Shark attack victim update<\/a><\/p>\nThe 34-year-old’s brother said she was awake, speaking with loved ones and her medical team and “remembers the whole event in detail”.<\/p>\n
“I’m hoping Leah is doing alright and I feel incredibly grateful that I get to have an experience like this in the ocean.”Hurricane conditions<\/p>\n
Mr Verco had to navigate through “really big swells” and “strong winds” caused by Category 1 Hurricane Fausto, which was heading towards the Hawaiian Islands.<\/p>\n
Throughout the week, organisers had been monitoring the hurricane forecasts from the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in coordination with the United States Coast Guard and local emergency management partners.<\/p>\n
“I think with the cyclone we were a little worried about impacting, but it managed to stay far enough away that there was just good wind behind us,” Mr Verco said.<\/p>\n
Supporting him along the way in the escort boat was his brother, and father, Jamie Verco, who said the beginning of the race was “quiet”.<\/p>\n
![\"Mr](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9487cf11f13a55e5c8dfe9ce578452da.jpeg\")
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Mr Verco was supported by his father and brother in the escort boat. (Supplied: Moloka’i 2 O’ahu Paddleboard World Championships)<\/p>\n
“The swell wasn’t lining up with the wind at all and you have to be very patient not to burn a lot of energy trying to chase the swell that would take you in the wrong direction,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Through the middle of the channel he started to speed up and by the end he was really flying.<\/p>\n
“About an hour and a half out he said he’d have a crack at the record and his brother just said, ‘Yeah, go for it’.”<\/p>\n
The paddleboarder’s mother and sister were watching from home.<\/p>\n
Jamie Verco said he was “so proud” of his son.<\/p>\n
“He’s worked so hard and he’s a humble kid who’s put in the hard yards and does all the work and he’s got the rewards today,” he said.<\/p>\n
“He’s been quietly pleased with himself I think.”<\/p>\n
Race organisers said more than 35 Australians competed in the prone paddleboard competition with Mr Verco, with 38-year-old Stewart Mclachlan coming in second and 28-year-old Stone Harrison in third.<\/p>\n
Mr Verco said this year’s focus was to not “get ahead of himself”.<\/p>\n
“My goal was just to have fun with it. It was the same attitude I had throughout all my training, is not to be so stressed out.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A volunteer lifeguard who helped save a woman attacked by a shark on a Sydney beach has won…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5139,64046,28496,14444,22549,64036,32380,64042,64037,64047,64043,64045,29048,64041,596,64039,64040,64033,1981,64035,64038,247,64044,29729,4681,64034],"class_list":["post-59051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sydney","tag-bondi","tag-channel-of-bones","tag-charlie-verco","tag-coogee-beach","tag-cyclone","tag-first-place","tag-hawaii","tag-hawaiian-islands","tag-hurricance","tag-hurricane-fausto","tag-jamie-verco","tag-kaiwi-channel","tag-leah-stewart","tag-molokai-to-oahu","tag-nsw","tag-paddleboarder","tag-paddleboarding","tag-shark-attack-hero","tag-sharks","tag-swell","tag-swells","tag-sydney","tag-volunteer-lifeguard","tag-winner","tag-wins","tag-world-paddleboarding-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Mr](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/293309a7b37440bbf833c8f91faa2d91.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n