Past 40 knots in a canal dug for speed

The fastest runs need strong wind and flat water, and nature rarely offers both in the same place. In 1987 the windsurfer Erik Beale and Michel Roussolet came up with an answer: a speed canal, dug near Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the Camargue, in the south of France, and laid out to make the most of the strong Mistral wind. The first version was a straight channel of around 800 to 850 metres.

On 13 November 1988 Beale sailed it at 40.48 knots, about 75 kilometres an hour, on a Jimmy Lewis Mudshark with a custom 4.3 square metre sail. He was the first sailor, in any kind of craft, to officially break the 40-knot barrier.

The canal was later lengthened to 1,100 metres and became a fixed venue for speed record attempts. The same idea, a channel dug for speed alone, lives on at Lüderitz in Namibia, where the fastest windsurf runs of today are sailed.