Future improvements in outright speed I'm talking about -
techniques and equipment to catch the kites.
1) boards that can go in an inch of water so we can use ground effect like a skim board [}:)]- just make sure the WSSRC observer is sympathetic.
2) rules to change so that the rider is measured and not the whole rig so we can come up with some kind of slingshot mechanism.
Hey hang on... isnt that whats already happening for the kites? 
[}:)] 
I was wondering about a couple of possibilities. One being the underwater surface finish that the swimsuit thread alludes to and the other is the geometry of fin and bottom that Ian K raised some time ago.
You can learn more by research than experiment hence the question.
Future improvements in outright speed I'm talking about -
techniques and equipment to catch the kites.
Put the work into building the perfect sailing spot?
May be more speed will be achieved in the future from sail design and new & lighter materials for sails & boards.
I think if they try and develope a hydro/foil fin to get the board more out of the water could do it.
I think energy and development needs to be put into equipment that helps the average sailor go faster, which I think has happened over last 5 years.
Forget the Kites, let them enjoy what they do. Just focus on the enjoyment of windsurfing.
I dug out an old article from Windsurf Mag July 1989. The title speaks for itself.
The article was from the era when 40kts had been broken my Erik Beale (500m) and Nick Luget (250m).
Interesting to note that the 50kts has been broken now by 3 of the fastest GPS Speedsurfers, without any aerodynamic improvements to the body, purely from rig / board / fin developments over the past few years, and no doubt rider skill.
In essence, similar to a speed skier who dons a super aero dynamic suit to try and cut out body drag could the same be said for a speed surfer?
One such spot already exists! In Chile.
Largest Swimming pool in the world. Saltwater & right next to the ocean. One Km long and 115 ft deep at the deepest end. Took 5 years to build at a cost of 1.5 Billion US dollars. There is Resort there with hundreds of rooms.
I don't know if any one has sailed it yet with a windsurfer.
I partly agree with Hardie but I also don't want to raise the white flag and retire speed windsurfing to a PURELY recreational sport just yet!
Hey Slowie if anyone is ready to try triple or quadruple short thin fin setups it's you mate. What are ya waiting for? In theory we can really push cavitation limits with more than one fin because the possibility of cavitation is greatly reduced - right? Plus that solves your shallow water problem. Just a matter of getting the drag vs lift vs surface area equation right. Simple. Hee hee! 
You seem to be spending a lot of effort on making a single fin really thin to reduce drag but unfortunately unbreakotanium is hard to find. If your fins are 1/3 the length, 1/2 the chord width and 25% the area of conventional speed fins and you have two or three different performance functions depending on where they are on the board, does that sound even remotely worth investigating? Better still, if the fins could be minutely angled to create some more vertical lift than at present - not to hydroplane as such but to relieve some of the pressure from the underside of the board that would aid water release from the tail and rail of the board and let the water flow more freely about ze finz ya??
If all this is rubbish just tell me straight.
Genetically engineered extra large Goolies!!! At least I need some so I can run full speed through the oopsy's like Slowy does.
World snowboard speed record is over 200K using just gravity. (109knots in 1999)
Cleaning up the parasitic drag has got to help..but how much ??
Dan didn't seem to benefit from his streamline suit at SP.
. Nah, just yankin' ya chain!
. Nah, just yankin' ya chain![}:)][}:)]
I agree with Hardie, and I think it has already! The accessibility of high speeds has definitely filtered down to ordinary sailors (and little old men).
I think the biggest thing in the last 4 years has been fins. The development of these computer designed and precision moulded/CAD machined assy fins from Mal Wright and Chris Lockwood has made at least 6 knots difference for me and made a huge difference to the accessibility of speed in less that ideal or nuclear conditions.
Next would be the sails (well, the whole rig really). They have advanced a huge amount in the past 5 years. Something we take for granted a bit I think. This has made the biggest difference in control, giving the confidence which allows one to push harder when conditions are really good. And look at the speeds we can regularly achieve in less than 30 knots of wind now! Sail efficiency has gone through the roof!
The third side of the equation is small and user friendly production speed boards. They are such a huge improvement on the long, narrow speed needles of the 90's and have also contributed to much more consistently high speeds in relatively moderate conditions, but amazingly, they have that fifth gear to handle the sensational top speeds we see from the top few in the world rankings!
I think these is still plenty room for all these things to develop incrementally even if there are no huge breakthroughs. And remember that there are far more guys accessing this equipment and the fast speed strips now, which means that on those rare occasions when all the natural elements come together in the perfect combination there is a far greater chance that someone, somewhere will be in just the right spot, at just the right time, on just the right stuff to blow our minds yet again! Bring it on!
GPS's... without them, no one would really care... requiring 20 people to setup a course, just so one sailor could crack 40kn/45kn/50kn, is far too complicated. I'm amazed that we ever got to measure the first 40kn run.
For those guys familiar with Sandy Point, I feel sorry for the support crew when Mal Wright did his 42kn run at SP - it must have been absolutely howling... trying to setup timing gates, etc.
GPS's has given us the ability to measure all of this "speed stuff"; the problem with GPS's as is stands, is that they measure quite primitively... although Tom Chalko has done a better job by creating the "speed genie" and the audio feedback.
