by Laura Garber
Paddlers pointed to the whitecaps in the Catalina Channel as their boats approached the wind-singing Two Harbors at the Catalina Isthmus on Saturday, August 23. The whitecaps were an indicator of race day conditions for the 48th Catalina Classic, a 32 mile paddleboard race from the Isthmus to the Manhattan Beach Pier scheduled for the following morning.
Returning paddlers remembered 2023, when they were kept awake the night before that year’s race by howling winds and smacking boat tarps. Northwest head winds and a north swell added torturous hours to that year’s race, which takes five hours for the fast paddlers, and twice that long for the back of the pack.
Last year, conditions worked in the paddler’s favor. Glassy water and a southerly current helped Los Angeles County Firefighter Jack Bark become the first Classic paddler to break five hours. His time of 4:54:45 was seven minutes and 45 seconds faster than the previous record, set in 1999 by Los Angles County Lifeguard Tim Gair.
“In the Classic, the conditions become part of the story. Paddlers are at the whim of the ocean,” said Gair, now a Catalina Classic board member.
The Catalina Classic traces its origins to 1932 when Los Angeles County lifeguards Tom Blake, Pete Peterson and Wally Burton paddled 26 miles from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to Catalina Island to demonstrate the effectiveness of Blake’s hollow paddleboards as rescue devices.
In 1955, LA County lifeguard Bob Hogan and a group of fellow guards organized the first Manhattan International Paddleboard Race, from the Catalina’s Isthmus to the Manhattan Pier. Among the eight finishers that year were legendary big wave riders Rick Grigg, who won the race, George Downing and Greg Noll.
After being discontinued in 1960, the race was resurrected in 1982 under the name Catalina Classic by Los Angeles County lifeguard Buddy Bohn and retired lifeguard Gibby Gibson, a veteran of the 1950s races.
The race has been held every year since, except in 2020, when it was suspended because of the pandemic. Paddlers race stock (12-foot) boards or unlimited (typically 18-foot) boards.
A local artist creates the commemorative Catalina Classic T-shirt and poster each year. This year’s design, by Emily Bark, a board member and last year’s women’s stock winner, honors the Palos Verdes artist Zen Del Rio, who passed away this year. Del Rio designed over a dozen Classic T-shirts and posters, ranging from psychedelic to Japanese woodblock designs. Bark’s artwork features a ‘Zen’ burgee on an escort boat.
Among the returning paddlers to this year’s Catalina Classic was 16-year-old Hawaiian Toa Pere, who placed second one month earlier in the stock division of the 32-mile Molokaʻi-2-Oʻahu (M2O) paddleboard race. His father, Guy, won the inaugural M2O race in 1999. Last year Pere secured second place in the stock division for the Catalina Classic.
“This year, I’m looking to go for the podium or win. Hopefully, conditions will be as good as last year, maybe even better,” Pere said on the way to the Isthmus, aboard the 72-foot powerboat Disappearance, which has served as the race’s lead boat for over three decades.
Pere competed in the Classic for the first time in 2023, at the age of 14, making him the youngest participant to ever finish. His mother, stuntwoman Katie Pere, remembers that year well. While following him on an escort boat, conditions were so bad, she contemplated pulling him out of the water.
She let him continue, she said, because, “We’re happy if he’s happy. We’re happy that he’s doing this and loves being in the ocean.”
Toa finished the 2023 race in 13th place in the stock division, in 7 hours 51 minutes, more than two hours slower than his second place finish last year.
“There’s nothing else like it. It’s a lot of ocean exploration and the idea that it’s just your hands and this little board,” Toa Pere said in explaining paddling’s appeal.
San Diego paddler Donald Miralle, who also took the Disappearance to the Isthmus on Saturday, would be competing in his ninth classic. “The first mile and last mile are the most important,” he noted. Paddleboarding is one of the few sports where competitors commonly sprint at the start as well as the finish.
By early afternoon, when Disappearance reached the Isthmus, the harbor was filled with escort boats. This year, a record 131 paddlers registered for the Classic, and each paddler is required to have an escort boat to provide water, safety and nutrition. Nearly all of the paddleboards are built by Torrance board builder Joe Bark, who competed in the race every year from 1983 until 2021, winning two titles in ‘88 and ‘89.
Jack Bark, who set the record last year, and was favored to win again, is Joe’s son. Joe’s daughter Emily Bark won the women’s division last year just four minutes shy of breaking the 2014 women’s stock record at 6:08:05 set by Carter Graves. Like her brother, Emily was favored to win again this year.
The red burgee logo, representing Florence Marine X, an apparel company founded by three-time surfing world champion John John Florence, was almost as common a site at the Isthmus as the Bark logo. Florence is a new sponsor of the race.
Jack Bark and San Diego paddler Lance Lerum, who finished fifth in last year’s Classic, were exchanging stories Saturday afternoon on the grass behind the Harbor Reef bar, where paddlers leave their boards the night before the race.
“It’s been a long six months to get here,” Bark said.
Lerum talked about achieving peak conditioning without overtraining, or tapering too soon.
“Because you’re trying to line up your peak fitness, but also be rested. There’s a small window,” Lerum added.
