Windsurfer to tackle Bass Strait

Your arms are aching. The wind tears at your face and hair. The taste of salt has made your tongue swollen and numb.

You look around and in every direction is an endless sea — no land, no boats, no bearings.

Just the deep rolling water of Bass Strait.

It doesn't sound appealing, but Allison Shreeve knows this is what she will be up against when she plans to set a world record by becoming the first woman to windsurf from Tasmania to Victoria.

That will mean tackling 240km of the roughest bit of ocean Australia has to offer. Wild seas, unpredictable winds and sharks. The same stretch of ocean that claimed the lives of six sailors in the 1998 Sydney-to-Hobart Yacht race.

Physically, the 27-year-old professional windsurfer feels prepared, but the mental battle is yet to begin.

"At night time I go to sleep and start imagining what it will be like not to see land for a long time," Ms Shreeve, from Hornsby in Sydney's north, said.

Ms Shreeve is a four-time world champion in the sport, and holds the world A class windsurfing speed record.

On a windblown canal in southern France she clocked just over 70km/h and reckons she could have done better if only there was more wind.

The first and only other person to cross Bass Strait on a windsurfer is Nick Maloney, who completed the marathon journey in 1998.

He did it in 21 hours and when he reached the other side he had no skin left on his feet, thanks to the rubbing from his foot straps.

Ms Shreeve is better prepared and better equiped.

She'll be using a specially desiged carbon fibre board made for the open ocean, with a fin that looks more like a keel.

If the wind and the ocean is kind she hopes to make the crossing in as little as seven hours, which would smash Maloney's record. But as unpredictable as Bass Straight can be, she's prepared for much longer.

Ms Shreeve will keep transmitter on her vest which will allow people to log onto a website and check her progress in real time.

Aerotrac's Geoffrey Bott said: "If we get a change in the weather here it can go from calm seas to really rough in a very short space of time, as the Sydney to Hobart guys found out. And she's not exactly on a maxi yacht."

Which brings us neatly to Ms Shreeve's current problem.

She is ready to do the crossing right now but the only thing holding her back is that she is unable to find a support boat that can keep up with her in the open ocean.

Coastcare is one of her main sponsors and as spokesman Sacha Dench nicely puts it: "What she needs is a boat at least 40 foot long and has very powerful engines. The crew on the boat are going to have to be pretty tough as well."

Anyone willing or able to help may contact Ms Shreeve by email: aus911@ozemail.com.au.

You can keep track of Ms Reeve's progress here.