BayAreaKiteboarding.com

World record falls every week in Luderitz, Namibia. On October 9th, Alex Caizergues improved his new record with a run at 47.9 knots! Geared up with a production F-One Bandit 6.5m and a custom F-One speed board, he is now the second fastest man on water, with less than 1 knot behind Finian and his windsurf who is the all category combined world record holder with a time of 48.70.

http://www.bayareakitesurf.com/news/img/kiteworldrecord.jpg

We gotta find a way to see how far off we are from that. Lets call a cop over with his speed gun someday. Bring a box of doughnuts.

Pretty far off I'd think but it's easy to find out with a wrist GPS. You can even see how scared you get since some of them have a built in heart rate monitor.

Those runs in Namibia this past month have been unreal. I've been following it a bit and it seems like every session someone is raising the bar. The women's WR was also recently set, right? Too bad we can't drive there. Meanwhile, if any of you garage shapers/GPS owners are interested I'd be willing to go BTTW in HMB with you on a sick south-storm day just to see what's up. I don't think stock boards can hang with these speeds. (Trust me, we're not even close while freeriding.)

Build one will 'ya? Yuri needs a winter project, no?

A few years back, I wore my GPS for a couple of windsurfing runs at Sherman on a fairly windy day at maximum flood. I.E. good wind yet (relatively) smooth water. I was ripping like a cigarette boat (again, relatively speaking). I was going at least as fast as I had ever gone before, which was much faster than I normally windsurf. As most of you know, winsurfers typically go faster than kiters in the same conditions. So the conclusion is that I was going way, way faster than the normal kiteboarding speed that we mere mortals typically go. I'm sure I have never gone that fast while kiting.

The result? My maximum instantaneous speed was 32.3 mph. That's only 28 knots, or just 60% of the speed record mentioned in this post.

Nonetheless, I think it would be interesting to see how fast I can go on a kite in the right conditions. And I think that Dave is on the right track about HMB (actually, inside Pillar Point Marina). Dave, I think that day that I saw you last winter at PPM was the fastest I have ever gone while kiting, cruising in the super flat water just a couple of feet away from the rock break wall. I keep my GPS in the van now, so next time I'm at PPM overpowered on my 10m in south storm winds, I'm going to find out just how fast (or not so fast) I can go.

That's the place. I'm in.

I would guess I am riding 40mph at my fastest. On a south wind day i can smoke traffic coming down Shoreline and I start to see smoke coming from under the board.

is this record set 90degrees to the wind?
G.

yeah good point.. downwinder in a hurricane... hehe

Greg, I'll never forget you asking me to go FASTER FASTER on your jeyskit while towing you and looking down at the speedo to see 45mph! F that, cause that really is insanely fast on the water. And yes, i was obviousy joking about my daily 40.