Photo: Lucky Bastards Co.
The brothers at Lucky Bastard Co. have already long surpassed the original $10,000 fundraising goal of their Kickstarter campaign. The business had been up and running with their line of handmade “gentleman’s lip balm,” which started as a team brand assignment in college, when they decided to start making a mineral-based, reef-safe sunscreen line as well. That $10,000 will help them launch the new product and take part in protecting our oceans with an environmentally-safe product. But when that goal was passed up, Chad Lieske, one of the brothers and co-founders in the Lucky Bastard duo, decided to set the new bar sky high.
The new fundraising goal: $80,000.
Chad’s promise if their Kickstarter were to reach that mark: paddling from Los Angeles to Catalina Island — approximately a 22-mile journey — butt naked. Well, virtually butt naked. He’s going to lather himself head to toe in their new sunscreen as a test, “thus proving to the mainstream that these safe alternative sunscreens work without using all of the toxic chemicals that are killing us and our oceans,” he says.
When the idea first started floating around the Lucky Bastards clan, Chad says he considered making it an open ocean swim to celebrate a successful fundraiser. But of course, that wouldn’t do their new sunscreen any justice; he’d be spending the entire journey with his body mostly submerged in water. And that’s when a friend offered his 16-foot paddleboard.
Regardless, it won’t be easy. Chad had surgery on his left shoulder and labors his way through a torn labrum in his right shoulder, which will “add to the difficulty,” he says. And after talking to other people who have completed the same paddle, he’s been warned how tough it’s going to be, whether that means trying to grunt straight through the whole thing in one try or breaking the swim into sections by getting out of the water to rest and then returning to his last place. The enthusiasm from friends, he says, has other people offering to do it all with him for support and raising awareness of how common sunscreen contributes to our coral bleaching problem.
“I’m assuming I’ll have to train quite a bit to get my shoulders ready for it,” he says. “I paddle around here and there but running this business, I don’t even surf as much as I’d like to. And I know even that’s totally different doing long-distance paddling versus just catching waves at Breakwater here.”
Yes, it definitely sounds a tad tougher than your morning paddle at the Venice Breakwater. And what about the chaffing? He’ll need a whole lot of lip balm–or Neosporin–for that afterward.
Learn more about Lucky Bastards Co and Chad’s paddle pledge here.