Bark agreed.
“You see someone who went for a long paddle and you’re not trying to paddle that long, but you’re like, well, should I?” Bark questioned. “It’s also easy to get in your mind about your board,” Bark said, despite the fact his dad makes his boards.
“By this time, it’s like you’re stressing everything, but all the work has been done in the last five or six months. So you’re too late now,” Bark joked.
Yurika Horibe, a first time Classic paddler from Japan, was sitting on the grass, nearby, tending to her stock Bark board.
“I don’t know her, but I’ve heard she’s fast,” Bark said.
Horibe is a two-time ISA World Paddleboard Championship gold medalist. Her husband, Takehiro, would also be competing in the Classic for the first time.
As more escort boats arrived through the day, Harbor Reef’s outdoor bar filled with anxious paddlers watching their escort crews knock down the bar’s signature Buffalo Milks, a concoction that includes vodka, Kahlúa and creme de banana.
Keith Lauridsen of San Pedro, is a first-time escort boat captain following Anthony Perez. Perez expressed confidence in Lauridsen as the two relaxed in the bar.
Reports were already rumoring about escort boat breakdowns, Lauridsen said.
Most paddlers have friends with boats to escort them. But others can pay upwards of $1,500 in tight-demand for the weekend commitment, said Disappearance’s captain, Dave Schaefer.
This year’s Catalina Classic had 13 women paddlers, which is also a record number. The growing number of women paddlers is in part due to DJ Wilson who co-founded Oceans Prone Paddle with fellow Catalina Classic veteran Kurt Fry. Oceans Prone offers lessons, race training and paddleboard rentals. Wilson is a two-time Catalina Classic winner (2015, 2018) and a third place finisher in the Molokaʻi-2-Oʻahu race (2017). This year would be her 17th Classic.
“One thing I’ve learned? That I’m a little bit crazy,” she laughed. “But also what I’m capable of, perseverance wise and mentally wise. I’ve learned a lot about gratitude in the fact that I’m still able to do this and how important it is to support all the people around. We’re out there competing in the water, but we’re all together as a family on land.”
Prior to her first race in 2007, she spent a sleepless night on a boat, worrying she wouldn’t be able to finish.
“I had the South Bay Mermaids with me. We had so many girls doing it. It was the most we’d ever had. So I was excited and didn’t want to let anyone down,” she recalled. “I just remember wanting to quit, but knowing I just have to keep going. It was eight hours and two minutes. But I finished and I fell in love with it. I just wanted to do it again.”
A few paddlers spent the night before the race at the Banning House, a rustic, 12-room, former hunting lodge. Most slept in the campground or on their escort boats.
Miralle and George Loren, a partner in King Harbor’s Captain Kidd’s and R10 Social House restaurants, slept aboard Disappearance. They woke in good spirits, despite an ominous wind blowing through the Isthmus gap.
As paddlers assembled on the west end of the beach, Schaefer drove Disappearance out to Ship Rock, a white, 66-foot-high, guano encrusted rock a mile off the beach that is roughly in line with the Manhattan Beach Pier.
Schaefer blared the “National Anthem.”
“This is mostly for myself and the escort boats,” he joked, knowing the paddlers couldn’t hear it.
The sun had just begun to glow above the mainland and the water was already choppy when the starting pistol fired at 6 a.m. The racers shot off the beach like a fleet of arrows.
Jack Bark took an early lead. Despite the chop, his board cut through the water like the sharks the channel is known for. Paddlers call the mile off of Palos Verdes “Mako Mile.”
Hawaiʻi’s Pere and Hermosa Beach’s David Thomas were neck and neck for the first five miles in pursuit of the stock title. Thomas won the stock division in the 15-mile South Bay Paddle in June.
After 24 miles, the paddlers reached the R10 buoy, four miles off of Torrance Beach, and veered north for the Manhattan Pier. The water settled down, relatively, for the final eight miles.
In a post-race interview, Amy Dantzer, 61, the oldest woman to compete, said of the conditions, “It was hard, like 2023, but it was faster because we had a south current.”
Bark finished in 5:14:50, nearly 20 minutes slower than his 2024 record time. His wife, Katie, swam out to greet him with a hug at the water finish.
San Diego lifeguard Tristen Sullaway finished 16 minutes, and more than a mile behind, followed by Lerum in 5:38:51.
Japan’s Horibe finished 44th overall, in 6:31:47, for the women’s title.
“I had a dream to win this competition,” Horibe said in a post-race interview, translated by a friend’s son. “When I was close to the goal I was tired but kept on going,” she said.
Emily Bark was second with a time of 6:45:25 followed by Florence Marine X-sponsored pro surfer Kayla Coscino just over 16 minutes later.
Marilee Kiernan, of Manhattan Beach, was the only woman who raced in the unlimited division, (short of the five paddlers required for awards recognition).
Toa Pere fulfilled his hopes by finishing in 5:56:58, for his first Classic title in the men’s stock division.
Thomas, placed second in stock in 6:05:53 and Foster Campbell, of San Diego, placed third in 6:10:15.
“It’s cool that the next generation of paddlers is coming up,” Classic board member and former Classic record holder Gair said. ER
