Windsurf · Wide board revival
2004
Windsurfers take back the outright record
Finian Maynard ends eleven years of Yellow Pages Endeavour; windsurfers then hold the outright sailing speed record until a kitesurfer takes it in 2008.
46.82knots
Finian Maynard, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, November 2004
From October 1993 the fastest sailing craft in the world was Yellow Pages Endeavour, an Australian speed machine that had sailed 46.52 knots at Sandy Point. For eleven years no windsurfer could match it.
In November 2004 Finian Maynard broke the record twice in one weekend in the canal at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, ending at 46.82 knots. On 10 April 2005 he raised it to 48.70 knots, and on 5 March 2008 Antoine Albeau took it to 49.09 knots, about 91 kilometres an hour.
It was the last time a windsurfer held the outright record. On 19 September 2008 the American kitesurfer Rob Douglas sailed 49.84 knots at Lüderitz in Namibia, and within weeks two French kitesurfers had passed 50 knots. From then on the outright record belonged to kites and purpose-built craft, and windsurfers chased records of their own.