Dean Gardiner

LEGEND

Dean Gardiner – Ocean Racing pioneer and arguably the best ocean racing paddler Australia has produced.

The sport of Ocean Racing in Australia and even the World can probably thank Dean from taking
this discipline from a small niche population to the juggernaut that it is today as the fastest growing paddlesport discipline.

Oceanpaddler founder Dean is regarded by his peers as the best Australian downwind paddler of our time, his reputation founded on countless victories internationally at the world-renowned Molokai Challenge, at the ICF World Cup, world regattas and countless races in
Australia.

A nine-time Molokai World Champion, Dean’s first Molokai was in 1989, and since then he has raced almost every one of the 53 km Hawaiian enduros. This is the most revered ocean ski race in the world, paddlers are faced with an ocean crossing, traversing the Kaiwi Channel from Molokai island to Oahu.

So dominant was Dean, that the race record that was set in 1994 – and he bettered in 1998 – held strong for 24 years,