The Race to Beat the Guinness World Record as the Fastest Team to Row Down the Mississippi

On Tuesday, May 23, long-distance paddlers Scott Miller, Paul Cox, Wally Werderich, and Judson Steinback were furiously tracing their way down the Choctaw Bend on the Arkanasas/MIssissippi border, with over 1700 miles of Mississippi River behind them. This was the thirteenth day they had been on the water, taking turns sleeping, fighting fog and storms and ice and heat and the frustratingly unavoidable delays of the River’s locks and dams. They were moving at a pace twenty-five hours faster than the standing Guinness World Record for “Fastest Time to Row the Length of the Mississippi River by a Team”. But they still had a long way to go to the mouth, and about a million things could go wrong.

Miller knew this well, this being his second attempt at beating the record. In 2021, he and his previous team had all but stuck the landing—making it almost all the way to New Orleans, barely 100 miles to the finish line and set to overtake the previous record (set just weeks before by “rival team” MMZero) of 17 days, 19 hours, and 46 minutes, when a violent storm forced the team to abandon ship.

Newly equipped with a souped-up boat with a new rudder, bilge pump, and battery; a Nascar-pit-crew-style Support Team of over twenty following behind in boats and on-land delivering home-made meals, water, batteries, and fresh clothes when needed; and a world-class paddling team with tens of thousands of miles of experience between them—Miller wanted to finally finish what he started.

“He’s doing everything right,” said Todd Foster, a close friend of Miller’s who has been acting as lead advisor on the operation and sharing frequent updates on the Mississippi Speed Record Facebook Page. “The whole team is. They’re in a good spot right now. I think they have a very, very good shot. But at the end of the day, it’s going to be the river that decides if the record is broken or not.”

To break the Guinness World Record, the Mississippi Speed Record team had to arrive at Mile Marker Zero at Head of Passes near the river’s mouth by May 28. 

On May 27 just after 2 am, the team arrived at the finish line—beating the record by almost 24 hours, and setting the new record of 16 days, 20 hours, and 16 minutes. 

Read more about the team's journey on their Facebook Page and Youtube Channel, as well as at mississippispeedrecord.com.