The new norwegian F18 website is up. In addition to the "regular" contents, they are also running a 'Speed trophy' section.

Ref: http://www.formula18.no/?page_id=36 (in norwegian of course)

The rules are that the speed have to be measured as an average over 10 secs on a GPS unit like the speedpuck or similar. Then a third party have to verify the reading.
Record have to be set in Norway
Have to be set by a certified F18 (valid measurement I suppose)


I like it. The measurement is of course not neccesarily a reflection of true speed through the water, but it opens the possibility for some good fun. Not everything have to be dead serious.

Current "record" is listed as 20.1 knots in 12-14m/s windspeed.

If you are running a book on the 1st award, I will have 26.7 knots

Did you get that measurement while sailing in Norway?

No, thats my guess in the sweepstake for the speed that WILL win it.

Having checked the speed of my TIGER since years, the sound barrier is somewhat around 20-21 knots. Even the Hobie trials in the Speed Channel in Southern France have not given speeds over 27 knots which we are sometimes reading.
GPS can sometimes fool you, so it needs more than one proof.
Errors can be reduced by setting up the GPS in a manner that the measured speed needs to be maintained at least 5 sec, so that measuring errors are minimized.

Curious to see your experiences!

BTW: my max speed is 20.3 knots in flat waters of the Danish islands.

My F18 was clocked at 56.48 knots (sustained) by a California State Official. I have the little yellow certificate right here.

I think the whole idea is to have a little fun with this, not taking it too seriously
According to the webpage speed is average speed measured over 10 seconds. I guess the speedpuck have this functionality.

You get the 10 sec avg by importing the GPS data into software, thats the same thing that speedsurfers use.
Here a list of apps to do it with: http://www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=item&item=GPSsoftware

Tony, what you suggest makes it a bit more difficult to get the reading verified by a witness/third party that was present? Since they specify that the speedpuck "or similar" is to be used I guess this unit already have the speed over 10s average built in?

AFAIK the Speedpuck is the only GPS that has the 10sec avg speed builtin (you cant expect people to go out and buy one).
To make the attempts credibly you would have to supply the whole track anyway,
that for me would be just as good as a witness (or maybe even better).

I dont write the rules fortunately.
I would not be surprised if those who are behind this have a speedpuck and that is all they need to know.. It is all for fun so I dont really care.