Pascal Maka was the first one taking the crown of speedsailing to the windsurfers. He now organizes record attempts.
| Pascal Maka on the Microphone |
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| Wednesday, 09 April 2008 | |
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After Christophe Simian, now it’s time for Pascal Maka, Masters of Speed coordinator and race director, to tell Windsurfjournal.com his side of the 5 months spent on the canal at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. The net result, personal memories, regrets, his view of the future ! Windsurfjournal.com : The Masters of Speed has just closed down, what do you see as the result of these 5 months of record attempts ?Pascal Maka : As the coordinator of the Masters of Speed, I think it was generally a good result on the pure sport side, we didn’t miss a single opportunity of good conditions and we ended with that exceptional run of 49.09 knots by Antoine Albeau, plus the other two records, Productions boards for Patrik Diethelm and British record for Farrel O’Shea. The big thing missing from the session would have been a new women’s record. The girls waited too long. On March 5th the run was open from 8.00am and I told them it would be a good idea to go early, but they lost too much time and didn’t get there ‘til conditions were really radical. On the organization side it’s a positive result too, the team of Christophe Simian and Fabrice David is experienced and gets the job done. Plus this year we had a chauffeur, David, who helped the riders get back to the start ; plus we had two trained life saving swimmers on duty, plus the local emergency services for big, radical days like March 5th. As for the press coverage, Tanguy Blondel did an excellent job, we’ve been working with Tanguy for media stuff for the last 3 years. He’s basically had them all on standby ever since and called them up again on 3rd January. And they came good when he called on the 5th March, without doubt it was all helped by Albeau’s nationality compared to Finian Maynard, a Frenchie breaking the record is much more interesting than a foreigner doing it, specially at an event in France. And Thierry from SEMIS also helped a lot with press relations on the MoS.
WJ : So, windsurfing gives way to the Hydroptere and the kitesurfers who are both about to kick off attempts, how do you feel about that ?
WJ : What’s your lasting memory of this MOS 2007 !2008 session ?
WJ : After that new world speed sailing record on the 5th March is the canal more than ever the ultimate speed weapon for record breaking… ?
WJ : What are your future plans, can we hope to see another Masters of Speed in 2008/2009 ? Interview by www.windsurfjournal.com |
