“If you do something that you think is really tough, and you complete it, then you go ‘shit man, I’ve done it, what’s next?’”
Murray Smith
In October 2009 kitesurfer Murray Smith will attempt to break the long distance world record (set at 125 miles) by a staggering 75 miles. Will the effort send shockwaves through the kitesurfing community? It really depends on whether the mainstream thinks ‘epic’ is where it’s at. He’s occupying a whole different space, physically and psychologically. Backed up by his recent ski-traverse of Greenland and his prior globe-trotting adventures – Nepal, the Amazon, and Siberia to name a few – he knows the body can endure more, last longer, ride harder. But with traditional sponsors trading off traditional contests, it may be a while before attempts like this are rewarded with anything more than a Guiness and an IV drip. As of now he’s carving out a frontier existence and doing the sport his way: no tricks, no scores, no crowds. Maybe he’s setting the blueprint for a new generation, or maybe he’s just riding himself into a position that no-one else can follow.
Vollebak talks to Murray Smith
So what’s the exact world record you’re going for?
Ok, so the exact world record we’re going for is the long distance kitesurf record. So basically it’s the amount of distance covered between two points. But in our case it’s three points because we’re going from Cornwall to Ireland, and then about twenty metres offshore from Ireland we’re going to tack off to Wales.
And is there a history of long distance kitesurfing?
Yeah. So for some reason it’s mainly women that do this. I say that because there’s two records really that have been set in this in the past. One of them is an English girl called Andreya Wharry back in 2005, and she tried to go from Watergate Bay – which is where we’re going from – back to Ireland. And she just wanted to go from beach to beach, but unfortunately she copped out 20 miles from Ireland because the wind picked up and got too strong for her, so she never actually made it. But she still set the women’s world record, which was about 120 miles I think, which is still bloody impressive.
How long did that take her?
That took her about 7, 8 hours I think.
And you’re going for 200 miles?
Yeah, there’s one other guy, I don’t think it’s a certified world record, but I’ve seen him on the internet, and he’s done 170 nautical miles, so that’s why we want to put that down – we want to do 200 nautical. Plus it would be the first person not only to go to Ireland itself, but to then go from Ireland to Wales. It’s just, why not? And basically I didn’t want to do it in a hot country, because in a way, if you say you’re going to a hot country to break a record, people in England just go ‘that’s an absolute holiday.’ Whereas you know they can relate to the British weather, and it is horrible, and the Irish Sea is notorious for being horrifically rough, and disgusting, and evil-looking.
How much of the course have you ridden before?
None of it! The longest distance I’ve done is back in the Caribbean last year when I literally just decided I wanted to go to a different island.
Yeah, talk us through the warm-up ride from Antigua to St Barts…
Yeah, I finished ‘Last Man Standing,’ and then got really bored, so ended up out in the Caribbean where I started working on super-yachts and stuff, but that turned out to be really quite boring as well. I had a great time on this island called Antigua but then thought time to move on, so pretty much rigged my kit on a beach in the morning…
So no preparation?
…well a little bit of preparation, I mean I didn’t have any money, once again. I managed to blag a few flares off a friend that were out of date, and I did actually go to the coastguard and say ‘I’m going to do this, is there any chance that you can wait for a phone call from me from the other end just to make sure I’ve come in?’ But they were like ‘Nah, we’re not going to come out and get you even if you do get in trouble.’ So then I went to customs, because you have to sign out of the country, and I explained my story and she just goes ‘We have no form for that mon.’ I couldn’t actually legally sign out of the country, but I just decided to do it anyway, because I just hate that whole legislation thing.
Basically I turned up on this beach 90 miles later through storms – like you get some really strong gales and fronts that come through – and then the wind will just disappear and stuff so it’s quite scary. But being in the middle of nowhere and on your own, and not seeing land for 5 hours is pretty sick. Plus there are sharks. When you’re sitting in the water having a little nibble on your chocolate bar you just feel like this human piece of bait. You can imagine the shark’s view, this fluorescent kite and little piece of meat just waiting to be nibbled on.
So did that inspire this new attempt, or did you have it planned already?
No, I always knew I was going to do this back from when I was a poor student. I was like ‘what can I do with the materials that I’ve got and the skills that I’ve got?’ So I decided yeah, tri-nation kitesurf.
And you think 200 miles is now within the realms of possibility?
Yeah, I mean I did 90 miles, and I kind of had the wrong kit for it, and set up wrong, and I had to get to this certain island otherwise I would have just disappeared off into the Atlantic. So you know, a mile either way and I would have just disappeared. But yeah, I knew that it was a good test there. So I was really hurting; when I turned up to the beach it was a proper crawl up the sand. It was sick, I mean my legs didn’t work at all, and that was only 9 hours, and we’re going to be going for 20. But I’ll hopefully have the kit set up.
What do you need to go right for this attempt to work?
