New Orleans isn’t exactly known as a hotbed for extreme sports but one local couple who met at Tulane University is about to change all that.
John and Hannah Huppi have taken a popular lovers promise — crossing an ocean for one another — and are making it a reality.
The New Orleans couple are embarking on a life-changing journey rowing across the ocean together.
“The goal is to row 1000 kilometers or 600 miles across the Arctic Ocean. Effectively from Norway up to Svalbard, which is an oceanic island in the middle of the ocean but really, really close to the North Pole, so it’s above the Arctic Circle,” said, John Huppi.
To get there, they’ll be rowing 24 hours a day, alternating every 2 hours.
“It should take anywhere from 10-20 days. Our goal is to be on the faster side of that to try and set a world record.”
A heavenly goal, so to accomplish it, the Huppis are enlisting the help of a saint, one of the greatest saints of all time, Jimmy Graham.
No stranger to adventure, the legendary tight end has earned 10 different aviation licenses, is an avid cycler and has plans to sail around the world, making him a perfect teammate for this expedition.
“I was a little bit surprised that he was like ‘yeah, let’s do it’ just because I’ve approached a lot of people and asked them to row across the ocean with me but it turns out you have to have a certain kind of personality to want to row across the ocean,” said Hannah Huppi.
“I’ve been a Saints fan from day one so I was there literally in the stadium the whole Super Bowl season and have been a big Jimmy Graham fan of course. That underdog story coming out of nowhere, I feel like we kind of had a similar upbringing in rowing just kind of coming out of nowhere in a way,” said John.
And it’s not hard to see why that parallel has been drawn. The Huppis are elite rowers who have represented Team USA around the world, but when they arrived uptown as freshmen and joined the Tulane rowing team, they did so with zero experience.
Much like the Hall of Fame tight end Jimmy Graham, who didn’t play a snap of football until after he graduated from Miami.
And it’s that same willingness to try something new, his natural athleticism and thrill-seeking attitude that will help Graham through this challenge.
“He’s going to have a tough time with the rowing, but he’s going to have a whole 18 months to train for it, but we all have things we have to work on, said John. “For us, being out completely unsupported in the ocean and having to dig into sailing skills and navigation skills is going to be completely new to Hannah and I so we all have a pretty significant challenge on our plate.”
This form of coastal rowing, completely different from the style of rowing we’re familiar with in the Olympics. On the open ocean, the current is stronger, the waves are bigger and the weather plays a massive factor.
“Any ocean row is really a matter of luck as much as it is skill because we’re at the mercy of the weather. So, of course, when you’re out there for 10-20 days, weather can change a lot, it can change very rapidly and we have to deal with the conditions. It’s part of the challenge. We also have a supporting team to help us try to navigate and stay clear of weather just like a pilot might try to stay clear of a cloud or weather storm. Also, if the winds just aren’t in our favor that day, we might have to anchor.”
While the crew is hopeful that won’t be the case and they’ll instead be breaking world records, they feel content knowing they’re already breaking one thing: gender barriers
“The fact that this is a mixed gender crew is really important to us, having Hannah on board of course with three guys. It’s been a really important part of our past when we were on the US National Team, we were a part of a mixed crew of actually three men and two women. It’s something that I think is great for sport,” said John. “You’re seeing that happen in a lot of sports like tennis and track and field and swimming having these more mixed relay, mixed gender type relay things, and you’re going to start seeing a lot more of that in sport.”
The Huppis are emphasizing the ability to do this challenge, male or female, because the couple hopes to set an example for their 4-year-old daughter
“I’m really excited to have her kind of.. not join us literally but join us on the journey. The boat is going to be here in New Orleans for a while. For her to get to see it and she’s old enough now that she’ll really get to have this memory of her mom and dad doing this crazy thing”, said Hannah.
“It’s huge. To show her that anything is possible even just dreaming about it but actually just picking up the phone and making contacts and putting together the perfect team and just going out and doing it. Really anything is possible for her and I’m really happy that it’s not just one of us it’s actually both of us leading the way for her to really show her that her family can do anything”, said John.
John and Hannah Huppi, teammates on this journey and teammates in life.
“Truly, you have to trust your teammates with your life so you don’t shove off the dock unless you have that. Obviously we still have to build that with Jimmy and Andrew but coming into it knowing me and John already have that and I can trust him with my life in the worst of times in the middle of the arctic, that’s very comforting,” said Hannah.
The team will set sail on July 6.
The world record is 15 days or less.
READ MORE:Saints legend Jimmy Graham, NOLA couple John & Hannah Huppi set to row across Arctic Ocean
