Legends in paddling award

2024 - Deb Volturno

Her status as a legend is not just made up of her significant accomplishments but is also formed by her impact on the sea kayaking community.  Deb Volturno is an American Canoe Association Level 5: Advanced Open Water Coastal Kayaking Instructor Trainer Educator and Level 4: Performance Surf Kayaking Instructor Trainer Educator. Many, or even most, of the instructors in the Pacific Northwest region have received training, assessment, and/or mentoring in their journeys from Deb. Deb is a key player in this critical time for the surf kayaking discipline and its current revival within the ACA. Deb has been a part of surf kayaking from the earliest days when there was just one class of surf kayaking, and she was a fixture in the Bay Area/Santa Cruz kayaking scene for a long time, participating in competitions and running the California Canoe & Kayak outpost in Half Moon Bay with future fellow Tsunami Ranger John Lull. Deb currently holds the rank of Captain of the Tsunami Rangers, an ocean adventure kayaking team that originated near San Francisco. A sea kayak surf champion, Deb was also a member of the US Surf Kayak Team, which she represented in numerous competitions put on by the World Surf Kayak Association across the world.  

She is also one of the founding members of Surf Sirens, an instructional and community-building event (now expanded to New Zealand) focused on introducing more women to kayak surfing. From exploring traditional kayaking history through building both Inuit and Aleut skin-on-frame kayaks to paddling extensively all over the world – Alaska all along the west coast of the U.S. and Canada, Baja Mexico, Italy, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and Brazil – Deb is not just an accomplished and talented paddler, she is also deeply committed to developing and contributing to the paddling community. She’s committed to supporting sea kayakers at all levels, and she also helped start Olympic Peninsula Paddlers, a kayak club in Port Angeles, Washington. Moreover, as evidenced by testimonials from various paddlers, Deb has had a tremendous impact on the Mountaineers (an outdoor community focused on exploration of the outdoors) sea kayaking community. She is not only a member who has taught numerous clinics for the club, she has also had an impact in one form or another in the training, certification, and mentoring of sea kayak leaders across various Mountaineer club branches who hold ACA sea kayaking instructor certifications. Much like her impact across the Pacific Northwest, Deb is a common thread in the influence of technical and teaching skills in the region, but more than that, she has influenced a collective endeavor to make sea kayaking more accessible, inclusive, and representative.