The History of Speed on the Water: From Crossbow to the F50

Every session you log is a small entry in a much longer story. Long before GPS watches and foiling F50s, sailors were chasing the same question that drives every Waterspeed session today: how fast can you actually go?

Over the last five decades, the answer has changed dramatically. Traditional sailing craft gave way to windsurfers, purpose-built speed machines, kites and hydrofoils. At the same time, the way we measure speed has evolved from fixed courses and timed runs to detailed GPS data available after virtually any session.

Here's how the record for the fastest way to move across water has changed hands over the last fifty years — and what it says about where the sport is headed next.

1972–1980: The Crossbow era

The first officially recognised speed sailing record dates back to 1972, when Tim Colman took his 56-foot proa Crossbow to 26.3 knots. It doesn't sound like much next to today's numbers, but at the time it redefined what a sailboat could do. Colman kept pushing, and by the mid-1970s had reached 31.10 knots. His follow-up boat, Crossbow II, carried the record through the early 1980s, eventually touching 36 knots.

It was the beginning of a pattern that would define the next fifty years: every time the limit appeared to have been found, someone arrived with a different way of reducing resistance and going faster.

Then the boards arrived.

As windsurfing equipment became faster and more specialised, individual riders began challenging — and beating — purpose-built boats.

In 1986, French windsurfer Pascal Maka pushed the outright record to 38.86 knots at Sotavento.

Two years later, Erik Beale became the first sailor to officially break the 40-knot barrier, averaging 40.48 knots over 500 metres at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in France.

The specially built speed canal there became one of the most important locations in speed sailing history.

The records kept falling.

Maka reached 42.91 knots in 1990, before Thierry Bielak pushed the benchmark through 43, 44 and eventually 45.34 knots in 1993.

For several years, the fastest sailing craft on the planet wasn't a yacht. It was a windsurfer.

And decades later, the obsession with measuring speed hasn't gone anywhere. Today's riders can track their windsurfing speed, compare runs and analyse entire sessions from a watch or phone rather than relying on a dedicated record course.

1993–2004: The Wingsail interruption

In October 1993, the outright record moved away from windsurfing.

Australian sailors Simon McKeon and Tim Daddo took Yellow Pages Endeavour to 46.52 knots at Sandy Point, Australia.

Designed by Lindsay Cunningham, the highly specialised craft used a rigid wingsail and an unconventional configuration designed around one objective: speed.

Its record would stand for more than a decade.

Yellow Pages Endeavour is an important moment in the story because it demonstrated something that would become increasingly important in high-performance sailing: the biggest speed gains often come from changing the relationship between the craft and the water itself.

2004–2008: Windsurfing Comes Back

Eventually, windsurfers caught up again. Finian Maynard broke the outright record with 46.82 knots in 2004, then improved it to 48.70 knots in 2005.

And in March 2008, Antoine Albeau raised the record again to 49.09 knots.

By then, the 50-knot barrier was close enough to feel inevitable. But it wouldn't be a windsurfer that broke it first.

2008–2010: Kites take the lead

Speed sailing's centre of gravity shifted to Lüderitz, Namibia.

Its purpose-built speed channel, strong winds and exceptionally flat water created the conditions needed for another jump in performance.

In October 2008, American kitesurfer Rob Douglas reached 49.84 knots. Then Sébastien Cattelan went faster: 50.26 knots.

For the first time, a sailing craft had officially averaged more than 50 knots over 500 metres.

Alexandre Caizergues pushed the record to 50.57 knots soon after, and the progression continued.

By 2010, Rob Douglas had reached 55.65 knots.

Lüderitz had become one of the defining locations in the history of speed sailing — and it remains one today.

The location continues to attract some of the world's fastest windsurfers, with riders using modern GPS tracking to analyse runs that would once have required specialised timing infrastructure.

2009–2012: Hydrofoils Change the Question

While windsurfers and kites were fighting for records close to the surface of the water, another idea was developing.

What if you could remove most of the hull from the water altogether?

In 2009, Hydroptère, Alain Thébault's experimental foiling trimaran, set a 500-metre record of 51.36 knots.