The main thing is we have to wait for the perfect weather, because it’s quite difficult in England to get consistent wind. Say we wanted about 20 knots of wind; to have that for 20 hours is pretty much unheard of. So fingers crossed we are going to try and hope for that, but realistically it could start off at maybe 15 in the morning then pick up to gale force 8 by the evening when we’re heading into the dark.
Can you hold that?
Um, the kites have got a good range but it will become really choppy and really disgusting. You can imagine with the wind comes the waves.
How big do you anticipate the sea getting?
As a kitesurfer it’s alright because you kind of float over the waves. If they start breaking and stuff it’s a bit of a mission because you end up tripping over your board and stuff, but I’m a bit more worried about our support boat. They can get turned over, or submerged, or the engine could cut out, or the collar could fall off. So you know it’s nice to have a support boat, and everyone advises one, but it just throws in a whole lot of unknowns as well, and more responsibility for me.
Because in Antigua to St Barts you were on your own…
Yeah it was only me that was going to go down in flames of… well maybe not glory!
Is your mum cool with what you’re doing?
Yeah my folks love that I come up with these crazy ideas. They’re always a bit concerned about safety and stuff, but I think with this one they know that I’ve got every base covered. We’re carrying little transceivers which are great because they’re linked to Google Maps, so people can log onto the website and actually see where we are every 10 minutes.
How much are you relying on knowledge, and how much on guts?
Well there’s knowledge, guts, and then there’s luck as well, which I think is probably the key. I mean I’ve spent the past five, six years just staring out the window at trees you know – like waiting. You can tell by the trees how windy it’s going to be. You get a feeling naturally when you watch a weather chart or the weather on TV; you know how a weather system is going to react. So hopefully you know that experience is going to pay off. With regards to fitness you’ve just got to be as prepared as you can, because in the Caribbean I knew how painful it was going to be… well, I didn’t know it was going to be that painful, but I do now! It’s the legs. I mean you’re in one position, and your legs are just like suspension.
Kind of like when you’re skiing moguls?
Exactly, I mean it’s a mogul run for insane amounts of time. So you’re constantly tensed. So cramp is probably my main hate.
What average speed do you need to be hitting?
Well we could potentially do it in about 16 hours. If we go about 15 – 16 knots, which is about 20mph, then we should do it in about 17. But because we’re having a few breaks every hour to have a nibble and massage the legs a bit, if you stop 5 minutes every hour for 20 hours, that’s almost an hour of just sitting around.
Do you think you’ll be pulling a couple of tricks at the 100 mile mark?
Mate, I would love to pull a couple of tricks – show off the bottom of the board to the camera! I don’t know, the 100 mile mark, that will be a big hurdle. The biggest hurdle will be seeing Ireland because you wouldn’t have seen any land for about six, seven hours. So when you see that little greyness coming out from a distance…
Have you chatted any more to the Irish lifeguards about bringing you a Guinness offshore?
No! I think we’re going to take a few Guinnesses in the support boat for sure. You’ve got to. It would be ‘rude as’ not to.
So that will be your two minute break there?
I think we might expand to five minutes for a Guinness. But then I’m pretty worried that we might have to drink it out of a straw or something, because the sea water might jump in the can and that wouldn’t be quite so tasty.
How about your chances of getting run off course by a ship?
Obviously the English Channel is the busiest shipping lane in the world, but the Irish is still pretty bad. And we’re going through what are called separation zones, which is basically a shipping channel. It’s like a motorway for ships, and we’re going through two of them. I mean it’s end on end ships. You get told that any yachts have to go at 90 degrees to them. You can’t go along it; that’s a no-no. You just have to go straight diagonally across it. The thing is though they still travel at 15 knots, so the ship can be on you in like 10 minutes or something. And they’re massive things, and they create a big wind shadow as well. So if you get caught in that your kite’s going to mess up.
What do you think the limits are? Do you think once you’ve done this you’ll be wondering what 250 feels like?
Um yeah, I think that’s the natural evolution isn’t it. We always want to push harder and further. If you do something that you think is really tough, and you complete it, then you go ‘shit man, I’ve done it, what’s next?’ You’re going to go bigger, harder and faster aren’t you… every time. So yeah, I’m sure if I do complete it I will go onto bigger things and harder things.
What’s it going to be like riding into the night?
I’m excited. I’ve only done it once or twice, and that was with full moonlight so you can actually see where you’re going – you can see the waves in front of you. But I think it’s going to be like going into the gateway of hell really isn’t it… dark, gloomy. But you get a feeling for it. You get in the stride. But we’ve got little transceivers, so if we do disappear then hopefully someone can come and find us. But it will be the most dangerous part of the trip for sure.
Joe Simpson said ‘you may love the mountains, but it doesn’t mean they love you back.’ Is this something you sense with the ocean too?
Oh no totally. It sounds a bit cheesy, but you do have to have a massive respect for it. You know we like to go and play on it, and it is our playground, but at the same time you know it can be a brilliant playground and a fun playground in the first couple of hours, and then it can just turn in minutes. It’ll bite your ass, and you know literally thousands and thousands and thousands of people die every year in the sea.
We’ll end on that.