A year after being rescued, Marin kayaker launches second daredevil attempt to paddle to Hawaii

The 45-year-old French-born resident of Larkspur launched his custom-made 23-foot-long craft from Sausalito last June with the goal of paddling approximately 2,400 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean to Honolulu. He’d prepared for a year and would have been the second person to make the voyage in a kayak following the legendary El Gillet, who completed the journey in 63 days in 1987 and nearly starved to death in the process.

But last summer, after 6 days at sea, much of which he spent hunkered against choppy water in his small cabin, Derreumaux called for a rescue from the U.S. Coast Guard.

“I had to admit, like, yes, I guess I wasn’t prepared,” he said.

But rather than give up entirely, Derreumaux has spent the past year planning his second attempt — improving his boat, honing logistics and training off the California coast. Preparing has become an obsession, he said.

“I haven’t been able to start a normal life because my dream has still been alive,” Derreumaux said.

He is launching from Monterey in the company of just a few friends and support crew members.

June offers ideal ocean conditions for these types of mid-Pacific crossings, and a relatively high number of extreme seafarers left California for Hawaii last summer — including one piloting a stand-up hydrofoil powered by a hand-held sail.

Derreumaux’s modest carbon-fiber kayak is much lighter and more cramped — and his cockpit is nearer to the water’s surface — than the relatively hefty open-ocean rowboats that have carried solo rowers to Hawaii in each of the past two summers.