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AROUND THE WORLD 4: First Man to Windsurf Baltic

From the small town of Sventoji, Lithuania, in Eastern Europe, 41-year-old Arunas Rinkevicius began his windsurfing voyage across the Baltic Sea.

Rinkevicius is the first man to windsurf across the Baltic. His 10-hour surf carried him 330 nautical miles (about 380 miles) across the sea to Sweden's Gotland Islands. The journey was dedicated to the Gotland Memorandum of August 6, 1989, when Lithuania called for independence from the Soviet Union. Lithuania declared independence on March 11, 1990, and the Soviet Union formerly recognized the new country on September 6, 1991.

According to the AFP, the world's oldest established news agency, Rinkevicius did not plan this trip alone. Organizers took care to search for an athlete capable of meeting the feat. "Rinkevicius proved himself to be the strongest," Ugnius Savickas, spokesperson for the Lithuanian windsurfing association, told AFP reporters.

Rinkevicius was not completely alone during his 10-hour surf. A support boat followed behind as the Lithuanian windsurfed across the sea. Rinkevicius used an 11-square-meter sail along with a slalom sail.

--Written by Teresa Liao

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