Five of us plan to kitesurf from North Devon to South Wales across the Bristol Channel.

This is a distance of 33 miles across a stretch of water with one of the biggest tidal ranges in the world (dangerous and difficult...yay!) . There is no record of this being done before. To put this into context, the English Channel (Dover-Calais) is 21 miles.

This event has the following objectives:
1. To promote the MEng/BEng Extreme Sports Engineering Courses at The University of Wales: Trinity St. David (UWTSD).

We made the boards that we will be riding (see the photo) And the kites are made by a company called Mutiny Kites, owned and run by Oli, an ex student from the same course as me.

2. We are racing against a car which will drive the 175 mile road route. Like a Top-Gear race it will be tracked live by GPS on Facebook.

3. To raise money for charity. The Wales Air Ambulance is an amazing service- 100% charity funded and saves lives in extreme areas.

The five people carrying out this challenge are Ross Head, Kelvin Lake, Marc Rowley, Sarah Rowley and Oli Thorman.

Ross works within the Uni but runs Cerebra Innovation Centre. I design and make cool products and equipment for disabled kids. I kite surf frequently in the Swansea/Gower area, make my own boards and hatched this crazy plan one January morning earlier this year!

Kelvin is a Lecturer at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD). He is a keen amateur kitesurfer & course director for the Extreme Sports Engineering courses at UWTSD.

Marc runs Blast kitesurfing in Porthcawl & is 2 times & current British (senior) waveriding [kitesurfing] champion. As soon as Kelvin mentioned the project to Marc he was keen to get involved.

Oli is an ex-student of UWTSD & is the co-founder of Mutiny Kites. Ever since Oli was a student at Swansea he has wanted to do this crossing. As soon as Kelvin mentioned this project to him he also wanted to join us.

Sarah has been kitesurfing since 2003 and has competed in several UK contests & recently came third in the British Kitesurfing Association wave event.

For further details see

www.facebook.com/thebristolchannelkitesurfcrossing