Long time Bonners Ferry residents Josh Friedman and Julie Kirk will be competing in the MR340 race on the Missouri River set to take place July 8 through July 11. The Missouri American Water MR340 is the world’s longest non-stop river race.
At 340 miles, racers in canoes, kayaks, dragon boats and other non-motorized boats travel from Kansas City, Kansas, to St. Charles, Missouri, over four days.
A dragon boat, originally from China, is a human-powered watercraft and typically seats 16-30 paddlers and is what Josh and Julie will use to compete in to challenge the current world record of 304 miles in 48 hours set by an Australian team.
Josh and Julie are two of a 17 paddler team. Joining the paddler team is a team of six support crew members, including Julie’s daughter, Maeve Kirk, that will be documenting the Guinness World record attempts and re-supplying the paddlers with fluids and nutrition along the entirety of the course.
Josh and Julie and the rest of the team have trained for months to achieve the physical shape required to paddle 48 hours straight. It is no small feat no matter the outcome.
“We are attempting to set two new Guinness World Records with our dragon boat team led by Rod Price,” Josh says, “Solo racers start at 7 a.m. central time, our team will start at 8 a.m. central time. We will be in the dragon boat/voyageur division but competing against all boats as well as attempting to break our previous world record of 200 miles in 24 hours in the dragon boat and set a new world record of longest distance dragon boat of 380 miles. If you would like to follow along our journey, the race tracker can be found at http://raceowl.com. We are team #9001, Pan Am Express. More information can be found at http://mr340.org.”
Read more about Josh and Julie in the Guinness World Records at Greatest distance by dragon boat in 24 hours (flowing water) | Guinness World Records.