A pretty good sail, made the news here in L.A. too
Wonder how many times he dumped it?!?![}:)]http://www.kptv.com/story/18592869/red-bull-athlete-kai-lenny-wind-surfs-across-lake-michigan
A great effort, BUT to be fair, what about guys like Kato, Dave Moorehead and Sheartip who do these kinds of distances every other day of the week. It just happens that they are doing it in the same static spot of water, but given the right location that sort of feat would be a walk in the park for them!
looking at the gpstc site there are prob close to 200 sailors who have sailed this sort of distance..in a day, however i suspect most would of stopped at various times for breaks (i think from memory i sailed the swan non stop for 200odd ks' a few years ago and Claude likewise).
the pics of Kai sailing in the lake suggest he wasnt sailing flat water like a lot of us have done so it would of been a fair effort?
i think it probably was a fair effort but hardly an achievement, with the gear setup right he would have just been cruising the whole way on one tack
it says he averaged 25 knots which sounds pretty fast for 56 miles but with no turns sounds pretty cruisey for an elite athlete
just my opinion
but i definitely think that there are a fair few people around even locally that could have gone faster
It said he sailed for 2.5hrs. That doesn't seem like much of an effort to be sailing for only that period of time.
The same distance is from Long Reef to Wollongong or further than Melbourne to Geelong so that sounds a bit better of an achievement.
In Sydney you could not drive there that quickly! Ha ha
I think the bigger achievement is he got to go windsurfing for 2 1/2 hrs on a Friday.
There's a little bit of "sense of exposure" in the middle of Botany Bay, nowhere near as much as Lake Michigan I suppose. It's fairly choppy in the middle, probably not as choppy as lake Michigan. 7km is a long time on one tack, but not as much as 90 km. I've been from Kurnell to Kyeemah and back in one afternoon. Phew! Has anyone done it 7 times in 2.5 hours?
There's your challenge for the next good noreaster,
Personally I think it's a good effort, watch the video the water's not exactly flat, good going on one tack I'd think 
good effort, i imagine you would have to comfortable on your gear tho, i cant do it as my back is ruined from slalom sailing now, but not back for an arvos work
I reckon the more interesting thing about this is, it looks like his using 2013 kit and it looks GREAT
or am i wrong..
WTF? Some people think it is easy as they have done that distance in a session? Yeah, back and forth
On one tack it is fkn difficult - your muscles would be screaming after half an hour let alone 2 and a half.
On the old Rotto crossing after 30mins flat out on one tack in swell a lot of the pro's said they were hurting
A little perspective from a worn out old fella.
I have sailed open ocean 160K's in 5 & 1/2hrs without stepping off my board but it was a nice cruisy day. For comparison I recently I did 12K's on one tack open ocean with the wind and chop up, I was bloody glad to get to where I was going, novelty was wearing off.
I know there are guys here who can do it, but if he did do 56 miles on one tack as I think he would have, I still think it's good going in those conditions. I don't think it's about the fact he might be the only one who could do it, but the fact he did do it, good on him 
in 1983 a medical student, Gavin Lesueur, windsurfed from Melbourne to Sydney to raise money for cancer research.
Let's not forget Arnaud DeRosnay
from http://www.windsurfing-legends.com/arnaud-de-rosnay.html
1979 Speed sailing down the Sahara coast from Nouadhibou to Dakar in 58 hours spread over 12 days.
1979 Across the Bering Straight in 8 hours.
1980 Sailed alone and unescorted from the island of Nuku Hiva in French Polynesia to the atoll of Ah? near Tahiti. He covered some 750 nautical miles in 11 days and 10 nights at sea.
1981 Failed English Channel crossing attempt. In a race with Ken Winner, de Rosnay had to be air lifted out. Having won the race by default, Ken followed suit.
1984 Key West to Cuba in 7 hours.
1984 Across the Sea of Okhotsk from Hokkaido to Sakhaline
1984 Attempted to cross the Straits of Formosa from China to Tiwaan
The great lakes are inland oceans not just freshwater lakes.
The water is very rough, often rougher than many oceans because it is shallower, for large ships it is regarded as more dangerous than the ocean.
Not sure if he had an escort but the terrain is flat and only a few miles out you would lose sight of shore so navigation would be an issue.
Also very cold.
Looks like a great effort to me. It is not comparable to the long distance sails you normally see on the GTC.
Sailing on the same tack for more than a few kms is hard work on my back leg. 25kts for 9kms and my back leg is burning and he did 2.5 hours at 25 kts presumably on the same tack all of the time.
No one has mentioned that the 'great lakes' are toxic cess pits!
Dont be fooled by the lovely colour of the water!
Between meat processing plants,Nuclear power plants on the edge of the lake, and other Industrial waste, you get the drift. They have been trying to clean the lake and its waterways for the best part of last centuary, apprently its getitng better!
I was there a few years ago and enquired about sailing in the 'great lakes' they thought I was mad! Not to mention even in summer its bloody cold.
They tell me up at the Canadian end the waters alsmost clean enough to any fish that you can catch! So with that in mind, ballsy effort, great PR for windsurfing no matter what. Its one hell of a big lake though, amazing place.
Yeah I was checking it out on Google Earth and saw what appeared to be some sort of factory on the lake side with a carpark full of cars. Zeroing in on it brought up it is the Palisades Nuclear power plant
yeah forgot about him.. what did he do ?? was it Alaska to Russia, Korea north to south, north america to cuba, then china to taiwan and never to be see again..... pretty awesome feat .. guy was a bit of a tool though
