The Devoted: CYNTHIA BROWN

Cynthia Brown understands the tribulations of a tough island to island downwinder. Yet, even at 62 years of age, she’s showing no signs of slowing down. Kinda the opposite, actually…

Photos: Shane Grace

Recently my life has been a whirlwind with training, testing, and deal-ing with the massive logistics of racing between three different islands, with their three distinct landscapes and cultures. Shuttles, flights, ho-tels, gear transport, escort boats, radios, EPIRBS for me is one thing, then you multiply that by 200 athletes. None of the races started and finished anywhere near each other, even on the same island.

Originally, the Paddle Imua, M2M and M2O were three separate events, but since hundreds of foil athletes began traveling to Hawaii from all over the world for the events, the organisers teamed up and planned the three events back-to-back, thus creating the Koa Kai Triple Crown, awarding the fastest athletes participating in all three events. The fin-ishers' times were used to calculate the winners: Paddle Imua + M2M X 2 +M2O X 3. The longer races counted for more points.

M2M started on the very northwest corner of Maui. I got there on a friend's 35’ fishing boat, which was a beautiful journey along the rug-ged northwest coast of Maui. The finish on Moloka’i was in the tiny town of Kaunakakai. The staging area for the M2O was an hour’s drive across the very quiet island, to Kepuhi Beach. Over 140 escort boats idled out front waiting for athletes. Molokai does not allow jet skis, so we all swam our gear in dry bags and garbage bags through some small shore pound and 100 yards out to our boats. We then motored a few miles upwind to the start, off the rugged cliffs of Ilio Point. I pumped my wing, jumped overboard, and aimed myself in the direction of the distant grey smudge that was O’ahu. The finish was 40 miles away at Kaimana Beach, in the heart of Waikiki.

These channel crossings, which test the endurance and skill of all athletes, with extreme and ever-changing conditions, were originally born from paddle crafts. They are ideal for canoes, SUP boards and the like because they are pretty much straight downwind runs, with massive wind swells. The M2O has been raced for 25 years now, and is considered the Mount Everest of Hawaiian crossings. It is only since last year that wingfoils have been invited to enter. The cross-ing is vast and unpredictable, so every athlete is required to have a personal escort boat. This was the first year that wing foil athletes could opt out of hiring a personal escort boat, because the boats have a hard time keeping up with our av-erage speeds. Since I had never done the crossing and was pretty freaked out about being alone way out at sea with a potential equipment or environment failure, I was happy to spend the money on a boat.

I had a beautiful position amongst the front of the fleet for the first 30 miles. The start had a good breeze, and my 5.7m Flux with my MikesLab 540 foil were perfect. I was hoping the wind would get stronger as the day wore on, like it does on Maui, but that was not the case. As the miles ticked by, the breeze got lighter and lighter. The direction of the winds and islands strongly favor goofy footed riders, but I had trained for this and was confidently fast in my switch stance. The only thing that I had not prepared for was the 40 miles of pumping that was required as the wind ceased. I pumped so much with my non-dominant knee that I set foot on O’ahu with a sprained MCL.

The 10ft seas in ‘The Channel of Bones’ were magnificent. So much fun to pump up, over and rocket down. Flying on the mountainous swells, in the utter vastness of the ocean, with no land in sight, is something I have never experienced, and something I will not soon forget. My 5.7m Flux was light and easy to handle, and I had no wipe outs or scary moments. After 32 miles, two hours of racing, and just off the coast of O’ahu, I hit a massive voodoo zone with not even a whisper of wind. I came off foil. The texture of the water resembled wind, but was in fact nasty current and cross chop. The mas-sive channel swells hitting the island, coupled with the “King Tide” (full moon) and incoming high tide, created the most chaotic, washing machine of seas. I had a hard time just try-ing to balance on my board, let alone even attempt to stand up and pump on to foil.

I toppled and floundered for the most painful 25 minutes of my entire racing career. My escort boat was watching near-by. I thought about crying, swearing and giving up, but I had trained and fought so hard for this race, that I couldn’t quit. Eventually I got a puff and a prayer and was able to foil up. Because of my 25-minute beat down, many of the 100 plus SUP foilers with their respective escort boats were now all around me. The wind was so light that I had to sail a slight upwind angle to get even the slightest downwind gain, all while dodging speeding boats, prop wash, wakes, and SUP foilers. Thankfully I made it the last eight miles to the finish, without further incident. As I’ve been told before, “that’s rac-ing, and anything can happen”.

Congratulations to all the athletes, in both wing foil and SUP foil, who have the grit, courage and fortitude to compete in and complete this race. M2O is surely an epic rite of passage. I want to give a huge thank you to Ozone and everybody else that made this adventure possible. What a life, what a sport. I am beyond grateful!

Cynthia’s 2024 results