New World Record - Hans Kreisel

Most regular readers will have seen the numerous posts all over the usual sites about this already. News travels almost as fast as the top guys now with such a close knit community across the world, I cannot think of any other sports like this with so many people in close contact regularly.

News from January 2012

GPS Team Challenge Updates

The GPS Team Challenge in the Northern Hemisphere ended with some great peak and 5x10 average  results for the Portland Pirates but alas only mediocre scores in the other categories. The wind either only came in the week when most were working, or blew through far too strong for hour and nautical mile attempts. I cannot speak for the other teams around Western Europe but would expect they suffered a similar fate. One team as usual, dominated the scoreboard with fantastic results all round. The winners of the 2011 series - The Grevelingen Chop Team. Hot on their heels this month in the top speed categories were the West Kirby Warriors, they seem to have a few very big hitters in their team with Steve Thorp and Farrel OShea and are getting more organised to give the Portland Pirates more competition. Steve as you all know scored a secure 50knot+ peak, and was even gracious enough to post his lower scoring GPS result.

Jim Crossley flies at West Kirby

Another great January day, this time a few Portland Pirates team mates win the honour of sailors of the day.

 Produced by Alan Jones
Edited by Chris Bates

Directed by a good WNW Wind

Screenshot from GPSspeedsurfing.com

50knot Barrier Destroyed by more than 1

The view from Portland Bill across Weymouth Bay

So far this seems to be a great year for windsurfing, with sessions every day so far for many. It was only the brave who dared get wet today though, with violent winds hitting the UK from Cornwall up to Northern Scotland.

For a few days previous it looked like West Kirby would fire up again, and this time it did not look too broad. In fact the forecast was promising an almost perfect direction.

It came! The Dutch also came to give us another lesson in speedsurfing!

Clash of the Titans

All Photos were taken by Alan Jones, thank you for allowing me to use them on here.

Steve Thorp determined to get the big 50 again.

The forecast was long ago it seems, with nine pages of updates on Howard Rowsons 'December Stormtrack' thread hosted by GPS-Speedsurfing.com. Everyone who speedsurfs was aware of this upcoming momentous occasion, some even got a warm up at the weekend. West Kirby has lit up again, the wind hit today December the 7th with force and at almost the best angle. It did turn out to be slightly too broad though, similar to the last epic day there when Steve Thorp became the first British speedsurfer to get the golden 50 on his GPS.

A Brief History of Speedweek

 Author: Mark  Matthews - Portland Pirates Team Cap'n AKA Swagger

All i have written here is research and open to argument.

You may like this info and you may not, in the early days around 1972 the distance for measuring the outright speedsailing record was decided to be 500m. In the Autumn of 1972 Weymouth Speed Week started with the new official distance, and was held in Portland harbour the only venue in the world to accommodate these idiots. It was an open event that allowed people to use their imagination to try and gain the top podium place.

Who was the first winner? It was 'The Crossbow', a Proa boat which was a single hull with an outrig thingy (a bit like the canoes on Hawaii Five O), skippered by Timothy Colman and achieving the record in 1972 with a speed of 26.30 knots!

Ok hang on a minute, yes 26 knots which is nothing is it? Well you would be surprised this is 39 years ago and some people would be happy with this today in a boat or on a windsurfer. Moving on a year to 73 and it falls again same boat and skipper with an increase of 3 knots to 29.30! Now this bloke is starting to shift (don't you think?).

Progressing to 1975 and yes you got it, the record falls again with a speed of 31.10knots, same bloke same boat but hang on another boat comes onto the water and gets 31.80! You would think that Tim would be gutted by this, but oh no he had been talking to a designer called Roderick Macalpine-Downie. He had the boat built in Kent, this one was called Crossbow II Timothy Colman had done it again but this time with a Catamaran with hulls that measured a staggering 60 feet and were not built square to one another. The leeward hull was slightly forward. The reason behind this was that each hull had a sail on it and didn't create a wind shadow. These people were thinking very much ahead. Using no fancy Cad design and just a good old drawing board with great foresight and imagination. 

Now moving on to 1977, the record goes to Tim again with a speed of 33.80knots and in the same week a 34.4! Now by this time I was 4 years old and I can remember the buzz that this boat and skipper used to bring to Weymouth and our very windy autumn months after our very typical busy british summer holidays(No such thing as Ibiza holidays for the majority of the population then). 

