Annals Of Adrenaline–Weymouth Speed Week: Now this is an event that any Wetass would love. Every year, the good folks at the Amateur Yacht Research Society, along with a gentleman named Bob Downhill, stage a speed sailing free-for-all in the speed friendly confines of Portland (England) harbor. They set up a 500 meter course, hope the wind blows like hell, and will time any speed junkie, in any craft they choose, over a 500 meter run. The result is a non-stop whirlwind of windsurfers, kitesurfers, skiffs, multihulls and, this year, more extravagant craft like SailRocket and WindJet (two of the freaky-looking contenders in the quest to break the 50-knot speed-sailing barrier). This year, more than 50 contestants put up more than 800 runs, and 20 of the 50 topped 30 knots (which is to say they ran the course in under 30 seconds). Top speed went to windsurfer Bjorn Dunkerbeck, who put up a 36.18 knot run (a Weymouth Speed Week record). And one windsurfer sailed a total of 181 kilometers (according to his GPS) over the course of the week. You can see pictures and full results here.

Other Speed Week news of note: Paul Larsen’s SailRocket finally stopped diving to the bottom of the bay long enough to break the 30 knot barrier. Here’s Paul’s description of what it’s like to try and keep this beast under control (warning: somewhat technical language ahead):

“We were first off when the breeze came in and this was a pretty alarming run. The water was good and I was well lined up on the course. There was still a lot of spray and visibility was limited. The boat proceeded to go into a big yawing motion which felt like the sailing equivalent of a big ‘ fish-tail’ . I was fighting to keep it simply pointed down the course as the helm swung from heaps of weather to heaps of lee helm. It was if I was just playing catch up with the rudder as to where the boat really wanted to go as if someone was steering with the back wheels whilst I was steering with the front. There was a hell of a lot of steering input going in and therefore I had no intention of going in real close until I was comfortable. You have to remember that on this boat I only have two options in order to get out of trouble. One is to sheet in hard to bring on lee-helm which makes the craft bear away until I get enough room to either round-up or I keep bearing away until I lose the apparent wind and slow down. It’s going to be a pretty hairy option in the speeds to come. The other option is to dump the mainsheet which brings on a lot of weather helm, overpowers the steering and causes the boat to round up and stop. This will not be an option when we get in real close to the shore. We think that the boat is yawing around due to its overall layout. With the rig so far off to one side, the centre of effort of the sail plan can move fore and aft of the centre board quite a lot with inputs from sheeting angle, boat to wind angle, apparent wind angle and gusts. The latter could perhaps have upset what is usually a much smoother transition for one form of helm to the other. We will play with this and Malcolm will do some numbers. I did a big bear away at the end of the course and bounced over the chop further of the shore at a deep angle. I think this is when we got the 31 [knots]…”

WindJet, which was powered by a 20 square meter kite (I told you it was a freak show), managed some runs in the high 20s. If you want to see what a kite-powered speedboat looks like, check out this little Quicktime movie clip of WindJet bouncing along. Hmmm. SailRocket and WindJet are very, very cool, and very, very finicky. My bet is that a windsurfer is going to be the first to break Yellow Pages Endeavor 46.52 knot speed sailing record. Stay tuned…



Wild Weymouth: “Keep it rolling, Paul. If SailRocket slows down or stops, you’ll get run over by a RIB, a windsurfer, a kitesurfer, and, once they turn around, a beach cat…”

(Photo: Ingrid Abery)