put in | Profile
photograph by Robert Zaleski
man/mission/gear
Homemade hero Duane Strosaker Duane Strosaker looks like an ordinary Joe. The even-keeled 45-year-old works a quiet day job at a museum in Santa Ana, Calif. But once he dips his paddle into the nearby Pacific Ocean, he transforms into a paddling titan—making exposed water and shore-break look like pool practice. Ten years after his first significant crossing, Strosaker now measures life in nautical miles: “Only land people use statute miles,” he quips. A typical summer day could include the 22-mile paddle to Catalina Island—and 22 miles back (that’s 50 land-lubber miles). He claims the Southern California Grand Slam, having paddled the entire SoCal coast, from Point Conception to the Mexican border, plus self-supported
crossings to, and circumnavigations of, the six publicly accessible Channel Islands. It’s exactly this function—big solo crossing while carrying a week’s worth of gear, food and water—that drives the design of his custom Point Bennett kayak, pictured. Named after the westernmost point of Channel Islands National Park, Strosaker’s 17.5-footby-21-inch Greenland-style kayak features a fiberglass sandwich around a plywood core, creating an expeditionstrength hull at 45 pounds. No skeg, no rudder. “I’m a minimalist,” he says. “Less moving parts means that less can go wrong. It’s a more pure paddling experience. Plus I like to suffer.” Strosaker’s mission-specific solu-
tions don’t end there. He makes his own neoprene sprayskirts and 19-ounce carbon Greenland paddles. He stashes charts, GPS and a VHF radio for emergencies, and navigates solely by deck compass and the ‘terrain association’ skills he learned as an Army paratrooper. He gives away every calculated packing and building secret on his Web site (rollordrown.com), where the focus remains simplifying gear and minimizing risk. “If it’s calm in the morning and 10-15 knot winds in the afternoon, I’ll go; if it’s beyond that, it’s not a good idea,” Strosaker says. “I’ve been in rough crossings, and it’s better to enjoy it than to be miserable. A crossing should be a 20-mile paddle, it shouldn’t be a horror story.” – Dave Shively