Windsurf · Funboard revolution
1983
Fred Haywood breaks 30 knots
Fred Haywood becomes the first windsurfer to sail faster than 30 knots, as speed sailing turns into a contest of equipment.
30knots
First windsurfer past 30 knots, Fred Haywood, 1983
In 1983 Fred Haywood became the first windsurfer to sail faster than 30 knots, about 56 kilometres an hour.
Only a few years earlier a windsurf board had been measured at just over 19 knots. The jump shows how quickly equipment changed in the early eighties. A recent history of the sport ties windsurfing to the plastics industry and describes intense competition between producers that drove fast technical change. Within two decades the windsurfing speed record doubled.
Haywood’s mark opened a series of barriers that would fall one after another. In 1986 a windsurfer set the outright sailing speed record for the first time, in 1988 the first sailor passed 40 knots, and in 2012 the first windsurfer passed 50.