Although we have stayed silent about SP80 for two years, its co-founders Mayeul van den Broek, Xavier Lepercq and Benoît Gaudiot are still training and working tirelessly to break the world sailing speed record soon.
A Challenge: Reaching 80 Knots
The current record is still 65.45 knots (121.21 km/h) over 500 metres. It has been held since 2012 by Australian Paul Larsen and his team aboard Vestas Sailrocket II. To beat it, SP80 is aiming for 80 knots, or nearly 150 km/h, powered by the wind alone. You can find out more about the SP80 challenge.
An Idea Born at EPFL
As a reminder, the project came from three friends who share a passion for sailing, kiteboarding and speed, while they were studying mechanical engineering at EPFL. Their boat is towed by a kite wing and sailed by two people: one flies the kite, the other steers the boat. Its “super-ventilating” foils are designed to get around cavitation, a phenomenon that limits the speed of conventional foils. After two years of development in Leucate, the boat reached a top speed of 58.2 knots (108 km/h) in 2025, the second highest ever recorded for a sailboat, and an average speed of 48.6 knots (90 km/h) over 500 metres, which places it among the five fastest sailboats in the world.
SP80 on « Thalassa, aventures extrêmes »
On 26 October 2026, the French documentary series « Thalassa, aventures extrêmes » devoted its third episode to record chasers. As we are in close contact with the team, we were not surprised to see SP80 featured, filmed in Leucate during a training session. Please note that the video below is an excerpt from this French documentary series and is therefore in French:
P&TS, SP80’s First Supporter
P&TS is proud to have been the very first company to support and finance SP80. We protect the many technological innovations and the brand of this young company, and we helped set up its legal structure. This collaboration is described in this SP80 article about our partnership.
To find out more, read our previous articles on SP80 or visit SP80’s official website.
