Long distance voyage or big downwind stories/suggestions

[flaherty]

A long time dream of mine would be to windsurf across cape cod bay. I'm thinking from Duxbury to P town. Maybe some sort of Charity event, kiters would be invited too. SW wind I guess.
or maybe NE. A tall order I know, but doable?

[outcast]

Flaherty:
kind of like this?

http://www.capecodbaychallenge.org/

Only problem is SW is a dead downwinder, so you'd need to be tacking downwind.

You could also meet the Pan-Mass, or Last Gasp

[flaherty]

Outcast...thanks for the link. I did a crossing in my younger days in an 18' boat with a 25hp motor, from the mouth of
the North River ( Scituate) to P town, no compass, nothing,
just a whim to try it!
Would need a foolproof rescue system, gps and cell phone
( does a cell phone work in the middle of Cape Cod bay?)
And boats.
Btw sailed yesterday at mayflower, just 2 windsurfers, and
2 kiters, many kiters at Chapin.

[JohnnyA]

DC,

For downwinders, on NE wind, give Rhody a shot, Narragansett- Town Beach, RI to Point Judith lighthouse , good wave sailing and jumping at Town beach, Scarbourgh, and Pt. Judith ( watch the submerged rocks ).

good luck !!

[speedysailor]

It's certainly amazing how many posters here want to constantly remind the readers here what vulgar, stupid and immature people they are. Whatever, every year I sail along the southern Cape Cod coast from Popponesset to Oyster Harbors and back in a S or SSW at low or newly flowing tide. If you want to increase the distance you can go all the way to Hyannis, but you then will not be able to come back. I know kiters that do this, too. There's no need for companionship or any additional safety equipment or prep.

[pueno]

[DelCarpenter]

If I had the Rhode Island area to play around in my choice of a long distance cruise would be using a longboard to go around any of the three largest islands in Narragansett Bay. The frequent tacks required going around the islands would be easier on my old geezer muscles than several miles in a row in one direction. The much more protected waters of the bay appeals to my sense of safety (I always wear a PFD), as does the longboard. And whatever scenery I see on the island would make the trip more interesting for me. My sensibilities are warped in those directions enough that I would rather do all the tacking needed to windsurf the Cape Cod Canal from Buzzard’s Bay to Cape Cod Bay than sail a straight line from Block Island to Point Judith though I believe I (and you) could do both.

Among the great stories of long distance windsurfing: Alex Morales (now in Miami area) escaped from Castro’s Cuba on a windsurfer in April, 1994 http://www.windsurfjournal.com/frontblocks/news/PaperView.asp?id_papers=3423&ID_BB_LANGUAGES=2

In the late 1980’s I remember reading in WindRider Magazine (now called Windsurfing Magazine) about a group of windsurfers who windsurfed on the Missouri River across the state of Missouri from Kansas City to St. Louis in about a week.

Raphaela Le Gouvello, a French woman, used a specially made craft (she could sleep in it) powered by normal windsurfing sails to cross the Atlantic from Senegal to Martinique, 2750 miles in 58.5 days in 2000. She later did long distance cruises on the Mediterranean Sea (2002) and the Pacific (2003) and the Indian (2006) Oceans. http://www.raphaela-legouvello.com/index_an.php?page=accueil

The Long Board Windsurfing Journal has a section on cruising which includes two articles by Trey Flemer.a sailor who built a special windsurfer for long distance cruising among the Florida Keys. http://www.lbwindsurfing.com/windsurf/cruising/