Finian Maynard (born 22 November 1974 in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

) is a six-time speed

windsurfing 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 ...

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 went to the

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with his parents at the age of 5, hence his sail number KV11 resp. BVI11. When he was 7, he tried windsurfing for the first time and at the age of 15, he came 13th at the US Open at Corpus Christi, Texas. His career choice had been made. Finian Maynard is tall and weighs . This is widely seen as a good build for a speed sailor, giving him the strength and power to achieve high speeds. On 13 November 2004 he established a new speed world record for sailing vessels by reaching 46.82

knot A knot is an intentional complication in cordage which may be practical or decorative, or both. Practical knots are classified by function, including hitches, bends, loop knots, and splices: a ''hitch'' fastens a rope to another object; a ' ...

s in the French Trench near Saintes Maries de la Mer, surpassing the speed set in 1993 at Sandy Point Australia by Simon McKeon and the boat Yellow Pages. He improved his record a half year later, reaching 48.70 knots. Both records were acknowledged and ratified by the

World Sailing Speed Record Council The World Sailing Speed Record Council (WSSRC) was founded in 1972, initially to ratify records at the inaugural Weymouth Speed Week held every year since in Portland Harbor.The WSSRC is the body authorized by the World Sailing (formerly Internati ...

. In August 2009 in Karpathos, Greece he became the 2009 World Speed Champion, and was also the 2009 Vice-World Slalom Champion on the PWA World Tour.

External links

Avanti Sails

World Sailing Speed Record Council

International Speed Windsurfing Class

PWA biography

video and interview of 48.7 knot record run
1974 births Living people Irish windsurfers Sportspeople from Dublin (city) {{Windsurfing-bio-stub

See also

External links