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PEOPLE BY CONOR MIHELL Speed Queen FREYA HOFFMEISTER BEATS AUSTRALIA CIRCUMNAVIGATION RECORD BY 28 DAYS


IN 1982, Paul Caffyn claimed one of the lon- gest-standing sea kayaking titles of all time, becoming the first to circumnavigate Austra- lia’s 15,000-kilometre coastline. It would’ve been impossible for Caffyn to know that 27 years later, his 360-day journey would become a competition. Armed with a spreadsheet of Caffyn’s daily


paddling distances, the sassy and audacious German uber-paddler Freya Hoffmeister set off from a Melbourne beach on January 18, 2009, to chase the record in her Race Around Australia. On December 15, the 45-year-old Hoff-


meister completed the circle, shattering Caf- fyn’s mark by 28 days. Hoffmeister, who holds speed records for


circumnavigating Iceland (33 days, with Flori- da paddler Greg Stamer) and the South Island of New Zealand (70 days, solo), dismissed the concerns of Australian sea kayakers who said


14 ADVENTURE KAYAK | SPRING 2010


she was throwing caution to the wind on an isolated, cliffbound and surf-washed coastline that’s home to more sharks, snakes and croco- diles than people. “Tere’s no way she’ll make it,” said Aus-


tralian surf ski paddler Dean Gardiner in an online preview of Hoffmeister’s trip. To com- pound the challenge, Hoffmeister’s expedition would be self-supported; Caffyn, by compari- son, had a shore-based crew to help him land in towering surf, cook his meals and take care of his accommodations. Said another paddler on an online Australian discussion forum, “to try this without an escort boat is simply crazy.” But Hoffmeister, who in previous careers


was a successful gymnast, bodybuilder and skydiver, thrives on words of doubt. Besides the amazing stamina Hoffmeister showed in paddling an average of 55 kilometres per day for the better part of a year, Stamer says her greatest skill is perseverance.


“I think the biggest thing about her is that she


maintains her confidence and her focus in spite of what others are saying,” says Stamer. “Freya likes to do what people say can’t be done. Once she gets something in her head, she’ll do it.” On Australia’s north shore, Hoffmeister


faced the choice of paddling over 1,500 kilome- tres of crocodile-ridden shoreline or making a risky 560-kilometre crossing of the Gulf of Car- pentaria—a feat completed in a sea kayak only once before, by the late Aussie Andrew McAu- ley. She chose the crossing and spent eight days offshore, jury-rigging paddle-float outriggers when she became too tired to paddle. “Overall I may have underestimated a bit


the conditions out there in the middle of the Gulf,” Hoffmeister wrote in her blog, “…but at the end it was nothing I couldn’t handle.” In her media interviews and near-daily blog


postings while on the journey, Hoffmeister was unremittingly upbeat. “I’m visualizing my


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