Speed Sailing

The first ever windsurfing World Record was set by Pascal Maka, who clocked 38.86 knots in 1986. This was bettered nine times before Antoine Albeau took the record to 49.09 knots in Sainte-Marie-de-la-Mer in the South of France in March 2008.

After this things went a little quiet, though a promising phenomenon was brewing near the tip of Africa.

The Lüderitz Speed Challenge was born in 2007 and by October 2008 the event had entered the annals of sailing history, after the event’s kitesurfing co-organizer Sébastien Cattelan broke through the mythical 50 knots barrier.

Although there were no new world records at the Luderitz Speed Challenge on Sunday, fast speeds were once again recorded while several national records were established.

Surfing in 35 knots of wind, the current world record holder Antoine Albeau of France set the fastest speed of the day of 51,69 knots.

This was just outside his world record of 52,05 knots that he set on November 21.

Records continued to crash left, right and centre at the Luderitz Speed Challenge on Wednesday, November 21, with Antoine Albeau of France leading the way.

Surfing in winds of 40 to 45 knots, Albeau broke his previous world record of 51,69 knots that he set on November 17, with a new world speed record of 52,05 knots.

In the process he became the first windsurfer in the world to break the 52 knot barrier, while he also broke the 50 knot barrier five times and the 51 knot barrier six times - another first.

The Luderitz Speed Challenge continued to produce exceptional performances over the weekend as several world and national records were once again recorded. Besides this, five windsurfers have now broken through the 50 knot barrier.

On Saturday, Antoine Albeau of France smashed the 50 knots barrier several times and reached 51 knots twice. By the end of the day he had established a new world windsurfing speed record of 51,69 knots, which related to about 95km/h.

Anders Bringdal of Sweden and Antoine Albeau of France made history on November 13 when they became the first windsurfers to break through the magical 50-knot speed barrier.

On a fantastic day at the Luderitz Speed Challenge, Bringdal broke the world record on a production board twice, while Albeau broke the world windsurfing speed record with a new record of 50,62 knots.

Most of the other competitors also improved their personal best times or national records.

The 2012 Luderitz Speed Challenge got off to a great start on November 5 as several world and national records were broken on the opening three days' competition.

Antoine Albeau, who has held 20 windsurfing world championships since 1994, started the Challenge off in great style when he set a new world windsurfing record of 49,41 knots. This broke his own previous record of 49,09 knots (90,91km/h) that he set in 2008.

The fact that the new record was set in only 38 knots of wind, makes the possibility of more records later in the competition that much greater.

Records continued to tumble at the Luderitz Speed Challenge on Thursday as the world record was broken twice while numerous national records were also established.

On a day when the wind blew up to 45 knots, the organisers decided to build a retaining wall after the finish of the run to keep the water in at low tide. This paid huge dividends and many records were smashed.

Alex Caizergues has officially set a new World Speed Sailing Record at 54.10 knots during his 1st run at 15h38 on Wednesday afternoon.

5 New National records were broken on the same day:

Kite Surfing:

USA - Rob Douglas, 51.88

Namibia - Stefan Metzger 45.02

New Zealand - Gavin Broadbent, 50.93

French Women’s National record - Charlotte Consorti, 45.23

Australia -Tim Pumpa, 46.78 (best kite speed record performance)

Windsurfing:
Sweden -Anders Bringdal, 44.80.

U.K - Zara Davis, 36.99, Female World performance with Production Board

Three national records were broken on the first day of the Luderitz Speed Challenge event currently being held at the Second Lagoon Bay in Luderitz.

Kite surfer Gavin Broadbent smashed the first record within minutes of the start of the 2010 event, which was supposed to be a training session. He broke the existing New Zealand record, which was 40.68 knots over 500m and set a new speed of 44.51 knots over the same distance.

70 minutes later windsurfer, Anders Bringdal broke the Swedish national windsurfing record of 41.96 knots and replaced it with a new speed of 42.9 knots over 500m.

The world’s top speed sailors will converge on Luderitz and will attempt to break speed sailing records at the 4th Luderitz Speed Challenge from 4 to 31 October.

This year the challenge will be to break the 54 knots barrier and to be able to achieve this, the canal will be wider at the start to make entry as easy as possible. The sand removed from the canal will be laid to create a wall to protect during the high tide.

As a result of these changes the canal will be safer compared to previous years.

The canal will now be 10m wide, 700m long and 1m deep.