It couldn't get more Kiwi than this for Hawke's Bay ocean rower Craig Hackett.
A member of the record breaking Team Uniting Nations crew in the inaugural Great Pacific Race, Hackett was greeted with a bag of pineapple lumps after his team's 43 days, five hours and 30 minute journey which took in 4000km of the Pacific Ocean from Monterey, California to Honolulu, Hawaii ended on Wednesday. His mother Rae Hackett and girlfriend Sheryl Comon-Pearce handed him the bag of Kiwi favourites before he joined his crewmates for a celebration dinner which consisted of a burger, fresh fruit and ice cream ... washed down by some of the local lager of course.
Napier commercial diver Hackett, 31, Netherlands psychiatric nurse Andre Kiers, South Korean marketing manager Junho Choi and Great Britain producer Caspar Zafer, who met for the first time a month before the June 9 start to the race, won the 13-boat race by almost two days to beat the previous record for the route of 64 days, set by Hawaiian Mick Bird who rowed it single-handed in 1997. Hackett and his crewmates applied individually to do the race and were placed in their boat "Danielle" by race director Chris Martin.
A long distance rowing legend who has rowed the Atlantic single-handed and crossed the North Pacific in a two-man boat, Martin, was just as delighted as the crew with their success.
"Seeing this record setting team from all corners of the globe arrive in Hawaii after spending more than a month racing is testament to the power of the human spirit," Martin said.