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WEYMOUTH SPEED WEEK 2007 - EVENT NEWS

RESULTS
Sponsors and Final Prizes
Monday 1st October
Tuesday 2nd October
Wednesday 3rd October
Thursday 4th October
Friday 5th October
Saturday 6th October
Sunday 7th October

Competitor and craft list

Event Instructions

Photographs of the week are available from www.racelines.org and www.63pix.com

An entrant at Weymouth Speed Week 2007 wants your money!! The money is for the Air Ambulance, over £75 per knot has been pledged to Rick Peel, sail number 999. His top speed at the event was 22 knots, but his peak speed recorded by GPS was 26.6 and for such a good cause no one will argue. Rick has now raised more than £2000 - the cost of flying two missions. Read more and donate!

SUNDAY
8~10 knots falling to 6 knots. An early start was necessary to catch the little wind that existed and give the many Juniors who had joined us for the weekend a chance to get on the water. The course opened an hour before the scheduled time but sadly closed early at 11:30 as the conditions had quickly deteriorated such that not even the lighter weight junior windsurfers with big sails and wide boards were able to plane.

SATURDAY
9~12 knots The little wind that existed died through the day. The course was opened 30 minutes early to try to give the Juniors as good conditions as possible. Those who were on the course at the start got the best times. The fastest of the day was Denis Royet with a run of 22.85 knots, Stacey Vass collected his second 'Fastest Kite' tankard courtesy of the Amateur Yacht Research Society, who donate three engraved tankards to be awarded each day to the fastest Kite Board, Sail Board and Boat, his speed was 19.81 knots. Icarus once again was the fastest boat at 15.29 knots.

Pictures by Sebastian Povey

Its called a KiteCat - Kite Powered Catamaran. Kites used are "kiteboard style" kites - steering the boat by foot. A video is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1KQsWDGOI8

FRIDAY
Some breeze 10~12 knots, still easterly. But speeds in excess of 20 knots were achieved. The day was won - just - by Stacey Vass on a kite board at 21.96 knots. John Benamati from Italy was the fastest windsurfer at 21.78 knots and James Grogono achieved 19.52 knots with Icarus.

An email from Bjorn Dunkerbeck
"hey, weymouth speed week with 120 windsurfers entered is going ok , not much wind but good speed sailing spirit ,
saludos
Bjorn"

WEDNESDAY and THURSDAY
No wind, no speedsailing! But lots of discussion on designs and techniques and a chance for everyone to meet and to learn from the professionals and experts present. Good party at the Castle Cove Sailing Club!

Its tough work but some has to do it! Norman Phillips whose hard work throughout the year makes Weymouth Speed Week possible.

TUESDAY
Light easterly, ~ 10kt, wind speed falling through the day. Course opened at 11:00 am

Pictures of some of the new boats at Weymouth Speed Week.

James Grogono's Icarus	Jonathan Barton's 'Machine'
Torix Bennett's 4.85m Planning Catamaran	Alan Blundell's Vari Swifti
Icarus flies (Picture Mark Deverell www.racelines.org)

Fastest of the day was Major Alan Cross who achieved 19.33 Kt in the light conditions using formula windsurfing equipment. Icarus achieved a very respectable 16.20 Kt despite not completing a full run on the foils.

MONDAY
9:00am Easterly winds, ~ 15kt, forecast all day, and its raining. 

The course director, Mark Deverell, chose to use the shore course, the ISA timing folk set up on the beach, generators running and cameras pointing directly into the prevailing wind and rain. Then at the time the course should open the inevitable happened, one of the network computers failed. Disaster.

A short crisis meeting and it was decided to try the, as yet untested, new 'simple' system. Nothing like pressure!

The first session was scrapped and the course opened just before 2:00pm and ran continuously, with one change of direction due to wind direction shifting. At 4.00pm the course closed and 272 runs were captured.  There was a feeling of great relief that the new system had worked and that we had produced data that checked with various competitor's GPS data.

Two highlights; one was the arrival of Bjorn Dunkerbeck whose departure from Sylt was delayed because he had to stay to receive his prize for 2nd place. He then travelled 1500km arrived at Weymouth and within minutes had put in the fastest times of the day. At about the same time a foiling catamaran was sighted close to the course. This was the legendary 'Icarus' with James Grogono at the helm. James was one of the people who started Weymouth Speed Week in the 1970's. 

Fastest of the day was Bjorn Dunkerbeck 27.44 Kt
Fastest Kite was Stephen Davison 23.70 Kt
Fastest Boat was Torix Bennett 11.40 Kt

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Nick Povey Copyright © 1999 - 2007 All rights reserved. This page revised: 09 October, 2007. Site launched 06 February, 1999.
	New kite sailing world record 47.77 knots! www.luderitz-speed.com/result.php