Probably the fastest ever top speed achieved on a strapless 12’6″ SUP board, of 34.43 knots peak speed? Speed sailor Craig “Spotty” Spottiswood from Australia gives us the insight on this fun achievement and he also got done a nice little video on his speed experiment.[more]
“I had the thought of giving my 12’6” SUP with 206 litres volume a run at Sandy Point – Australia, lingering for some time, so with the odd little squall coming through I took to the SUP with the KA Koncept 6.6 and Ka wave fin.
It gave the other guys something to laugh about at as this huge board went flying down the run with its nose nearly a meter off the water and me hanging off the rear.
With plenty of experience wave sailing the SUP and getting it flying on the swells I knew how to trim it ok for speed. On the flat water at Sandy I had to re trim again with the higher speed generating lots of nose lift as I tried to find that sweet spot on the huge amount of tail rocker.
With no foot straps you’re all clear to spread out and try a few stances to compensate for the very forward mast foot position. I had to pretty much battle with trying to have one foot near the tail and other well forward but this caused us to over rake the sail back. I started hitting a wall getting a few 32s, solution more wind power… With the wind angle a bit tight it eventually took a huge gust followed by a big bear away into the channel chop to get a 34.43 peak and 2sec 34.18. My 5×10 on the SUP was 31.9, SUP speed sailing is another challenge one can try whilst waiting for that perfect PB day…” (Craig “Spotty” Spottiswood)
Watch a short video about the sensational speed experiment:
http://www.continentseven.com/2012/07/01/strapless-sup-speedsailing-video/
