A crew of junior guards by the name of Team Grom stood out at this year’s Bay Crossing, a 28.5-mile paddle race that is usually dominated by broad-shouldered men. Team Grom included the youngest paddlers ever to participate in the three-year-old race: Ben Coffey, 13; Turner Roll, 16; Paul Steinberg, 22 and the only female in the race, Mckenzie Smith, 15. They took turns every 10 to 30 minutes paddling a 12 -foot stock board across Monterey Bay, where every so often people get called out of the water because a great white gets spotted and where whales the size of trucks linger.
The event was put on by the Ghost Ryders Watermen Club, a non-profit organization that supports the Santa Cruz City Junior Lifeguard program. Smith says she discovered paddle boarding in junior guards and has competed in the sport ever since. “Mentally, you just have to put your head down and keep going, or else you’re going to want to stop. Since I was on a team, I felt like I was dedicated to them, so I had to keep going,” Smith says. “Your arms feel like bricks when you’re done.”
Team Grom finished the race in a little over six hours, beating a group of individual participants riding faster boards and almost passing up a team of stand-up paddlers. Luckily, they didn’t endure any of the risks that often come with paddle boarding, such as harsh weather, hypothermia or seasickness. The team’s escort, Joe Beek, who also did the recruiting, says they all came out of the race “stoked.” “They’re fearless and up for an adventure,” Beek says. “We were halfway across, and we were like ‘Wow, it’s a mile deep out here.’ You might as well be in the middle of the ocean.”
As the only female who competed, Mckenzie Smith hopes to see more women at next year’s race. “Paddling is a really male-dominated sport, so hopefully more women get out there because it’s fun and everyone is super nice about it,” Smith says. “Everyone cheered us on, and they were super stoked to have such young kids doing it.”
