Paul Larsen: What's next for the King of Speed?


Image credit: Lloyd Images


Last September Paul Larsen and the band of dedicated speed seekers behind the VESTAS Sailrocket 2 project returned to Walvis Bay in Namibia for another attempt at the outright world speed sailing record. They took with them a new foil package they hoped would enable them to push through the 50 knot ceiling they had been bumping up against on their previous attempts. Two months later Larsen's team were celebrating, having not just broken the record, but shattered it by clocking up a mind boggling average speed of 65.45 knots over a 500 metre course. Earlier this year, with the dust now settled after his amazing achievement, we sat down with Larsen in San Francisco to get the inside story on his record setting achievement and to find out what he planned to do next.


SRM: Take us back to that moment in the cockpit of Sailrocket when you had finished the final run? What were your immediate thoughts? Paul Larsen: After all that time, when I looked at the numbers I thought about what that was going to mean to sailing in general. All the people who have supported us or competed against us or knocked us, anyone who


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