

Surfboards and submarines: the secret escape of East Germans to Copenhagen - monort
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/oct/17/surfboards-and-submarines-the-secret-escape-of-east-germans-to-copenhagen

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sandworm101
"...surfing boats with handmade sails." ??

I've read about this many times before. They were using windsurfers and were
part of a local windsurfing club. Germans say "Windsurfbrett", literally wind-
surf-board. I don't know where the author got the boats language. It's more
than semantics. Boats are something you sit 'in' rather than 'on' a board and
that makes a big difference in cold water.

Story + interviews (in german) + pics showing gear.
[http://cdn2.surfertoday.com/windsurfing/11355-the-
greatest-w...](http://cdn2.surfertoday.com/windsurfing/11355-the-greatest-
windsurfing-escape-deckert-and-kluender-flee-east-germany)

Fyi. The big stealth advantage of a windsurfer is that, with the sail flat on
the water, the entire craft is only a couple inches high. In any waves you
cannot see them until you are right on top. Hard for search and rescue, but
excellent if you want to hide until the cops move away. They have been used
for smuggling.

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aembleton
Swimming out of East Germany:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CWajaOx4E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CWajaOx4E)

