WORDS AND PICS : PETE DAVIS
12COMPSPEED WINDSURFING
FEEL THE NEED , FOR
SPEED
WORDS AND PICS : PETE DAVIS
SPEED WINDSURFING IS ON THE UP AND IF YOU HAVE NEVER GIVEN IT A GO NOW IS THE TIME . GENERALLY IT FALLS INTO THREE AREAS : online GPS speed competition where you can go anywhere and record your fastest speed and upload them and see how you did against people in your , area , country or the world ( this includes online local and national online competitions like the British GPS Speed Challenge ). Then there is official speed competition . Like the national UKWA Speed Championships at Weymouth and ISWC Speed World Championships where you go head to head with your competitors on the same piece of water at the same time and see who comes out on top . Finally there are the official record attempts where you inscribe for a fixed period at hopefully a windy flat water spot like Luderitz in Nambia , where there is a good chance that you could break a national or world record and certainly get a personal best speed .
The blue ribbon distance has always been the 500m course but there is also the nautical mile record which is much harder and due to the longer distance the speeds are understandably slower than 500m and subsequently gets less press , more on this distance later . Us Brits have produced some great speed sailors over the years at official WSSRC events , like Erik Beale the first man over 40 knots , Dave White previous UK record holder and Production World record holder three times , Farrell O ’ shea who started speed sailing in the 80s and the only Brit to go over 50 knots and is our current record holder at 51.20knots . Zara Davis has been at the top of her game for some years and the first woman over 45 knots , holding 500m world record at 46.49 knots and the outright mile record at 37.29 knots . The spirit of speed sailing is still very strong . To whet your appetite , here is a quick round up of what has been happening so far this year . uk
WIND SURFING