One-time Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson fronted Balter Beer brewer sets out to break kitesurf distance record: “I tried onion eating but that was way too hard!”

Cheers!

Brian Kiss von Soly, 36 and one-time brewer for Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson, Bede Durbidge etc’s Balter Beer, is more than just nifty with hops and mountain spring water. The Ocean Shores local is a dreamer, the sort of dreamer we all were as much younger children and should have been as younger adults.

Mr. Kiss von Soly, you see, received a Guinness Book of World Records when he was 21 and his imagination became instantly sparked. “I looked through the book and thought what records could I do. I tried onion eating but that was way too hard,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald. But not too hard is the world kitesurfing distance record and set out from his northern NSW home, pointed toward to Melbourne and hoped to shatter.

Thursday afternoon, when he sailed past Werri Beach south of Wollonggong, he achieved the dream.

862 kilometers.

An unofficial new world record.

Guinness bound.

He is still headed to Melbourne, even still, a few liters of water on his back, a few puffs of wind in his sail. Sort of lame wind though, this year, with too many southerlies.

“It can get pretty gnarly out there but I do everything I can to reduce the risks and stay safe. My mum still worries about me, though.”

But what a man, what a dream, and can you remember the first time you laid eyes on a Guinness Book of World Records?

I was ten, I think, and awed by the world’s longest fingernails, though never considered breaking.

Long fingernails, especially on men, are gross.

Back to Mr. Kiss von Soly. Do you consider his world record more or less impressive than one-time boss Joel Parkinson’s world title?

More?

I agree.