About two dozen people gathered at a boat launch in Chickasaw to watch a 72-year-old man leave on a journey most people half his age would not attempt. Robert Youens and Steve Hernden pushed off from the Brooks Park Boat Launch and began working their way down Mobile Bay, bound for the Great Loop — and, they hope, a second world record.
What the Great Loop Actually Is
The Great Loop is one of the more remarkable inland journeys available to a boater anywhere in the world, and most people who live along it have never heard of it. It is a continuous circuit of roughly 6,000 miles of connected waterways that traces the eastern half of North America: up the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway along the East Coast, through the Hudson River and the New York State canal system, into the Great Lakes and Canadian waters, down the inland rivers — the Illinois, the Mississippi, the Tennessee-Tombigbee — and back out into the Gulf of Mexico, where it closes the loop right here, on the Alabama coast. Boaters who complete it are known as “Loopers,” and the traditional trip takes about a year. Most who attempt it are retirees with time to spend and no particular reason to hurry. Youens is hurrying.
The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway — the “Tenn-Tom” — is the link that makes the loop accessible from the Gulf Coast, connecting the Tennessee River to the Tombigbee, which runs down through Alabama and Mississippi to meet the Gulf. For a boater starting in Mobile County, the Tenn-Tom is the inland artery that eventually feeds the Mississippi and the rest of the circuit, which is part of why a Gulf Coast start is both practical and symbolic: the journey leaves and returns to the same stretch of Alabama water.
Why He’s Going
Asked why he would do this at 72, Youens gave an answer worth quoting at length.
“Because it’s a challenge. Because they feel healthy and they’re up to it. And heck, I’m a 72-year-old man. I feel healthy. It’s a great challenge. And I get to get out there in nature, feel the pulse of the earth and the ocean. And what else could you hope to do when you’re my age?”
It is a fair question, and one most people never get around to asking themselves. Youens is not new to long-distance boating. His 2025 solo completion of the Loop aboard the Ageless Wanderer — done in just over 19 days — already places him among a small group of speed-run Loopers who treat the roughly 6,000-mile circuit as a race against the clock rather than a year-long cruise.
The Second Record
This is not Youens’ first attempt at the record books, and the choice of a starting line is not incidental. The Great Loop begins and ends wherever the boater chooses, and Youens chose Mobile County — meaning the clock starts and stops on the Gulf Coast, in front of the people who know him.
Speed runs of the Loop are a different discipline from the leisurely year-long version. They demand long days on the water, tight fuel and provisioning logistics, careful timing around lock schedules on the inland river system, and a tolerance for weather windows that a cruising Looper would simply wait out. The inland river stretch in particular is unforgiving on a schedule. Locks operate on their own timetables, commercial barge traffic gets priority, and a boater running against the clock can lose hours waiting for a chamber to cycle.
The “unlimited record” category Youens and Hernden pursued allows an unrestricted number of motors, crew members and boat types, but the pair chose to travel light — just the two of them, one motor and a small jon boat. A jon boat is a flat-bottomed, shallow-draft craft built for calm rivers and lakes rather than open water or a 6,000-mile circuit, which makes the attempt as much a statement of minimalism as of speed.
The Send-Off
The crowd at Brooks Park was small — roughly two dozen people, cameras out, watching a boat pull away from a launch ramp in a working-class city on the Mobile River. Chickasaw is not a place that gets much attention. It is a compact industrial city north of Mobile, wedged between the river and the highway, and it does not typically serve as the starting line for anything. On Sunday morning, it did.
Chickasaw’s location on the Mobile River, just upstream from the city of Mobile and a short run from Mobile Bay, makes it a natural — if overlooked — jumping-off point for a Gulf Coast boater. The Brooks Park Boat Launch gives access to the river system that connects, through a series of waterways, to the entire eastern North American interior. That a record-setting attempt would begin there is a small point of local pride for a community more often known for its shipyards and industry than its marinas.
Following Along
Long-distance boating attempts of this kind are typically tracked publicly, and the Gulf Coast will be watching for the return — because whenever Youens and Hernden finish, the finish line is here.
Update: Journey Halted After Hull Breach
Youens and Hernden’s bid for the record has come to an early end. The pair had set out to pursue the Great Loop’s “unlimited record” category, which allows an unrestricted number of motors, crew members and boat types, but chose to travel light — just the two of them, one motor and a small jon boat. The team made it from Chickasaw as far as Lake Erie before a hull breach forced them to stop and make repairs, according to updates posted to Hernden’s Facebook page. Hours after reporting the damage, Hernden announced the attempt was over.
“After a great run, we have some bad news for you guys. Robert and I have decided to call off the remainder of our loop run,” Hernden wrote in the post. Hernden did not detail the extent of the damage but said more information would follow. He thanked the people who tracked the pair’s progress and turned out along the route.
“The amount of people who have come out to cheer us on or meet at the fuel stops has been incredible,” Hernden said. “Thank you for spending some of your time to see a couple dudes in a Jon boat.”
Last year, Youens completed the Great Loop solo aboard his boat, the Ageless Wanderer, in 19 days, 13 hours and one minute, departing from and returning to Pensacola to set the current record. This year’s run, which began July 13, was an attempt to add the unlimited-category record as well before it was cut short in the Great Lakes. Lake Erie, the southernmost of the Great Lakes, sits roughly two-thirds of the way around the circuit — the pair had traveled through the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, up the East Coast, through New York’s canal system and into the lakes before the hull breach ended the attempt. For a 72-year-old who circled half a continent by boat in under 20 days a year earlier, the early stoppage is a reminder that even a seasoned Looper answers to the water, not the clock.