The rules never changed as far as I know, they have always been skewed in this way with respect to sailing. However alot of all other speed records require a return trip, round tracks or carefully controlled ambient conditions as to prevent skewed results.

The biggest problem I see with kite surfers breaking records is just as I say. Find a tropical storm, hang 15 sq. mtr kite in the air and find a jackass type of guy to hook himself on to that. Afterall there are also no rules requiring the pilot to survive the attempt for the record to be valid ! Get my point ?

That is very different from Yellow pages doing (what ?) 46.83 knots in 20 knots winds ! Or having Hydropthere doing close to 50 knots in 30 knots winds and open water seastate.

It is the difference between a downright brute force approach and the elegance of technologically efficient course.

It is not that I dislike kite surfers (I don't) but when as an engineer I'm too impressed by 50 knots average in say 45 average winds. Sorry, that is 45 knots due to the wind and only 5 knots due to the design and pilot. Compare that to Yellow pages : 20 knots due to wind and another 26 knots due to design and pilot.

You know when I will be impressed by the kite surfers ? When they TOO start doing 40+knots in 20 knot winds then the kite design will have really progressed beyond the brute force approach. Then they will have something interesting. Current the name of the Kite situation seems to be to find enough wind (45+ knots) in combo with perfectly flat water. To me the difference to landyachting has been lost. These cars (with and without kites) already do 50+ knots only 10 mtr more upwind to the kiters. Come to think of it these kite cars already do these speed at 30 knots or slightly less and have more advanced kites.

Wouter