Hydroptère

[Gozurtju]

Thumbs up for the Aerosail!!!!



[Boodhunnilesh]

SKYNET !!

[ouivalerie]

I need some more pics of the boat, and I don't understand why the guys are all over the one wing.

[xXsardisXx]

because if the weren't it would flip over

[grossesTennis]

more than anything it´s an aircraft...

[zeilbeest]

wow.... what amazes me thought is that NONE of them are wearing a life jacket or life line..... wouldn't want to go overboard at that speed.....

[scherrycatherine]

Swiss flag? makes sense, they both speak French and German in Switzerland.

[wassmerm]

The boat has a Swiss flag. Must be a Swiss boat then, not a French one.

[thirteenfingers]

Looking at the stern at 3:03 it seems to me that it's flying two flags, see the strip of blue just to starboard of the Swiss flag? My guess is that's the Tricolore.

In fact, a closer look shows a thin bit of white and red under the Swiss flag too, so definitely the Tricolore.

I can't say I'm an expert on boats, I do know the stern is the senior position for flags on a boat, but I'm not sure why one would fly two flags from there.

The boat is French. Maybe registered as Swiss for tax reasons?

[hydrogeneH2]

The boat is french, but there is also a swiss flag flying in respect for the main sponsor, a swiss banker.

[illegalusername]

I love the relentless high-fiving

[JoMoMoss]

WOW!.....truly amazing.....my respect....and a credit to everyone involved with this project.

[mathiastheok]

See what happens when humans look at mother nature and use what she shows us. Birds and the wind...fish and the sea....combined allow these men to fly on the ocean.

[horuhe00]

52.86 knots in less than 500 meters on October 5, 2008...

[rbrown3rd]

54.3167899 mph. Awesome.

[kitefrog]

I would be shiting myself on that vessel, I'm sure a foil could break the surface and they could crash?

[atlanticus]

Yep, the 'crash' probability is very high for all sorts of reasons. Fastest sure, but getting capsized in the middle of Pacific with it is other matter. Good design starting point , definitely could be optimized further.

[rappey]

I believe this vessel achieved 52.something knts recently. first vessel to break the 50knt barrier. now a french kite surfer has just got the world record for doing the 500m distance as hydroptere could not quite maintain the speed to achieve this

[Grommo]

The great thing is that even though the kite boards or Macquarie Innovation etc may compete closely with this boat, (yellow pages hit 50knots in bursts) le Hydroptere can do this in open ocean.

Yellow pages and Macquarie innovation can reach these sort of speeds in winds of only around 20knots though, over 2 times wind speed.

[dann6968]

And even more impressive is that kiteboarders are doing this with only about $2000 gear.

[croakerlips]

shake that reef loose ya french pansies

[croakerlips]

that was for Calebsj.

[Caribbeanlove93]

The Hydroptère is flying over the water, that´s no sailing , bt it´s so great, i love that boat

[javinou]

Only French finally do incredible sailboats like this, wauuu!! Y no soy francés.. Bravo!

[khalid6591]

if i had the money i,l buy me one and i,l sail around the world .

[Mcsailor25]

it would be cooler if you could understand what they were saying

[Astuga]

Imho they just talk about the speed, you can hear them counting numbers.

[deuchevauman]

l'hydroptère : le chaînon manquant entre le bateau et l'avion !

FA-BU-LEUX !!!

[noworries62]

breathtaking! cool!

[pornstar895]

absolutely outstanding stuff!!!

[calebsj]

windsurfers hold the sail powered watercraft speed record

[croakerlips]

not any more. THat gay shits done. Move on.

[ridemy300zx]

So keep her on the water? She's a f@gging plane fer Christ sakes.

[shooshlardo]

FANTASTIC, AWESOME! Vive la France!

[grigiogigio]

suisse, vive la suisse

[hugolepasbo]

absolutely stunning

[nacattack240]

I wouldn't want to be on this thing if it pitchpoled. You'd probably fly about a quarter mile and hitting the water at those speeds could be deadly. It looks like one hell of a ride. Hang on for your flippin life!

[coldstar07]

LOL thatd be painful to say the least!

[seq165432]

My H16 is just as fast. Ok, nearly as fast.  Well - maybe not quite... but going fast on it is every bit as exciting as watching these guys!

[switchcode]

that truelly is the coolest thing I have ever seen..

[skiffsailor1]

yeah,sick! but not thw fastest boat ;) icesailing can reach a speed of 180 km/t!! but this is much more trilling xD <3 <3 <3 love from norway/29er sailor <3

[tedhair11]

ice sailing?

[adglazier]

what happens if you hit a whale?

[spirogrinder2]

you die, whale dies

[theGreatestDay]

what are they celebrating?

[Woodlouse2002]

They broke several records on that run. One of which was for their top speed of 47.2 knots.

[dzarzour]

they where running away from a German Tri that was going 46.2 knots

[ElninoZG]

total madness!

[FushBuckWoNar]

Trop fort! Ca me fait chiâler...