Gear guide
A Great Loop speed record is ~4,500–5,300 miles of river, canal, lake and open water in two to three weeks, run mostly on fuel-dock schedules, lock hours and weather windows. Every crew on this site — from Lady Lor's 1,050-hp Contender to Robert Youens' 16-foot jon boat — solved the same six problems: proving the run, carrying enough fuel, staying alive, seeing at night, talking to each other, and staying connected. Here's how they did it, and what we'd pick today.
Nothing here is sponsored. Where a crew's gear is documented on their own page we say so; where it isn't, we say what we'd choose and why. Some links may become affiliate links (we'd earn a small commission at no cost to you) — see the disclosure. Prices are approximate U.S. street prices at the time of writing and change constantly. Check the maker's site before you buy.
There's no sanctioning body for Great Loop records, so the tracker is the record. Every attempt on this site published a live, public GPS track; that's what the community checks, and it's what we replay against the record-holders' real pace on the home-page dials.
| Garmin inReach Mini 2 / Marine Bundle | The workhorse. Youens, Bandit, Liberty Looper and Fast Marine all ran Garmin inReach with a public MapShare page. Iridium satellite, works anywhere on the Loop including the offshore Gulf legs where phones die. Two-way texting and SOS. The Marine Bundle adds a deck mount and power cable so it's never a dead battery. Set the tracking interval to 10 minutes — that's the cadence every run on this site used. ~$400 for the Mini 2; subscription from about $15/mo (SOS + messages) to about $35/mo for unlimited 10-minute tracking. Garmin inReach lineup ↗ |
| Garmin inReach Messenger / Messenger Plus | Cheaper, longer battery (~28 days standby), same Iridium network and MapShare. The Plus adds photo and voice-clip messaging over satellite. Good pick if you'll navigate on a chartplotter or phone anyway and only need the tracker to track. |
| Nebo | A phone app + optional hardware tracker that publishes a public boat page. Lady Lor and Freedom Fighter ran Nebo — but Freedom Fighter's went dark mid-run and the crew fell back to AIS, which only works near shore. Run Nebo and a satellite tracker, not instead of one. |
| AIS transponder (Class B) | Not a record tracker (terrestrial receivers only, so it vanishes offshore) but it lets tugs and ships see you on the rivers at night, which matters more. Any Class B unit from Vesper, em-trak or Garmin. |
Make the tracker page public, start the clock from a fixed, named start line (a bridge, a marker, a dock) and post it, and keep the raw track. Fast Marine's official time came from their own clock at the Sunshine Skyway; White Lightning's start is a tracker timestamp at Kentucky Dam. If it isn't public and timestamped, it isn't a record.
Fuel is the whole game on a record run. Lady Lor carried ~600 gallons (430 built in plus a dozen 15-gallon jugs Youens talked them into two weeks out); Youens plumbed seven 12-gallon tanks in a jon boat for ~800 miles of range; a Sea-Doo carries 18.5 gallons and Fast Marine ran the Gulf crossing on it. Steve Hernden's 2022 run burned 2,772 gallons ($13,552); Red Flowers' 2024 run cost ~$17,000 in fuel.
| Flexible fuel bladders | The record-crew answer to "not enough tank." Collapsible marine bladders (ATL FueLocker / Fuel Safe, Fleximake, Nauta) in 25–100+ gallon sizes lie flat in a cockpit or on deck and shrink as they empty. Use gasoline-rated cells only, secure them, and plumb a transfer pump rather than siphoning underway. ATL bladders ↗ |
| Jerry cans + transfer pump | Cheaper and what most small-boat runs actually use: 5–15 gallon marine cans strapped in, and a 12 V transfer pump or a proper gravity manifold. Youens' set-up let him draw from any tank without stopping — that's the standard to aim for. |
| Fuel-flow / range math | A NMEA fuel-flow sensor (or the engine's own gauge on a modern outboard) plus a spreadsheet of fuel docks and their hours. Every crew on this site talks about fuel-dock hours as much as fuel-dock locations — a closed dock at 6 p.m. costs a night. |
| Inflatable PFD, worn all day | Auto-inflating belt or vest so you'll actually wear it for 20 hours a day: Mustang Survival MIT 150 or Onyx A/M-24 for boats; a Coast Guard-approved jet-ski vest for PWC runs (Fast Marine and Kasey Perella rode in vests, not belts). Re-arm kits in the spares box. |
| Engine cut-off lanyard | Federal law on boats under 26 feet since 2021, and the single biggest solo-run safety item. Wireless versions (Fell Marine MOB+, Autotether) cover a crew moving around a bigger boat. |
| PLB on your body | The inReach is on the boat; a personal locator beacon (ACR ResQLink, Ocean Signal rescueME) is on you. Liberty Looper's run ended in urgent care after a jumping fish strike — the unexpected is the point. |
| Bilge, fire, first aid | Two bilge pumps with float switches, a marine extinguisher within reach of the helm, and a real trauma kit (tourniquet, pressure dressings) — not a drugstore box. |
Lady Lor ran around the clock — only three nights lost to Erie Canal lock hours — and that's where the outright record was won. Night running on the rivers means barges, wing dams, unlit buoys and debris.