Hydrofoiling wasn't new, but its performance at this scale made the potential impossible to ignore.

Instead of simply trying to generate more power, the boat reduced drag by lifting much of itself above the water.

Three years later came one of the biggest jumps in the history of speed sailing.

In November 2012, Paul Larsen sailed Vestas Sailrocket 2 at an extraordinary 65.45 knots over 500 metres in Walvis Bay, Namibia. That's roughly 121 km/h.

More than a decade later, the record still stands.

From Crossbow's 26.30 knots in 1972 to Sailrocket's 65.45 knots in 2012, the outright sailing speed record had increased by almost 150%.

2024–2026: Records keep falling

More than thirty years after windsurfers first took control of the outright record, the discipline is still pushing its own limits.

On December 1, 2024, Antoine Albeau set a new windsurfing world record of 53.49 knots — 99.06 km/h — over 500 metres at Lüderitz.

He had first taken the outright sailing record back in 2008.

Sixteen years later, he was still going faster.

And Albeau isn't alone. Speed sailing at Lüderitz continues to attract riders chasing tiny gains measured in fractions of knots — differences that can come from equipment, angle, conditions, technique or simply executing one run better than the last.

Today, however, that pursuit of speed is no longer limited to official record attempts.

At events such as DÉFI, Waterspeed users are doing exactly the same thing on a different scale: recording sessions, comparing numbers and asking each other one very familiar question.

DÉFI may not be a world-record attempt, but the mentality is surprisingly similar. Riders want to know how fast they went, how they compare and where they can improve next time.

For anyone preparing for an event like it, speed is only part of the equation. Pacing, consistency and the ability to sustain performance over distance matter just as much. That's why training for a long-distance race requires looking beyond one peak number.

Meanwhile, the F50 Is Redefining Racing Speed

The outright sailing speed record and racing speed are two very different things.

Vestas Sailrocket 2 was designed around one objective: go as fast as possible over a straight 500-metre course.

An F50 has to do something much harder. It has to accelerate, manoeuvre, sail different angles, race other boats and repeatedly convert speed into useful progress around a course.

And now it does all of that at more than 100 km/h.

SailGP's current F50 racing speed record stands at approximately 103.9 km/h, set during the 2025 season. That is a remarkable number on its own. But it becomes even more interesting when you look beyond the peak.

Waterspeed has had the opportunity to do exactly that.

During a SailGP session in Portsmouth, NorthStar reached 96.6 km/h while recording the entire session with Waterspeed.

The headline number was impressive.

The deeper data was even more revealing.

NorthStar averaged:

• 88.3 km/h over its fastest 500 metres

• 86.5 km/h over 1 kilometre

• 79.4 km/h over 5 kilometres

• 78.0 km/h over 10 kilometres

That is what separates a fast moment from sustained performance.

You can explore the full NorthStar performance analysis here.

The Pattern Behind the Numbers

Look at the fifty-year arc and a pattern emerges: every major jump in speed came from getting more of the hull out of the water, not from more raw power. Proas gave way to windsurfers, windsurfers gave way to kites, and kites gave way to full foiling. Each step reduced drag rather than added force — which is exactly why session data like time-on-foil and drag-related metrics matter as much as top speed for anyone training today.

The other constant: measurement got better right alongside the boats. Early records were timed with stopwatches over a fixed course; today, a session on Waterspeed captures GPS-verified speed down to the metre, in real time, without a sanctioning body or a 500-metre channel required. The record chase used to belong to a handful of specialists at Lüderitz. Now everyone with a tracker gets to ask the same question about their own session.

Where Do You Fit In?

You're probably not chasing the 65.45-knot outright world record.

But every time you hit Start Session, you're asking essentially the same question sailors have been asking for more than fifty years.

How fast can I go?

Open your last session in Waterspeed / Check your top speed / Then look beyond it.

See how long you maintained it, where it happened and what changed before and after your fastest run.

Because the most interesting number isn't always the biggest one.

Sometimes it's the one that tells you what to do differently next time.

What's your top speed?