(c) Pictures Eric McNair-Landry and Sebastian Copeland 

New World Record!!!  595km covered in 24hrs!!!

Two years ago Ronny Finsas covered 502.73km in 24hrs, kiting from Thiels Mountains to the Three Sails near Patriot Hills, Antarctica. That was the world record until a few days ago. Than came Eric McNair-Landry and Sebastian Copeland. They are kiting from Narsaq (South Greenland) to Qaanaaq (Northwest Greenland). On this trip they broke Ronny’s record! This is their story.

The winds were blowing across the ice cap, Eric and Sebastian packed up their tent and gear and headed out for another day of kite skiing.   The conditions were perfect, good snow and decent moderate winds.   Eric took out his fastest kite:  14m Yakuza!  After the first hour and a half they had almost covered 100km!  If the conditions kept up they had a good shot at beating the record for the most distance traveled in 24hours.

“Let’s go for it”, said Eric.  Doing 2 hours kite sessions, with 15 minute breaks to eat and drink, they rocked through the night.  As soon as the sun came up, the snow got soft and the winds light.  They trucked on through the day, and sure enough the winds picked back up forcing them to switch down to small kites: Eric to his 12m Manta, and Sebastian to his 10m Manta. 
Sometime in their 17th hour they cracked the existing record.  Exhausted they continued on.  By 9:15, 24 hours had passed.  Tired, sore and sleep deprived they landed their kites.  Once the tent was up, they turned on their GPS.  They had just set a new world record for the most distance kite skied in 24hrs, an impressive 595 km!!!!
Follow the trip on Sebastians’s blog: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendId=458358586

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