Wartime Crossing of the North Sea - the Sizewell Beach memorial
A reader pointed us at a Sizewell Beach memorial that commemorates an extraordinary wartime kayak escape across the North Sea. Worth knowing.
A reader emailed us looking up details of a wartime crossing of the North Sea commemorated on Sizewell Beach, Suffolk, UK. He'd noticed it wasn't on the expedition chronology, and he's right - it should be.
The story
The crossing in question was a wartime escape across the North Sea by kayak, undertaken in conditions that would daunt a well-equipped modern expedition paddler. The Sizewell Beach memorial commemorates it. We are gathering full details and the kayakers' names from local historical records and will add the crossing to our chronology as a separate entry once verified.
Why this matters
Pre-1970 sea kayak expeditions are dramatically under-documented in the English-language record. Most of our chronology starts with Caffyn's first solo NZ trip in 1977 - but kayak crossings, escapes, and journeys long predate the modern expedition era. If you know of a pre-1970 sea kayak crossing or expedition, please write in.
Have your own expedition story? Submit it - we publish manually.