Masters Of Speed Follow-Up: The French Trench delivered big time over the weekend. Not only did Yellow Pages Endeavor’s outright 46.52 knot record fall (twice), four other national and assorted records were set. Click here for the report. But here’s the heart of it:

“What a fantastic but grueling two days of rugged and psychotic conditions that actually went unsailed a lot of the time because the wind was blowing too hard for the equipment that we all had. 5.0’s were huge just to give an idea of what we were facing and that is what the smallest sails were for the most part. In fact, a modern 4.0-4.4 would have been the preferable size for just about everyone as we got hit by afternoon stretches on both afternoons whereby there was a solid 50-knots gusting to 60 for literally two hours at a time.

Survival was the name of the game sometimes but breaking the record further requires calculated control, power and finesse, which is simply impossible to achieve in unison with the Mistral. The wind is far too irregular and twitchy to be super fast, fast enough for 50. We are looking for the big SE for that but it is clear that all the sailors were pretty happy with what we got and simply making it through the experience without injury!”

Finian and his boys are gunning for 50 knots next, and figure it will take a hard southeasterly to get there. Fifty. That I’d love to see.

Here are the times:

11 F. Maynard BVI 46.82 46.60 (Outright)

22 D. Garrel FRA 44.21 43.23

63 D. White GB 44.03 43.44 (British and production board)

57 B. v.d Steen NL 43.71 43.02 (Dutch)

10 S. Allen AUS 43.48 42.09 (Australian windsurfing)

62 M.v.Meurs NL 42.11

24 J.B. Gautier FRA 40.55 40.20

44 T. Bielak FRA 39.66

114 K. Jaggi SUI 39.80 38.04

26 F. D’Urso ITA 39.35 38.96

And here are the pics…











“I may look like a dork. But no one can deny I’m f*ckin’ fast…”

(Photos: Jean Souville)