After an incredible week of windsurfing speed action, Antoine Albeau has once again proven himself the fastest windsurfer on the planet.
Antoine set the World Speed Record back in 2015 at a blistering 53.27 knots and that record has remained unbeaten until yesterday, December 1st, when he was able to surpass his own record for the first time in almost 10 years.
We caught up with Antoine to hear a little of the inside story of how this new record came about and how it felt for Antoine to achieve such a milestone once again in his career.
"It was just an amazing feeling when they gave me the time. The old record was 53.27 knots, I was hoping that I might just beat it by a tiny bit, I was waiting to hear them say something like 53.32 knots but it came in at 53.49, so there was a good gap between the records and the feeling when I heard the time was incredible. I have come down a little bit now but the feeling in the moment was amazing, unforgettable. I checked in km/h and it was 99.06 km/h. I was on the prototype of the JP speed 40 from last year, the exact prototype of the board which is now the production speed board. I was on the new prototype speed sail that Robert made me, the 5.3 which is the new evolution of the EVO for next year. The sail was amazing. The wind was maybe 40-45 knots. Tomorrow is a good day as well. If you look at the wind forecast, we might get 3-5 knots more wind tomorrow so let’s see how it goes!!"
Antoine had started the week by breaking the World Production Board speed record, already an amazing achievement and we caught up with him about that day too:
"The conditions were perfect, purple on Windguru, but in the end it wasn't quite as windy as forecast and we realized that we went really fast with the wind that we had. I was using 5.7 and the JP 40 production board. Normally you would think that you needed to use a 5.3 or 5.2 to break records but we managed to do it with the wind only between 35-43, knots maybe 45 in the gusts. It was not that windy. I did a few runs on my 5.3 just to try but in the end my best time was on the 5.7. We went really fast in that wind, so this was great, it was something that we couldn’t do before.
And how does it feel to go that fast on such a tiny board, in such strong winds on the narrow channel?
In reality, you feel all the feelings you feel before or after the run. During the run, you are so concentrated that you don’t feel anything. You can crash and fall and break all your gear and get injured. There is a lot of adrenaline when you are in the starting box waiting to take your run. This is one of the most memorable feelings as you are waiting for a gust to come and start your run, thinking about your run full of adrenaline. During the run you are concentrating so much. You don’t want to fly away, you don’t want your front foot strap to catch the chop and make you catapult, you are 100% concentrated during the run.
Sometimes the best runs are the ones that feel the easiest, and they are always when you get a gust over the whole run. A lot of times, you get the gust at the beginning of the run and not at the end, or the other way round. To get a really fast run, you need a little luck to get a gust all the way through.
What is really good is that I feel really secure. When I came here, I had the feeling that it would be hard to do over 50 knots consistently and to get to 53 or 54 knots but I realized that my 2 best runs on that production record day, I did over 54 knots on the first 250m on one of them, and over 54 knots on the second 250m on the other one, so I realized that if I would get a gust that lasted through the whole course, I would be able to break my record!
I chose the production board because I was sailing with it before our official runs out on the open ocean, when we were practicing there because the wind was not strong enough to go on the channel. I have spent many hours on this board and I feel really confident on it. I did change for 2 runs to one of my best custom boards but the difference was really small so I decided to stay on the production board as I had so much confidence on that one.
Antoine had several runs over 53 knots on November 30th and in the end managed to beat his own record by a good margin, setting a new speed record of 53.49 knots.
Congratulations to all the other speed sailors who dedicate their lives to this pursuit of excellence. December 1st was a day filled with new records and personal bests!
F-192: 53.49kts new world record 🚀🚀🚀🥂
G-2: 52.69kts new German record 🚀🚀🥂
F-113: 50.62kts PB 🚀🥂
K-67: 48.89kts PB 🚀🥂
K-96: 47.58kts new world record 🚀🚀🚀🥂
SA-89: 45.83kts new South African record 🚀🚀🥂
all speeds to be ratified!!!
BIG CONGRATS TO EVERYONE 👍👍👍