| Handheld / remote spotlight | A rechargeable LED handheld in the 1,000–2,000-lumen class (e.g. Bigblue, Stanley FatMax, or a marine unit from West Marine) for picking out buoys and lock walls, plus a mounted remote-control light (Golight Stryker, Marinco) if you'll run nights routinely. Red or dimmable modes save your night vision. |
| Night vision / thermal | Lady Lor carried a SiOnyx digital night-vision camera; a FLIR Ocean Scout or a helm-mounted thermal camera does the same job at higher cost. Nothing else finds a floating log at 30 knots. |
| Radar | White Lightning shipped with a custom radar mount on a 26-foot RIB — that's how seriously the fast crews take it. A small solid-state dome (Garmin Fantom, Raymarine Quantum, Simrad Halo) on anything that has the power to run it. |
| Crew headsets | At speed you can't hear a shout. Two-boat PWC teams (Fast Marine ran two skis for most of the Loop) use motorcycle-style mesh intercoms — Cardo Packtalk or Sena — clipped to the helmet or vest. On a boat, wireless full-duplex headsets (Eartec UltraLITE, "Marriage Saver"-type sets) let the helm and the fuel-handler talk over three outboards. |
| VHF — fixed and handheld | A fixed DSC VHF with AIS receive at the helm, and a floating handheld (Standard Horizon HX890 or similar) in your PFD. Lock-masters and tugs are on 13/16 — you'll use it fifty times a day. |
| Starlink Mini | Lady Lor carried Starlink; the Mini is the version that fits a small boat — laptop-sized, ~2.5 lb, runs off 12 V/USB-C, works in motion, and costs about $199 for the hardware with Roam plans from roughly $55/month. Weather, fuel-dock calls, the crew's own tracker page and your fans' comments all ride on it. Check current plan terms for on-water and in-motion use before you go. |
| Charts & routing | Aqua Map (with Waterway Guide and Army Corps survey overlays for the rivers), Navionics or Garmin charts on the plotter, and the AGLCA / Waterway Guide fuel-dock listings. Every crew on this site planned fuel stops in a spreadsheet first. |
| Power | A dedicated house battery or a 12 V lithium power station for the tracker, phones, headsets, Starlink and the spotlight — the electronics on a record run draw more than the nav lights do. |
| Lady Lor (outright record, 2025) | Contender 40 Express, triple Yamaha 350s, ~600 gal fuel incl. jerry cans, twin Garmin hubs, autopilot, SiOnyx night vision, Seakeeper Ride, Starlink, Nebo tracker, crew of four running 24/7. |
| Robert Youens (solo/jon-boat record, 2025) | 16′ Weldbilt jon boat, 60 hp Tohatsu, seven plumbed 12-gal tanks (~800-mi range), Garmin inReach MapShare, alone for 19½ days. |
| Fast Marine (solo & PWC records, 2026) | Sea-Doo RXT-X 325 (18.5-gal tank), Garmin MapShare, night running where states allow, two skis for most of the Loop. |
| Freedom Fighter (2026) | 25′ SAFE Boat Defender, Nebo tracker (failed mid-run) with AIS backup — the cautionary tale for running one tracker. |
| White Lightning (live, 2026) | Highfield Sport 800 RIB, Yamaha power, custom radar mount, satellite tracker at 10-minute fixes, crew of two. |
| Kasey Perella (solo PWC completion, 2025) | Sea-Doo Explorer Pro 170, ~100 mi per 18.5-gal tank plus 20 gal in cans, ~200-mile days. |
Tell us — send a tip — and we'll put you on the live map with a real record-pace dial. And if you've run the Loop fast and have a gear list that beat ours, we'd like to print it.