{"id":742506,"date":"2026-07-04T09:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T09:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/742506\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T09:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T09:26:09","slug":"record-breaking-solo-rower-kelsey-pfendler-arrives-in-hawaii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/742506\/","title":{"rendered":"Record-breaking solo rower Kelsey Pfendler arrives in Hawaii"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; Hundreds gathered along Magic Island Friday to watch solo-rower Kelsey Pfendler complete her record-breaking journey from California to Hawaii.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">She began the more than 2,400-mile journey from Monterey, California, to Oahu, Hawaii, on May 21 and arrived at the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor on Friday aboard her 21-foot ocean rowing boat, Lily.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Pfendler was on a mission to become the first, youngest and fastest woman to row solo from California to Hawaii.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">She not only shattered the current women\u2019s record, 86 days, 10 hours and five minutes, held by Lia Ditton \u2014 but also broke through the men\u2019s record of 52 days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Pfendler rowed to Hawaii in 43 days, and several were in awe of that achievement, especially women who turned out to witness the finish.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThis is amazing girl power. So impressed with what Kelsey\u2019s been able to do I think with everything that\u2019s going on. Just so impressed,\u201d said Honolulu resident Amanda Wentz.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Kelsey said on her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spotfund.com\/story\/7b00fb9e-2fab-4751-af51-969e683b4733\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.spotfund.com\/story\/7b00fb9e-2fab-4751-af51-969e683b4733\">Spotfund campaign<\/a> her mission goes beyond rowing an ocean, inspiring women everywhere to recognize and embrace their strength.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cShe\u2019s just so inspirational. Actually, the last live post &#8230; she said for everybody who feels like they can\u2019t face and fear, they can\u2019t do it \u2014 I\u2019m doing this for you,&#8221; said resident Stacey McConlogue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Pflender made several social media posts about her solo row, and many said they had just found out about it in the past few days \u2014 but decided to show up to witness rowing history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Pfendler also took on the feat in part to raise funds and awareness for the Whale Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the mental, physical and financial well-being of the Grand Canyon river guiding community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">So far, more than $30,000 has been donated to the nonprofit since she started the journey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Pfendler is a veteran Grand Canyon river guide who\u2019s been guiding multi-day trips to the Colorado River for eight years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.whalefoundation.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.whalefoundation.org\/\">Click here to learn more about the Whale Foundation and to donate.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Pfendler\u2019s solo row is not the first time she\u2019s crossed the Pacific, and she was the skipper of Hericane Rowing in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">She and four other women arrived in Kauai 40 days, 22 hours and 14 minutes after departing from Monterey, battling huge waves, a capsizing, equipment failures and adverse currents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">As Pfendler completed her solo row and brought Lily into the Hawaii Yacht Club, she was greeted by her crew members. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">She\u2019s expected to speak to the media later after getting much-needed rest and celebrating her birthday.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; Hundreds gathered along Magic Island Friday to watch solo-rower Kelsey Pfendler complete her record-breaking journey&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":742507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-742506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742506","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=742506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}