Brown’s Catalina Classic victory is second summer channel victory
Abby Brown en route to winning the 2016 Catalina Classic. Photo by Mike Ruiz It’s the evening before the Catalina Classic Paddleboard Championship and Abby Brown, an 18-year-old from Santa Barbara, doesn’t exactly know why she’s here. She just knows that she’s here, on Catalina Island, setting her 12-foot Bark next to all the other competitors’ boards, because why wouldn’t she be? She’s a born waterwoman, driven by a compulsion to be in the water — she prefers training alone — and prodigious talent. A professional surfer who achieved national fame riding waves with dolphins on Good Morning America, Brown began paddling when surf contests lost their appeal several years ago. She didn’t take the sport seriously until earlier this year, and on July 31, weeks after she graduated from high school, she won the 32-mile Moloka’i-to-O’ahu World Paddleboard Championship, becoming one of the youngest champions in the event’s 20-year history. DJ O’Brien, winner of the 2015 Classic, was second this year. Photo by Chris Aguilar/AguilarMedia.com This evening, it hasn’t hit her she’s doing another paddleboard marathon tomorrow morning, less than four weeks after her first. “That’s like doing two…
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