Surf Sail (1978)
Channel: Archives New Zealand
Date: 01/05/2013

New Zealand National Film Unit presents Surf Sail (1978)

Three students, Susie Gibb, Grant Beck and Chris Wylie, tackle one of the trickiest challenges in the world, battling the severe currents and changing winds of Cook Strait on fragile windsurfers - sail assisted surf boards.

This 1978 documentary was directed and narrated by Sam Neill, soon to be famous as an actor. John Cataldo, the Cook Strait pilot who accompanied the windsurfers, and many other swimmers, canoers, kayakers and a surf skiier, asks the students, "Do you wanna have a crack?", to which they reply, "Yeah, bloody oath!"  
They face the Strait's infamous winds, tides, swells, sharks and exhaustion. Some stunning helicopter shots include a windsurfer clipping through whitecaps with a pod of dolphins in its wake.

Susie Gibb and Grant Beck cross the Strait in 2 hours 20mins
Chris Wylie crosses in 4 hours 20mins