Antoine Albeau is a French

windsurf Windsurfing is a wind propelled water sport that is a combination of sailing and surfing. It is also referred to as "sailboarding" and "boardsailing", and emerged in the late 1960s from the aerospace and surf culture of California. Windsurfing ga ...

er who holds twenty-four Windsurfing World Championships in different disciplines since 1994. Born on 17 June 1972 in

La Rochelle La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. Wit ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

, Albeau set a new all–category world windpowered sailing speed record on 5 March 2008 with 49.09 knots (90.91 km/h or 56.49 mph) on the

Saintes Maries de la Mer Speed Canal The Saintes Maries de la Mer Speed Canal, known to windsurfers as The Canal, is a man-made canal or trench near the French Mediterranean coastal town Saintes Maries de la Mer, built especially for speed record-breaking sailing by windsurfers. ...

, beating the previous record which had been set by

Finian Maynard Finian Maynard (born 22 November 1974 in Dublin, Ireland) is a six-time speed windsurfing world champion (1998 - 2001, 2006 and 2009) and held the absolute 500m sailing speed record for all sailing vessels from late 2004 until early 2008. He we ...

with a speed of 48.70 knots in April 2005 at the same spot. In November 2012 he improved with a new record of 52,05 knots (96.34 km/h – 59.9 mph) on the Luderitz Canal in Namibia. In October 2008 Antoine Albeau successfully completed a cross channel windsurf from

Cherbourg-en-Cotentin Cherbourg-en-Cotentin () is a city in the department of Manche, Normandy, northwestern France, established on 1 January 2016.

Sandbanks Sandbanks is an affluent neighbourhood of Poole, Dorset, on the south coast of England, situated on a narrow spit of around 1 km2 or 0.39 sq mi extending into the mouth of Poole Harbour. It is known for its high property prices and for it ...

Poole Poole () is a large coastal town and seaport in Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 2019, the local authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council ...

. A crossing of 75 nautical miles (138 kilometres) taking just over 6 hours. Antoine was accompanied by

Guy Cribb Guy Cribb (born 1970) is a windsurfer and windsurfing trainer. Career Cribb is a former British racing coach and creator of the INtuition brand of technique coaching. He has been a technique and travel writer with regular features in the windsurf ...

, and supported by Dave Hartwell from

The Water Sports Academy ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in E ...

, Sandbanks in a safety boat which also acted as a media platform.

References

External links

*
World Sailing Speed Record Council

Speed World Cup
French windsurfers 1972 births Living people French male sailors (sport) Sportspeople from La Rochelle Sailing expeditions {{Windsurfing-bio-stub