50.48 Knots!!!!

Steve Thorp is now the fastest windsurfer in the world. The British sailor has set a new world speed windsurfing record by reaching the 50.48 knots, at West Kirby, England, on the 3rd January 2012.

Thorp wore two GPS units that delivered different results. The first one peaked at 54 knots and the other one at 50.48 knots. After a careful review gpsspeedsurfing.com confirmed the second record, which was enough to take the lead.

"Obviously they couldn't both be right and in the end it was found that the faster time was a spike due to the gps loosing a satelite or two for a few moments, possibly due to the extreme acceleration and chop, combined with the weather", explains Steve Thorp.

"This shows the importance of wearing two gps and getting the tracks looked at and ratified by the experts. Obviously I'm beyond chuffed with that."

Thorped is a 76-kilogram sailor and always wears 12kg of lead to "supersize" himself. The speed windsurfer sailed at West Kirby with a 40-wide Moo Custom, 4.6/5.0/5.5 Simmer SCR sails, one boom and a couple of K4 fins.

"I do struggle to sail a tight course as the gusts try to open up the sail and lift me off my feet, and sometimes I feel like I just don't have the levers to drive the board to it's max".

"But my solution to this has always been to bear off and go 'with the wind'. It's possible that my light weight actually helps with the max speed as I'll theoretically be quicker to accelerate", tells the Thorpedo.

 http://www.surfertoday.com