Saintes Maries delivered good conditions

Saintes Maries/France, 06-01-2008
text:mos/pic: Ingrid Franchi

The best conditions of the day were at the beginning of the session from 11am until 1pm with winds of 35-knots with higher gusts of 40-knots and a good angle of 125. The 'big' winds that were predicted throughout the weather circles for the later afternoon unfortunately did not materialize and the normally fluid southeast was tempestuous and moody with wide scopes of change in the wind strength measured at the start, middle and finish by the race crew.

This made getting the right moment difficult. Hats off to Antoine Albeau for a very good performance and for being in the right place at the right time. His speed of 47.69 is the third fastest of all time. Record holder Finian Maynard had an off day as he was unable to find the right tuning, gust or pick the right gear in the constantly changing conditions.

Personal bests were attained by David Garrel (45.96), Cedric Bordes (45.94), Thomas Gaudiot (42.71), Markus Poeltenstein (40.40) and Valerie Ghibaudo (39.93). Congratulations.

"I beat my own record today" explains Antoine "the angle of wind was better than our last attempt. We simply missed still a little wind. I think that I can still go faster even if it is really not easy to gain 0,5 knots at this speed."

Text: mastersofspeed.com