There certainly aren’t many 11 year olds that can call themselves a World Champion. After all the hard work and training at Lake Tinaroo North Queensland, Kristen Wadley has grabbed her first world sailing title at the Miami Yacht Club USA. Kristen took out the O’pen Bic World Cup Championship’s Under 13 Girl’s Division earlier this month.
Her father and coach, Roger Wadley said he could not be any prouder of his daughter. ‘It was so emotionally draining for me to watch her and see her  … More
A boat is once again the fastest craft under sail! Paul Larsen has broken the speed sailing record* on the boat known as Sailrocket, ripping the title from the kiteboarders. Skirting the edge of disaster on Walvis Bay in Namibia, the Australian speed demon has proven his craft, his persistence, and his bravery as he pushed his high tech boat and sailing itself to the upper limits. Paul once told YachtPals that to break records “every now and then you have to take big jumps, and just suck it and see what happens.” Well, he proved himself right this week as he claimed the outright speed sailing record for himself, breaking American kitesurfer Rob Douglas’ 500 meter record by a whopping 3.58 knots!
The Sailrocket team is still going over the data, but the preliminary* stats are  … More
With conditions on the test track at Walvis Bay in Namibia near perfect for the attempt, Weymouth based sailor Paul Larsen and his Vestas SailRocket 2 team, who have been working on breaking the record for almost a decade having seen it rise by nine knots, was confident of success having earlier in the week averaged 54.08 knots down the 500m course.
This beat the previous ‘boats’ record of 51.36 knots set by Alain Thebault’s team on L’Hydroptère in 2009 but was still some way short of the overall sailing speed record of 55.65 knots, set two years ago in Luderitz by American kite-boarder Rob Douglas  … More
With the modifcations made to the new foil on VESTAS Sailrocket 2 working so well in light winds, the team were keen to see if they would translate to high speeds. VSR2 had constantly been hitting a ‘glass ceiling’ around 52 knots despite the fact that she was designed to do well over 60. This is the day when theory turned into reality and the team got to see speeds they could only dare dream about when they started over 10 years earlier. Peak speed 61.92 knots, average over 500 meters 54.08 knots. This was the teams first sight of a new horizon. The peaks and the averages are expected to climb in the following runs.