Sarah Hebert, a young French athlete with a heart condition, is now in her 12th day of attempting to sail across the Atlantic Ocean on a stock “off the beach” windsurfer.   Fortunately, this is not quite as crazy as it sounds.  Ms. Hebert is being accompanied by a 15 meter sailing catamaran.  She windsurfs all day and them sleeps on board at night.  She restarts her sailing the next day at the same GPS coordinates at which she ended the night before.   She began her voyage in Dakar, Senegal and hopes to finish in Saint-Francois, Guadeloupe.

Windsurf TransAtlantic 2012

Sarah Hebert is a world class windsurfer whose titles include, four French championship, 2006 European championship, and the 2007 Vice-World championship.  She also has a heart condition which required the installation of a  defibrillator in 2006.  One of the stated goals of her attempted crossing is to ‘be the subject of scientific study in cardiology on the theme of “extreme sport with a defibrillator”.’   Boston Medical, who built her defibrillator, is one of her major sponsors.

Sarah’s motto is “with the heart, everything is possible.”

Thanks to Fernando Costa for passing the news along.