Dublin windsurfer John Kenny (34) has become the fastest speed sailor in Ireland. On the 31st January last, John Kenny broke the Irish speed sailing record when he averaged 40.44 knots over a special 500 metre course at the “Driven By Wind” speed sailing event, in Southend-on-Sea, UK.
With this speed John Kenny has set a new outright Irish Speed Sailing record and a new Irish production board speed sailing record when he used standard off the shelf production equipment. The “Driven By Wind” speed sailing event is being run by veteran speed sailor Dave White from the UK, who is well known to many in the world of windsurfing and particularly speed sailing.
This is yet another event on the world wide speed sailing circuit which has recently seen a huge increase in interest and a renewed push towards breaking the 50 knot barrier, which many believe will not be long coming. The “Driven By Wind” event started at the beginning of January and will run till the end of March to take advantage of the stronger winds which tend to occurr at this time of the year. John Kenny, a welder and sheet metal fabricator from Ringsend, has been windsurfing for 15 years and recently decided to concentrate on speed sailing and to start an Irish campaign to push the Irish record towards 50 knots and make an attempt to break the nautical mile record too.
Currently the outright world speed sailing record stands at 49.09 knots held by French speed sailing veteran Antoine Albeau. Activity in this area of the sport is increasing all the time and 2008 looks likely to be a very interesting year with plans by the the foiling Hydroptere www.hydroptere.com well advanced, along with a growing circuit of speed sailing events worldwide. The previous Irish record holder was Timo Mullen, from Northern Ireland, who held the record for all of 30 minutes when he averaged 39.02 knots on the same day John Kenny pushed it over 40 knots.
John Kenny’s achievement is notable, because he only managed to complete 4 runs down the course before injurying his foot, which halted his participation in the Driven By Wind competition. Kenny was thrilled to take the record, actually in the first of four runs down the course at the Driven By Wind speed sailing competition. He is now ranked 50th in the world after only 1 event and if his unofficial GPS speeds of over 41 knots are anything to go by, then faster speed are likely to come in the future.
John Kenny now plans to embark on a campaign to compete on the speed sailing circuit worldwide and is actively canvassing for help from sponsors so he can travel to events in the UK, France and Namibia to push the record even further. Officials from the World Speed Saillng Record Council (WSSRC), the worldwide governing body of speed sailing, were on hand at the Driven By Wind event to observe the records being set and are expected to ratify John Kenny’s records shortly.
World Speed Sailing Record Council: www.sailspeedrecords.com
Event Site: www.drivenbywind.com
John Kenny: www.johnkennyspeedsailing.ie
or http://web.mac.com/pauloriain/johnkenny2008
