More Speed

It's quite a show we've seeing over in Namibia where Rob Douglas kite-sailed to his new world speed record of 49.84 knots.

This just in from all-time American windsurfer, Mike "Gebi" Gebhardt, who is also Douglas's coach:

Rob Douglas's world record run was done on Lüderitz's second lagoon, a small bay that is effectively a tidal lagoon. The cool thing about the record was that it was done with an average wind of 30 knots and "only" gusting to 39 knots. The efficiency of the kitesurfing speed package is allowing super-fast runs in less wind than the windsurfers need.

The windurfers look to need at least a steady 45 with gusts over 50 to post world record speeds. Björn Dunkerbeck was at Lüderitz the day Rob broke the American record and it was gusting to 50 that day and he was only able to post a 45-knot run...keep in mind the run was not flat as the chop was big on that day, 6-inch in the rough spots-Gebi

Douglas and Gebhardt have a web site for their North American Speed Sailing Project at nassp.net. Sheesh. Talk about success. They started in April, set the American record in July, and broke the world record in September.

You will find more links and more info in my previous post, Going Like Fifty. Gebhardt's remarks here arrived as a comment to that post. Much appreciated—Kimball