The tides were changing as there was a new kid on the block, are got you! You thought i was going to say windsurfer but no Its a........ I can't say it,........ oh go on then, you will hate me but this may have been the birth of the Kitesurfer, yep some plonker got a load of kites 50 foot up and about 70 foot in front of an Amphicat. This is no joke that it happened but the results are unknown, i imagine its on the bottom of the harbour who knows? 

Now the part you are probably waiting for, The Windsurfer arrived and did not have a very competitive start but then nor did the Kite. (I hate saying things like that)

Onwards to 1980 and the windsurfer was moving up the rankings each year, the kite had gone into a coma and Crossbow II did it again 36.00 Knot 500m in the middle of the harbour the outright record crushed. This record went unbeaten until 1986 when Pascal Maka took the record away from British waters forever(?). Now what you have to understand is that there are a couple of things to point out here. The first is for 14 years Tim Colman held the outright speedsailing record, and the next there have been only 7 people to go faster on windsurfing boards in portland harbour and load there data into gps-speedsurfing.com since it has started. I don't have much info on results for Speedweek in later years except Anders Bringdal has the official record of 38.40 knots and Pete Young has the gps record 39.52 knots (could have been faster but someone was chatting in the middle of the course so i believe).

Anyway just thought i would take the natter of Boards with Sails against Kites and Dinner trays away and back to when The Giant they called Crossbow ruled Portland Harbour and nobody stood in her way.

All the best,

Swagger....  

West Kirby - Autumn Gales 2011

Here is a quick round up of the day. It was a day that many of the regular speedsurfers who meet at West Kirby broke their PB's and joined the 40 knot club properly with 5x10second averages. 

First I would like to congratulate those who got their membership to the club. I know Tristan Haskins, Mike George and Mark Hayford are really pleased with the day. Mike even posted his SPD file on Facebook which to any of his friends that don't own a gps will be a meaningless set of numbers. Think he was a bit over excited there but I can totally understand how he feels, I am sure you all can. 

Great Start to September, awful end

The last GPSTC report about the first half of September was full of great results for the northern hemisphere, including a national record. As for this second half I am really finding it hard what to write about. There has been no wind, or rather none worthy of mentioning. The British teams scored the odd session, but only one or two sailors managing to catch it before it blew through. 

The Dutch appeared to get a little more, due to more wind in the East  side of the North Sea than the West but again nothing much to speak of (Forgive me if I missed a great session and do let me know). Like I predicted (in fact the day after I predicted it) The Portland Pirates were knocked off the top spot by the Grevelingen Chop Team, but our boys scores held fast due to the lack of wind for the rest of September, giving us our best finish for the year in second. Great team effort by the usual suspects and as for the rest who sailed but did not post see the captain for some deck scrubbing duties, he is the one on the crutch again, argggg.

Weymouth Speed Week 2011, Registration is open

Registration is open for Weymouth Speed Week (WSW) 2011. This year the title sponsor is Simmer Style who will be providing the majority of the prizes and underwriting the $1000 prize for anyone who breaks the harbour record set in 2008 by Anders Bringdal at 38.4 knots over the historic 500 metre course. The Legendary, Farrel O’Shea the importer of Simmer sails and Mistral boards into the UK said “Of course we are delighted to be associated with WSW this year, speed sailing has been a passion of mine for many years and the bonus is our boards and sails do well here also”

Mid September Ranking for GPS Team Challenge

This month I think is worthy of a quick round up now. Up here in the northern hemisphere anywhere near the Atlantic has recently enjoyed the tail end of two hurricanes. The first, Irene was a sad event for some windsurfers as we lost an ambassador to the sport, Joe Rocco. Joe sailed at Long Island in the USA and had many friends who windsurf and was on all accounts a well loved character. They will hopefully name the beach he sailed from after him as a memorial. Our thoughts go out to his family at this sad time.

As the hurricane moved up their east coast it sent us great winds in perfect directions for the UK. This allowed the Portland Pirates to take a good lead in the first few days of the month, with great performances from the Matrix and El Reg who managed an hour average each of just under 25knots. Now to some this may not sound much but Portland Harbour is a tricky spot for good Nautical Miles and Hours, either end can have holes in the the wind on a gale force day, and the chop is terrible if you venture more than 100yards off the shore, which is often necessary due to how shallow it is. This means that one tack is under a Nautical Mile and many gybes are required.