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Windsurf to Ireland - Henry Cartwright
A trip beyond my wildest dreams! 50.31 miles in 5 hours 4 mins from Whitesands Beach, Wales 🏴 to land at Churchtown Beach, Ireland.
What looked like a perfect forecast lined up, although I've hired a van and driven to Wales to do this very crossing 4 times before on a 'perfect' forecast and not even launched once. The Irish Sea is so volatile. Finally, I had the opportunity to catch the start of a force 5 S turning SSW and decided to put up the 7m sail and leave the beautiful Whitesands Welsh beach as quickly as possible. I knew that I had to be at 52' N exactly half way across, mentally computing my slippage northwards with distance travelled, which I just about managed. At that stage it all seemed under control.
Then at mile 30 the wind kicked in - excessively - and I was in real danger of missing the south east corner of Ireland as the gusts were forcing me to head up in a westerly directly in order to spill the wind instead of heading north west. Some very very near catapults trying to bear away but thankfully staying dry. Cramp was building and I was getting desperate for a rest but daren't as the prospect of restarting seemed too risky. At mile 38 after about 4 hours I spotted what I thought was land but wasn't sure if the port control tower (on land) was in fact Tusker Lighthouse which sits 5 miles offshore east of Rosslare. Either way I was way too far south. The key advice from the only other person in the world to have done this crossing, Jonathan Dunnett, was 'do not go south of Tusker Lighthouse'. I was about to find out why. Big sea from the shallows and a ripping spring tide tears around this corner of the country and I now had a real prospect of missing Ireland or at best landing with the shore dump of a lee shore. The board was taking off and I still needed to bear away. After the momentary elation of sighting land, it disappeared behind one of the many rain/wind squalls of the day and at that point my watch said 6'14 W (Rosslare being 6'16 W) my only conclusion was that I had missed the SE corner of Ireland.
Then out of nowhere the clouds parted and the visibility cleared and the land was right in front of me - no more than 3 miles away -with windmill blades carving through the grey sky. One more patch of churning foul water (think Chi Harbour bar) and I was able to cruise in on the flat and ironically run aground after 5 hours 4 mins without a break or having fallen in once!! Big relief. Some sweets, a drink, drone shots and a chat with a friendly local Graham - who amazingly already knew me from the videos- and then I launched back out to windsurf northwards to reach Rosslare. The watch showed 58.80 miles in 6 hours 47 mins when I entered the small boat harbour - rain lashing down and with the wind whistling - I was very glad to be in.
What followed was about an hour of walking and chafing in my wetsuit to speak to the Port Authority about the possibility of putting my kit on a ferry the next day for a return crossing; miles of lorries and fences. I told them I had just broken a world record for the fastest ever windsurf across the Irish Sea and they agreed to make an exception! Thank you to Ptol Slattery, Rob Arzon and my family for tracking. Also thanks to Jonathan Dunnett for his advice and pioneering this crossing! I will post a full vid to the channel so please do subscribe if you haven't already and would like to see that!
Tracking: https://my.yb.tl/Henry/