As Boxing day nears so does Sydney to Hobart.
I enjoy the start and the run out the Heads but once out into the Bass Strait it is a non event due to no TV coverage, nevertheless good on to all those who are competing.
Came across this crazy photo, possibly part of the Sydney to Hobart fleet probably not but there would be some crazy people who would take that challenge on, but not Sydney to Hobart but Coffs to Sydney might be a less gruelling coarse?
Anyway Merry Christmas.
Kind Regards
Walt
That's not Sarah Hebert
www.smh.com.au/world/nothing-is-impossible-frenchwoman-sets-off-to-windsurf-across-atlantic-20120223-1towi.html
Hebert, who says that she is using a "common-or-garden" windsurfing board, is being accompanied by a support boat with a four-man crew.
In 2005, she was near the peak of her career when she was diagnosed with ventricular tachycardia, a potentially life-threatening condition that saw her heart rate climb to up to 300 times a minute during hard exercise.
To prevent a heart attack, doctors implanted a battery-operated defibrillator to regulate her heartbeat using electrical impulses.
Hebert, who grew up in New Caledonia, described it as a "difficult time", not just physically and mentally but also after the French sailing authorities withdrew her licence to compete.
www.smh.com.au/world/nothing-is-impossible-frenchwoman-sets-off-to-windsurf-across-atlantic-20120223-1towi.html#ixzz2npBC41Zy
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Of distance sailboarding, this old thread is a great read (found on-line, not via this site, unfortunately); www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/General/windsuring-record/
Hi jusavina, thanks for the clarification on the photo.
I thought it was just a random photo just to see if someone can sail a board/yacht did not realise there was a serious attempt. Great effort from her to achieve that crossing the stamina to hold that sail and the drag of the board/yacht would be a challenge in its self.
Kind regards
Walt
Arnaud de Rosnay sailed something like 1100 miles across the Pacific on something pretty much like a Raceboard with a swag attached for sleeping in. At night he would tie the mast sideways across the board, fit inflatable floats to each end, and set a little kite to pull him while he slept inside the "swag".
I think that something similar would actually be pretty practical (by some definitions of the term
) for the Sydney to Hobart* with the right sailor, but you'd obviously lose vast amounts of time compared to the yachts by slowing right down or stopping to sleep, as well as being slow in light winds. And if anything goes wrong you could be in trouble very, very quickly, as Arnaud apparently found out.
* I've spent days looking at the sea when racing to Hobart (5 times), Noumea (twice) etc and visualising how a board would handle it. It's much, much tougher out in the Strait than playing about near shore or in waves because of the duration you are sailing and the danger, but it's doable with the right sailor. I'd take a modified Raceboard because you need the versatile performance and a small sail, and to be honest there's very, very few people who could do it. You'd have to be top 10 or so nationally, highly trained, and have a lot of long distance offshore miles; out there at 2 am when a rain squall comes in you're in a very tense situation, very different from normal windsurfing.
