On Thursday the 6th of October brutal winds hit UK speed spot West Kirby which gave Farrel O'Shea and Steve Thorp the perfect speedsailing conditions with over 60 knot gusts. Steve who was on his SCR 5.0 broke the 50 knot barrier on his fastest run which puts him in the top ten 2011 speeds. Steve Thorp comments:

" An amazing day for speedsailing at West Kirby which attracted sailors from all over the Uk and Europe including Martin Van Muers, Hans Kreisel and Jacques van der Hout. The wind was blowing from first thing and was predicted to increase through the day. I broke the golden rule in speedsailing of not believing this, and spent the first couple of hours taking pictures only to see the conditions get slower for most of the day. Luckily things started to get interesting again after 3pm and we enjoyed some really fast runs. About half an hour before dark it really started to go crazy as the sky went stormy and gusts of 60knots came through. Most sailors were too tired from a full day of sailing (and long distances travelled with little sleep) to take this on, so there were only 3 or 4 of us who stayed out until dark. At times it was just Farrel and myself on the course, occasionally stopped in our tracks and just having to sit on the kit, it was rediculously windy!

Our biggest problem though was that the wind had swung to a very broad direction and as soon as you hit top speed you were into huge rolling chop. The slingshot onto the run was amazing with incredible acceleration but it was almost suicidal and there was no way of getting a 10 second run in before exploding or sheeting out. I actually found the wind quite easy to deal with on the 5m SCR and only wiped out once when my fin left the water and I bailed! My second from last run was the fastest and I was pretty blown away to see 50.01 knots on the dial, a dream come true! The extreme conditions are shown by my low 10 second time of 44.4, and 2 second max of 48.3 on the same run. Now really looking forward to the next big forecast and hopefully some flatter water to really push the limits.

Big thanks to Simmer and Moo/k4fins for giving me the gear I can depend on when things get crazy! "

Congratulations Steve! Stay tuned with Steve at:www.stevethorp.co.ukwww.wavejam.co.ukK4FINS.COM Photo credits: Mark Bailey