The first woman over 30 knots

Women’s speed records had been kept since 1981, and the women’s mark before hers stood just over 28 knots. In 1986, at the same event at Sotavento on Fuerteventura where Pascal Maka took the outright sailing speed record, Britt Dunkerbeck became the first woman to sail faster than 30 knots. She was timed at 33.77 knots, about 63 kilometres an hour.

The number puts the pace of change in perspective. Three years earlier no windsurfer at all had been timed over 30 knots; Fred Haywood was the first, in 1983. By 1986 boards, sails and venues had moved on so far that a new barrier fell on the same beach as the outright record.