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.

Ghosts at The Brace

Jurjen van de Noord captured on film by Angelo Pecere for the Ghosts of Speed Documentary

I think this is the best Speed Windsurfing picture I have ever seen. It somehow demonstrates the tranquil zone that you enter as you get close to your top speed. It shows the perfect tuning of the body and the rig. You can almost feel the power in the sail as you look at the stance and twist of the sail. It was taken by Angelo Pecere who is currently building up a lot of film and pictures for what is already a film I cannot wait to see, The Ghosts of Speed. You can follow the progress here on stalkerbook.

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.