After Six Days and One Car Accident, Laird and His Crew Complete Their Journey

At one point it didn’t seem like it would ever happen. But after six days, thousands of miles by bike, and a car accident, Team Surfing USA did what they set out to do: they paddled to the Statue of Liberty.

Crew Member Jeff Sweet, who filled in for an injured Jason Winn as Team Surfing USA paddled around the Statue of Liberty, catches us up to speed on the final leg of their trek from Malibu to New York:

“We had a boat take us to the George Washington Bridge about five miles up the Hudson River and we paddled down to the Statue of Liberty; it was pretty insane. It was bright blue skies, and then out of nowhere the weather turned on us and it went black with thunderstorms and heavy lightning with rain just pouring down. The statue was bright green with grey background; it was an amazing sight to see.”

“When we were coming down the Hudson, a couple of the guys in boats threw us ropes and we got to free surf the Hudson behind the boat’s wake. That was pretty cool. We were by Harlem, hugging the bank of the river getting all kinds of cheers from the people on land.”

When asked about the overall experience with the race and Jason Winn’s car accident, Sweet had this to say.

“That was unexpected of course. It was unfortunate, and we really felt we were going to win the race – like Don says, ‘We came here to win this thing,’ and we weren’t going to win the race with just three guys… it wasn’t going to happen. So we stopped. We’re all disappointed that we went all that way with all that work and there was so much involved with the crew…but it’s still a pretty great story. I think the fact that a bunch of surfers and a seventy-year-old man could win that race was…crazy. Right before Jason’s accident we were in position to win, and had no doubt in our minds that we had accomplished what we set out to do.”

“Overall, it was a great experience. Everyone had to battle their own struggles with sleep deprivation and exhaustion and so on…but we made it through. Our ultimate goal was to raise awareness and money for autism and Lou Gehrig’s disease, so if we were capable of influencing just a few people then we definitely succeeded.”