. <\/p>\n Day 25<\/a>: Kelsey spoke by radio to the chief officer of a cargo ship, Ho, who was concerned she was on a vessel in distress. He said he’ll want to confirm her arrival in 20 days via email. “It was such a light in my day,” Kelsey said of the conversation. <\/p>\n Day 26<\/a>: Kelsey showed how she does her laundry on the boat. <\/p>\n Day 31<\/a>: “Moana” stars Catherine Laga’aia and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson gave a video shout-out to Kelsey for crossing over the halfway mark of her journey. She said in a diary update that Disney characters Mulan and Lilo and Noni were her early role models for strong women as a child. <\/p>\n Day 33<\/a>: Kelsey showed how she “flosses” her boat for barnacles and explained how they could slow her down. <\/p>\n Day 35<\/a>: Kelsey shared four minutes of footage of her trying to save a “hilarious amount” of flying fish that landed on her boat overnight. <\/p>\n Day 38<\/a>: Kelsey talked about concerns from her followers about all the sun she’s received and her face appearing sunburned. She showed off the “sun prison” of clothing layers she uses during peak sunlight hours to protect herself. <\/p>\n Day 39<\/a>: Kelsey asked, “Would you rather have three days of really good coffee or five days of mediocre coffee?” She said she’ll probably go with the weak coffee option. <\/p>\n Posted July 1<\/a>: Kelsey said she turned 32 at sea and was serenaded “the other day” by the crew of a U.S. Coast Guard vessel. The video shows the crew singing and giving her support. <\/p>\n Day 42<\/a>: Kelsey made a friend in a seabird that landed on her vessel and remained for hours. She named his Oswald. <\/p>\n \t\t See more coverage of top California stories here<\/a> | Download our app<\/a> | Subscribe to our morning newsletter<\/a> | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel<\/a> | Make KCRA a preferred news source in Google<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kelsey Pfendler is set to make history as the fastest solo rower to make the more than 2,400-mile…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17862,16179,4,450,2356,29372,275,11639,451,37914,40923,318717,318716,3,61043,318718,318719,452,453,7157,1977,282,1975],"class_list":["post-741738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-a-m","tag-boat","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-california","tag-concern","tag-day","tag-hawaii","tag-headlines","tag-hour","tag-journey","tag-kelsey-pfendler","tag-kelsy-pfendler","tag-news","tag-row","tag-solo-trip","tag-top-moment","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-update","tag-video","tag-water","tag-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741738","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=741738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Blisters\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/341227e0-e16f-4387-9f15-ef520e2ef4b7.png\"\/ "\\"Blisters\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"Dolphins\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/a1127a93-78d0-47b6-93c0-c9f1eef04799.png\"\/ "\\"Dolphins\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"Oswald\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/f38c9536-553d-4bf7-9ae4-f13dc4d36c1b.png\"\/ "\\"Oswald\\"")
<\/p>\n