In 2023, kayaker Andy Nevitt proved he had the stamina — and the guts — to paddle the length of the Wisconsin River by himself. Crossing all 424 miles of the state’s longest river was no easy task, but Nevitt’s months of preparation and training paid off.
He emerged from the experience with a new fastest known time for a solo paddler: 5 days, 2 hours, and 19 minutes. That’s more than 24 hours quicker than the previous record, set by Rich Hodgkins in 1994.
But Nevitt wasn’t done chasing records on this windy tributary of the Mississippi.
Wisconsin River FKT Rematch
The 43-year-old returned for a rematch this year, convinced he could beat the overall fastest time. That was set in 1995, when paddlers Mike Schnitzka and Bill Perdzock managed to traverse the waterway in 4 days, 2 hours, and 22 minutes. So Nevitt committed himself to the challenge, upgrading his kayak, tweaking his route, and changing his training regimen.
In late May, Nevitt proved himself once again: He managed the crossing in under 4 days — 5.5 hours faster than what two men had accomplished together 30 years ago, according to Fastest Known Paddle. But it wasn’t easy. Nevitt navigated sandbar mazes, survived nighttime rapids covered in fog, powered through windy lake crossings, and portaged around all 26 of the river’s dams.
“It’s kind of a big deal to have achieved the goal I set out to achieve,” Nevitt told GearJunkie. “I haven’t had much time to get caught up in the void the river left behind.”
‘I Know I Have the Skills’
Nevitt entered the niche world of long-distance paddling through the Missouri River 340. Billed as “the world’s longest non-stop river race,” this 340-mile kayak-and-canoe race begins in Kansas City, Kan., and follows the river all the way to St. Charles, Miss.
He has participated in the race three times, finishing it twice and withdrawing once for dehydration. Eventually, a friend and fellow paddler told Nevitt he should go after the Wisconsin River record.
“The wheels started turning,” Nevitt said. “After a while, I thought, ‘I could probably break this one-man record by myself and improve on the two-man record.’ I know I have the skills.”
In Nevitt’s own estimation, his first effort in 2023 wasn’t nearly as committing as it could have been. Though he was successful in breaking the solo record, Nevitt still spent unnecessary time off river, he said, sometimes even crashing in a hotel for a couple of hours before returning to the task.
For 2025’s attempt, he would go all in. First, he changed his kayak. In 2023’s attempt, he used an Epic V7, a plastic, open-top kayak that weighs a bombproof 52 pounds, but is also heavy and slow as a result. He replaced that with a Stellar Falcon, a longer, lightweight kayak built for speed, and with a carbon and kevlar hull that can take a beating.
In his training, he focused less on weight loss and more on stamina and efficiency. He began training during Thanksgiving 2024, mixing together a routine of rowing machine, cross-country ski ergometer, and free weights.
This allowed him to focus on upper back and shoulder muscles. He also got outside to paddle and ski whenever possible. By early summer 2025, Nevitt was ready for the attempt.
The Best-Laid Plans …
Before embarking on his second FKT run in late May, Nevitt estimated that he’d be able to maintain a speed of 6 mph or more during long stretches of paddling. That would allow him to make a massive gain over the 1995 record, when Schnitzka and Perdzock, who likely had a moving speed of about 4.3 mph, according to Nevitt’s calculations.
But attaining 6 mph turned out to be “grossly inaccurate.” This year (as in 2023), the water level was very low, forcing Nevitt to frequently drag the kayak through shallow sections. He eventually accepted that frequent portaging over beaver dams and fallen trees would impact his overall time.
At one point, he became stuck waist-deep in mud and had to spend an exhausting 10 minutes just to free himself. And that was only the beginning. Even with his previous experience, “the Wisconsin River is a beast,” Nevitt said.
During his first night, Nevitt had to navigate some of the river’s toughest rapids with near-zero visibility. Despite using a high-powered headlamp to paddle through the darkness, he couldn’t see anything through a dense fog.
“Without warning, I suddenly hit a rock in the middle of the river, completely halting my movement,” Nevitt wrote in his trip report. “The kayak became wedged against the rock, with the current turning the kayak sideways in the river. I am unsure how I did not flip at this time.”
