INTERNATIONAL: Portuguese kitesurfer Francisco Lufinha successfully sailed some 6,400 kilometres across the Atlantic using only the power of kites to pull his small boat.
The 38-year-old adventurer set out from Cascais, near the Portuguese capital of Lisbon on November 3. He has arrived in the Caribbean island of Martinique on twenty of December, and now he is looking forward to receive his Guinness World Record.
Lufinha was only at sea 25 of those days, however, a planned stop at the Canary Islands was prolonged due to adverse winds forcing him to remain there from November 8 until November 30.
The kitesurfer has shared the difficulties of his adventure: "This has been a hell of a challenge. There have been some problems with water. Water getting inside the boat, inside the battery compartment. I've been having a few worries and some trouble to get it (water) out, but I'm managing. And also, some kites have exploded. I have now three standard kites, two seven-meter kites and one 25-meter big one. So, I wish I had some more intermediate kites, but no. So, I am now using the seven-meter, very small kite. But it's fine. We're moving here about 12 knots, from 10 - 15 (knots), which is OK."
Lufinha made the crossing completely on his own in a 7.2-metre-long and 5.6-metre-wide trimaran with a small, cockpit-sized cabin. He acquired fresh water for his trip using a hand pump that converted sea water via reverse osmosis, explaining:
"So, I only take 15 litres of fresh water to drink, and that's in case of an emergency, or at least for the last days. So, to produce water, I need to use this water maker. I have two of these. Which I can pump and every hour I can make around four litres of water. So, it uses reverse osmosis to remove the salt from the sea water and I can get four liters of water every hour. And I do it in terms of 10 minutes every time. So with this, I can drink water and I can use the dehydrated meals so that I can get some nutrients inside."
All the power needed onboard was generated using solar powers and Lufinha steered his launch using remote controls that positioned his kites. The kite-powered vessel reached top speeds of over 30 km/h.
Even with problems and challenges, the kitesurfer has shown his pride for overcoming obstacles and conquering his task:
"This challenge was a big learning experience. It was a big test of my resilience. I learned a lot. I learned most of all to look at my problems relatively. I had so many problems all of the time, kites getting torn, kites exploding. And the only way to not suffer was to think, 'it could be worse. A kite could be tangled in the rudder, I could have broken the rudder too,' and things like that. And with that I managed to get through it hour by hour, day by day, week by week until I got here to the Caribbean and finished this EDP Atlantic Mission."
With his mission completed on the other side of the Atlantic, now Lufinha hopes to be inducted into the Guinness World Records for the fastest Atlantic crossing in a kite boat.
