FatFatuousNation 
Skip 1:05-3:00.
The rest is awesome, but that segment has the camera frozen on the French men, and I found their shrill, incomprehensible Frenchiness obnoxious, especially when they were stopping me from seeing the boat in action
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Meerkat
BONJOUR MONSIEUR NOM DE PLUME MON POMME FRITE EST ROUGE ET SOUS LA VOISINE!!!!1!!1
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godot
On 2008-10-05 the Hydroptère attained a record speed of 52.86 knots, however this was over a shorter distance than the 500m necessary to qualify for an official world record.
According to the World Sailing Speed Record Council, the official record is still held by the US ship Kitesurfer, skippered by Robert Douglas. We're #1. Sort of.
Sailing hydrofoils are fascinating, but this video isn't.
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godot BTW: the number to beat over 500m is 49.84 kts
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godot I'm an idiot, entirely forgetting about the kitesurfing sport.
On further investigation, Hydroptère holds the class D world record, at 44.81 kts, but the fastest vessels have been kite surfers and wind surfers since 1986. Hydroptère is in fact the fastest seagoing vessel one could theoretically sail to the race location.
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fredfrankel
thats a very high-tech boat
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glasseye
Super awesome.
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OgreMkIV
Sweeeeeet. They have the main sail reefed, so they aren't carrying the full possible sail area. Translation: they probably could have gone faster, but were scared of wiping out. It looked like the helmsman already had a hell of a time keeping the thing under control.
If I remember correctly, they are using modified airliner landing gear for the foil suspension. This boat is way cooler than the stupid Yellow Pages Endeavour, which couldn't actually sail on the open ocean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Pages_Endeavour
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Ersatz
Jacques Cousteau! Baguette!
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