The following days proved no easier, as Nevitt faced headwinds on the flatwater of Petenwell Lake. One of several lakes along the river, it became yet another exhausting obstacle to overcome.
“It took an extreme amount of focus and energy to keep the kayak upright,” Nevitt said. “I was constantly taking on water from waves coming over the low gunnels of the Falcon.”
Sandwiches & Sandbars
To keep his rig as light as possible, Nevitt brought very little on board with him. He had a hydration pack, a repair kit, and a baggie of snacks in his life vest. Most of his calories came from an Infinit Nutrition endurance formula mixed into his drinking water, along with the “occasional gas station sandwich.”
The sandwiches likely came from his wife, Lindsay, aka Nevitt’s “support crew.” She kept him resupplied along the way. Lindsay also met up at various points to hand off and pick up boat lights, allowing Nevitt to keep his daytime paddling as lightweight as possible.
“She knew prior to starting that this was going to be a difficult, exhausting push to break the record, but she had my back from start to finish,” Nevitt said. “I could not have done it without her, nor would I have wanted to.”
By the third day, Nevitt was already tired. Hopes for a boost in river current were dashed. Instead, he plodded through “an endless maze of huge sandbars and barely existent current.” This was the moment he endured a full-body muscle spasm lasting several minutes. He drank water, ate some food, popped some ibuprofen and Tylenol, and kept going.
That night, Nevitt began to feel the delirium of extreme exhaustion. He pulled into an access point in Muscoda and passed out in his truck for 90 minutes. He woke up still feeling terrible, but eventually felt better after following his wife’s advice to walk around and wake himself up. Still, he now faced what would prove the most exhausting and dangerous section of the river.
The Home Stretch
Once again paddling at night, Nevitt faced a “dangerous combination” of fog, shoreline deadfall, and sandbars with steep downriver drop-offs.
“I paddled slowly, navigating through clouds of fog by staying close to either shore, where I knew there would probably be a channel of water to sneak around the near-continuous sandbars in the middle of the river,” Nevitt said.
Despite his caution, Nevitt still crashed into a fog-hidden tree log, flipping the kayak and falling into the cold water. As he began shivering, Nevitt knew he had to keep moving to stave off hypothermia. Later, he fell into the water again while navigating sandbars. As his shivering reached a “constant, uncontrollable level,” he finally reached his next rest point.
He called his wife and asked her to crank up the heat in the truck before he arrived. Stripped down to his underwear, he pulled a sleeping bag around himself and sat in the heated vehicle until he stopped shivering and reached a safe body temperature. With just 29 miles remaining — and still holding to a 6-hour lead over the previous record — he got back in the kayak.
“Nothing would stop me from breaking the record, save major kayak damage or a medical emergency,” he wrote.
Just 11 miles from the finish, however, Nevitt had to stop for one more power nap. His body just couldn’t take any more effort without rest, he said. Once back on the river, he finally arrived at the endpoint at Wyalusing State Park Beach.
“I let out a loud whoop, and waved to a fisherman nearby who was giving me a puzzled look,” he said.
His wife was waiting to greet him — with donuts.
Epilogue
So, does Nevitt think he could have done it any faster?
“Yes, I do,” Nevitt said, laughing. “But it would take higher water levels. Having the low water I experienced made things progress slowly, but it also made the river more predictable and more stable throughout.”
Regardless, he’s not sure he’ll come back for another rematch. A documentary crew followed Nevitt’s journey, and photographer John Seal allowed GearJunkie to use some of those images for this story.
(The documentary will likely be published sometime later this year, so stay tuned for that one.)
In the meantime, Nevitt already has other plans for getting outdoors. He’s also participating in the Wassau 24 this summer, a long-distance MTB race using local Wisconsin trails. But paddling still isn’t far from Nevitt’s mind. When he spoke with GearJunkie in mid-July, he had just returned from a family vacation with his wife and daughter to watch some friends compete in the Missouri River 340.
“I kind of wandered into this whole paddle racing stuff on my own, not really knowing what I was doing,” he said. “This whole community is not made up of elite athletes. It’s people who just like getting out on the water.”
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