Windsurf · Pro era & decline
1993
The first woman over 40 knots
Babeth Coquelle is timed at 40.05 knots, five years after the first sailor of any kind broke 40.
40.05knots
Babeth Coquelle, Tarifa, 1993
In 1993 the French sailor Babeth Coquelle became the first woman to sail faster than 40 knots, with a run of 40.05 knots, about 74 kilometres an hour.
The step is easy to measure. Erik Beale had been the first sailor of any kind to officially break 40 knots only five years earlier, in 1988. The first women’s mark over 30 knots, Britt Dunkerbeck’s 33.77, dated from 1986. In seven years the fastest women had gained more than six knots.
The run was sailed at Tarifa, in the south of Spain, according to the WSSRC record list. Before that, Coquelle had traded the women’s record with Brigitte Gimenez in the canal at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.