Sean has been a kayaker for over 30 years who has represented his country at international level in four different disciplines and set several records in the world of sea kayaking. He moved to California from the UK in 2006 to be with his now wife Gina, herself a former world surf kayak champion. Sean founded River and Ocean LLC, a sales agency within the states of CA, NV & AZ. He first started kayaking at the age of ten with the Scouts and played on rivers and in the sea. He soon developed an interest in kayak racing and represented Great Britain as a junior in both marathon and sprint racing, becoming Junior National Champion in 1983 and achieving 6th place in the K4 1000m at the Junior World Championships.

He went on to compete for GB at senior level for several years but never managed to repeat his success as a junior, probably because he spent too much time playing on rivers and in the surf, representing England at the World Waveski Championships in 1989 and reaching the semi-finals in the European Championships in 1990.

Sean began sea kayaking in 1996 when his good friend Robin Feloy persuaded him to try his Inuk, a ‘high performance sea kayak’ designed by Robin that allowed Sean to paddle with a technique similar to a racing kayak using wing paddles. Sean fell in love with the craft and with the concept of long distance sea kayaking. In 1997 he kayaked ‘Around the Sharp End’ of the UK; the coastline of Devon and Cornwall and the Isles of Sicily in 9 days then the following year set a record for the fastest crossing of the St George’s Channel of the Irish Sea with two friends; Ian Wilson and Jim Morrissey of 11hours 6minutes. In 1998 he circumnavigated the north of Scotland with Ian Wilson, paddling north from Fort William, traversing the ‘Roof of Britain’ and returning to Fort William via the Caledonian Canal, a 500mile journey in 13 days.

Having built up his expedition experience Sean felt ready to take on his greatest challenge; the first solo circumnavigation of the UK and Ireland. He decided to make the journey even more difficult by trying to include in his circumnavigation every inhabited island and in September 2004 after six months and approximately 4,500miles he completed the challenge, the longest kayak journey ever undertaken in British waters.

In 2008 Sean broke the speed record for paddling 700 miles around Vancouver island solo, completing the challenge in 17 days 4 hours and 49 minutes.

Sean is featured in “This is the Sea 2”.

More Info

www.expeditionkayak.com