Speed Sailing - Sailing Craft Used

Sailing Craft Used

The craft used vary from single sailor windsurfers or kitesurfers, to multi-hulls with crews of fifteen people. Many short course record attempts are made with boats based on the classic proa boat layout. Recent developments include hulls that rely on hydrofoils or planing hulls, which allow the hull to lift out of the water, and thereby increases speed by reducing friction. An example of a multihull hydrofoil design is the Hydroptère, designed by Alain Thébault. The design is based on experience from a range of hydrofoil sailcraft that Thébault built in cooperation with the late Eric Tabarly since the 1990s. On September 4, 2009, l’Hydroptère broke the world record, sustaining a speed of 51.36 knots for 500m in 30 knots of wind.

Throughout 1970s, the speed sailing 500 meter and Nautical Mile records were dominated by large multihulls, as typified by the Crossbow and Crossbow II of Timothy Colman. This has changed since to smaller, very lightweight boats. The Yellow Pages Endeavour, a highly optimized one-way proa design using a rigid wingsail lost its decade old 1993 500m record to a windsurfer in 2004. This was followed by frequently changing records, with windsurfers holding the record through 2008, when it was taken by a succession of kitesurfers. In 2009, in a radical shift away from the tiny surfboard based craft, the trimaran Hydroptère, with a length of 18.28 meters and a displacement of 6.5 metric tons, took the 500m speed record back for the D class boats.