A beer for speed dreamers
At WhiteFrontier, we love collaborating with those who dare to go further people who don’t just dream, but turn their ideas into reality. With SP80, we found the perfect partners for our motto, Craft your life. Their goal? To break the world sailing speed record. Yes, really. To celebrate the meeting of our brewing universe and their quest for performance, we created a special SP80 beer in the summer of 2023 — a malty nod to their extraordinary adventure, to be shared while waiting for their next runs or fine-tuning their lightning-fast boat.
An extraordinary project with wild milestones
Their boat isn’t a classic sailboat, it’s a true Formula 1 of the seas, designed to exceed 140 km/h, powered solely by a kite. But before chasing the record, months of hard work were needed. Let’s look back at their progress:
December 2023: First trials on the water, just 10.5 knots (19.5 km/h). The dream still feels far away, but hope remains.
January 2024: A major setback for the team,several components need to be rebuilt. Six months of delay… yet a chance to innovate, including a new kite release system that saves valuable setup time.
July 2024: Back on the water and the first real thrills. 35 knots (64.8 km/h), then 43 knots a few weeks later. Promising progress leads to further refinements. The bow starts to dig in, prompting a redesign of the central hull to prevent drag.
December 2024: The team switches to record mode with a new foil. Unfortunately, it’s a failure — too heavy, pulling the boat down. Another blow.
February 2025: The breakthrough moment. With a new float design, Mayeul and Benoît hit 51.1 knots top speed (nearly 95 km/h) and 41.6 knots (77 km/h) average. With these speeds, the project enters a whole new dimension — though the path ahead is still full of challenges.
April 2025: The boat goes even faster — 52.1 knots (96.5 km/h), with an average speed of 46.7 knots (86.4 km/h). But then, a wall appears: cavitation.
Wait, what’s cavitation?
In short, cavitation is the formation of vapor bubbles when local pressure drops low enough for the surrounding liquid to boil. In other words, the water boils around the foil as the boat accelerates — preventing it from going any faster. The team must rethink the foil, innovate again, and step off the beaten path.
Summer 2025: SP80 reaches 58.2 knots (108 km/h) — the second-fastest sailing vessel in the world. The new foil works, everything seems perfect, but still no absolute record. The conditions in southern France, especially in Leucate, don’t allow for higher speeds. They need a calmer body of water with strong, steady wind. The project must move — to Namibia, where many world records have been set.
Mayeul, the project leader, told us last week:
“Every breakthrough is a release. Every setback is a lesson. And in between, there’s reality — untangling a kite for four hours, dealing with fickle winds, managing safety, permits, birds, tourists…”
Listening to them, it’s hard to grasp the true scale of the project and the countless hours invested in it. A true act of devotion that leaves us feeling deeply humble in front of such a monumental endeavor.
Craft your life: when resilience makes the difference
What’s most impressive about SP80 isn’t just their speed — it’s their resilience. Designing a boat on a computer is one thing; facing the water, the wind, and countless logistical challenges is another. Every setback becomes a blessing in disguise, every mistake a lesson learned.
That’s exactly what Craft your life means: doing what you love, embracing failure, holding on, and pushing forward — even when it feels impossible, even when the goal still seems far away.
The SP80 team is living proof of this: nine people (eighteen in this photo), all passionate experts in their fields, working non-stop to turn a dream into reality. And through it all, we’re proud to offer them a small moment of rest with a good Nitro Double IPA — at 8.0%, of course, just to remind them why they’re here.
Why we support them
In our own way, brewing a beer for SP80 is a toast to adventure, innovation, dreams, records, and their incredible dedication. Because we believe passion deserves to be encouraged. Because their values resonate with ours. And because there’s nothing more inspiring than seeing people give their heart and soul to what they love.
As their boat prepares to head to Namibia to chase the record, we’re proud to stand by their side in our own way.
And next time you raise a glass of SP80, remember — behind every sip is a team that chose to live fully, turning a wild idea into a human adventure.
We’ve already planned to brew a new beer to celebrate their success. Because we believe in them. Because we never give up.
Cheers to the SP80 team.
👉 Craft your life. Always. Even when things are moving at 100 km/h. Even when the hard times hit.
Photos : Guillaume Fischer (@fischerskit)
