Zara Davis (born 13 July 1966 in Bristol, England) is an English windsurfer. She holds the outright World Women’s Nautical Mile speed record for a sailing vessel. The record was achieved in Namibia in 2006 and ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council. [1] She has since inproved this record for the Nautical Mile to 37.29 knots at La Plame in the South of France. Ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council. [2]
Bristol is a city and county in South West England with a population of 459,300. The wider district has the 10th-largest population in England. The urban area population of 724,000 is the 8th-largest in the UK. The city borders North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, with the cities of Bath and Gloucester to the south-east and north-east, respectively. South Wales lies across the Severn estuary.
The World Sailing Speed Record Council, founded in 1972, is the body authorized by the International Sailing Federation to confirm speed records of sailing crafts on water. In the early years the council only dealt with claims of speed records on a one-way leg of 500 metres. Since 1988 the WSSRC is also responsible for offshore sailing records, because there were several controversial claims about the times of long voyages.
She also held the Windsurfing World Women’s 500m record. Set in Luderitz Namibia in November 2012 held it for 3 years and regained it again in 2017 with a speed of 46.49 knots over the 500m course. It has been ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council. [3]
Zara has won the ISWC European speed championships 6 times and the ISWC Speed World Championship 3 times, she is also ranked No1 in the world by the ISWC International Speed Windsurfing Class.
The International Speed Windsurfing Class (ISWC) is a class of speed windsurfing boards that has developed over the last 30 years in order to facilitate high performance competition in strong winds and on flat water. The International Speed Windsurfing Class is controlled by the International Sailing Federation and has been adopted as an international class in spring 2007. The class is defined as an "experimental" class, which means that the class rules give a wide possibility for the development of new equipment, also outside commonly used technologies. Speed windsurfing events are normally held on "flat water" as opposed to coastal surf; which means side-offshore wind directions with a strength of at least 20 knots. The ISWC speed world champion is established throughout a tour, the Speed World Cup.
Started windsurfing when she was 13 taught by her father John and started competing at British national level in 1999 - 2001 winning the British UKWA [4] Women's Slalom Title in 2000.
She turned her focus to speed windsurfing in 2004. Taking the Women's overall title at Weymouth Speed Week, [5] 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. She also holds the ladies Portland harbour record at 32.44 knots.
2005 Finished 6th in the world overall on the Speed World Cup Tour and PWA slalom.
Zara is 183 cm (6 ft) tall and weighs 75 kg this is accepted as a great build for a female speed sailor, giving her the strength and leverage to achieve high speeds. She is the 1st person to hold two official speed sailing records. The first was set In October 2006 she established a new women’s speed world record for sailing vessels over a Nautical mile by averaging 34.7 knots at Walvis Bay Namibia, surpassing the previous speed record set in 2005 at the same spot by French sailor Valerie Ghibaudo by over a knot.In October 2012 she went on to set the Women's Windsurfing world record 500m record at 45.83 knots which had stood for over 9 years previously held by Karin Jaggi of Switzerland at 41.25 knots. In 2015 Karin Jaggi broke the record again with 46.31 knots. Zara then went back to Luderitz in 2017 and took her record back, taking the Women's Windsurfing World record to 46.49 knots. [6] All records were acknowledged by the World Sailing Speed Record Council. [7]
Walvis Bay, meaning "Whale Bay", is a city in Namibia and the name of the bay on which it lies. The town covers a total area of 29 square kilometres (11 sq mi) of land.
Zara achieved No 1 status for the 1st time on the official ISWC [8] Women's world ranking in 2010.
She also achieved a new Women's Production Board Speed Record in Luderitz Namibia at the same time as her world 500m record as she was using a standard production Simmer Speed Demon 40.
