Tuesday, January 25, 2011

History of kayak crossings

Countdown to Fortaleza: 260 miles (420 km)

Aleksander has already a word record in the duration of kayak expedition on open ocean. Today is 91st day of his epic journey. But what were the others?

In 2003 "The Paddler" magazine published article written by Dexter Mahaffey entitled "The 10 All-time Greatest Sea Kayaking Expeditions". Every expedition in top10 is amazing, but only 4 of them are real open ocean long-distance crossings.
  • Peter Bray’s North Atlantic Crossing, 2001 (76 days)
  • Ed Gillet’s California to Hawaii Crossing, 1987 (63 days)
  • Hannes Lindemann’s Atlantic Crossing, 1956 (72 days)
  • Franz Romer’s Atlantic Crossing, 1928 (56 days)
Since 2003 only two important ocean crossings has taken place. Both of them where in 2007 on Tasman Sea. One was successful tandem expedition, unfortunately the other ended tragically:
  • Expedition "Crossing The Ditch" by James Castrission and Justin James (62 days) (watch on YouTube)
  • Andrew McCauley "Tasman Solo" (died 35 miles (55 km) from the coast) (watch on YouTube

 As you see history of ocean kayak expeditions is very short. Aleksander's "Transaltantic" is already part of this history.

1 comment:

  1. I have just come across this blog - what an amazing undertaking and achievement!! Fantastic!! Best wishes and happy landings!

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