Tom Farmer completed his windsurfing challenge on Saturday 4th August sailing virtually non stop (except for a few drink & food breaks on the safety boat) for 16 hours at Notts County SC. Congratualation Tom.

Tom Farmer, a member of the club for quite a few years, one the original Team 15ers with friends Olliw & Paddy Joyce, recently qualified as a windsurfing instructor, and has been helping instructing this spring, whilst taking A levels.

He is taking a gap year and helping out build shelter in the dominican rebublic (leaving this month). As part of this he has raised money for the project, and his method was to windsurf non stop from dawn to dusk. He succeded, and just about managed to walk off the board at the end, anyone who has sailed two hours non stop will know the difficulty of his achievement.

Tom started at 5.40am, I arrived soon after 8am (and it was windy so I went out for a sail) he had been lent a large board by Dave Noble windsurfing and was sailing patiently back and forwards, passing the time. I left at about 1pm and came back at 5pm, he was still out there, and I took the photos, with several hours to go.

Tom carried on till the sun started setting and came ashore to cheers from an assembled crowd of family, friends, and those who had attended Julie Hall's impromptu birthday BBQ. Short movie (windows media player)

He hopes to raise £1500 for a good cause and is well over halfway, anyone who wishes to contribute can do by following this link www.justgiving.com/windsurfingchallenge He also has a website Tom's windsurfingchallenge website and boards article.

Amongst the well wishes were numerous club members who went out whilst he was sailing, and national windsurfing legend Guy Cribb who has recently completed a Bournmuth to Brighton marathon in a single day on a windsurfer (in gale force winds).