Port St. Louis ISA Speedsurfing Grand Prix – Day 1

Port St. Louis, France – 04.04.2005
The first day of the ISA Speedsurfing Grand Prix in the South of France
saw great conditions for the more than 100 competitors. Race Director
Bruno de Wannemaeker sent the amateur fleet out to their first
qualification round at 14:00 in moderate conditions and wind with force
5-6 Bft.
The winners of this round and thus qualified for the professionals race
are:
Nr.  98 Cedric Burel
Nr.  56 Thierry Alibelli
Nr. 113 Dennis Little
Nr. 971 Gwenael Beasse
Nr.  93 Wolfgang Verlaeckt

The professional’s race started at 15:45 with the wind picking up to
constant 25 knots on the course. With a topspeed of 33,794 Antoine
Albeau of France took the victory over Ben van der Steen (NED) and
Finian Maynard (BVI).
Place Name                      Nr.   Average     Speed1     Speed2
1       Antoine Albeau  192     33,655  33,794  33,515
2       Ben v.d. Steen  57      32,423  32,747  32,098
3       Finian Maynard  1       32,334  32,528  32,140
4       Dave MacInnes   67      32,184  32,397  31,971
5       Bieuzy Mauffret 112     32,141  32,311  31,971
6       Bjorn Dunkerbeck        11      31,722  31,929  31,515
7       Martin v. Meurs 62      31,314  31,556  31,072
8       Fabian Pendle   83      31,313  31,515  31,111
9       B. Moussilmani  721     31,296  31,638  30,953
10      Pascal Toselli  916     31,252  31,272  31,231

The weather forecast for the next days seems to give the competitors a
little break. For mid of the week there is strong mistral wind
forecasted that might give the event the chance to break some records.