In this edition of the Slow Boat series, Chandan Lahiri from India and Timm Kruse from Germany attempted to paddle their canoe and stand-up paddleboard respectively, all around the coast of the beautiful island nation of Sri Lanka, a first for both of them and a first for both kinds of watercraft. There are conflicting reports on whether Oskar Speck achieved this in 1935 when he was paddling from Germany to Australia. Australian Sandy Robson, in recreating Oskar Speck’s amazing journey, certainly went around the island in 2014.

Unfortunately, the attempt had to be aborted. Chandan’s lack of experience paddling in the open sea coupled with the canoe that was buffeted by the wind made progress extremely tiring and difficult. Timm was far more adept on his SUP given his years of experience. In hindsight this was a good decision given that within a few days of aborting the expedition the coronavirus pandemic hit resulting in the world being shut down entirely. Chandan and Timm reached Delhi and Germany respectively literally hours before the travel ban was imposed.

The expedition is on abort and will be staged once again … soon.