KAYAKING NEWS ITEM

Paddler Attempts New World Record

TUESDAY, 23 OCTOBER 2007

Simon Blackburn, 40, did a 24-hour paddle in an attempt to break a 23-year-old world record.

With a year’s preparation, Blackburn, who has been kayaking for 30 years, has started the grueling paddle at sea that began at Richards Bay on Sunday afternoon and ended at Port Shepstone about 4pm yesterday.

Blackburn claims that he has been waiting for four months to the right weather to ensure that he can take this trip. “The ideal weather was to get the northeast wind, which flows in the same direction as the Mozambique current heading towards Port Shepstone.”

Blackburn is hoping to break American Randy Fine’s world record for the longest paddle at sea, when he paddled 194.1 km along the Californian coast in June 1986.

“My goal is to paddle 250 km,” Blackburn says. He would follow the Guinness World Record rules, requiring him to stop at one-and-a-half hour intervals.

Blackburn’s paddle is in preparation for his dream to do the Africa Challenge and to become the first surf ski paddler to reach 320,000 km.

He hopes that Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, patron of the challenge, will see him off in September next year when he sets off from Cape Town to embark on the 22-month trip around Africa to raise HIV and Aids awareness.

For more information on this news story, please visit www.themercury.co.za.

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