Across the Atlantic on a windsurfer

Christian Marty, a French airline pilot and windsurfer, left Dakar in Senegal on 12 December 1981, after a first attempt at the end of November had failed. He sailed west with the trade winds and on 18 January 1982 came ashore at Kourou in French Guiana, after 37 days, 16 hours and 4 minutes. The distance was about 4,200 kilometres.

It was the first crossing of the Atlantic on a windsurfer. The sailboard, still seen by many as a beach toy, had become a craft for ocean adventure, and other long crossings followed, by windsurf and later by kite.

His time on the route stood for more than forty years. In the winter of 2024 to 2025 Olivier Defranc, who as a teenager had sailed the last 12 kilometres into Kourou alongside Marty, made the same crossing in 26 days with a catamaran following him. Marty did not live to see it: he was the captain of the Air France Concorde that crashed after take-off from Paris on 25 July 2000.