When it comes to high-speed windsurfing, there are two places in the world that are good for absolute top scores. The artificial channel in Lüderitz, which comes to life once a year for around four to six weeks, and the beach at La Palme on the Mediterranean coast in the south of France. In principle, peak values can be achieved here all year round, provided the Tramontana blasts out to sea along the Pyrenees. Numerous official world records have already been set here, not only over the 500-metre distance, but above all over the nautical mile (1852 metres). Andrea Baldini founded the "Forever Speed" organisation in 2017 and has regularly organised the "Prince of Speed" in La Palme since 2018. Several times a year, the assembled speed elite race along the beach at 90 kilometres per hour and more in pursuit of personal and official records. They have the "Principe" to thank for all this.
Where are you from and where does the nickname "Principe" come from? Are you really a prince?
I would be a count, not a prince. However, my grandfather, a great gentleman stylist and one of the founders of the Academy of Italian Tailors, who was awarded the titles of Grand Officer of the Italian Republic and Commendatore, used to say of me: "The prince has arrived." And we were a big family - my mother had five sisters and two brothers as well as all her children and grandchildren.
When I was riding, a groom called me Prince, he said I was very elegant and very brave, and then lots of people called me that. The same thing happened with windsurfing. They said I was like the knight in shining armour. Maybe all this also contributed to the fact that many people helped me in life.
Once in South Africa, it must have been around 2007, an Italian from a humble background, but clever enough to find a job in Cape Town, met one of my best friends on Sunset Beach: the son of a wealthy, well-known princess and a Marquis of Baldachin. He told him without hesitation: You are princes by birth. He - and he was talking about me - earned it on the square. My noble friend still reminds me of this.
Who were you before you became the "Principe" of speed surfing and who are you now?
Andrea Baldini was a young building contractor, a doctor of economics, sometimes a playboy of Roman nights in the wild times of the late 80s and early 90s - he no longer exists.
Since I've been in France permanently, Andrea Baldini is "dead", as are all my Roman affairs, some of them beautiful and unforgettable, others equally unforgettable but very painful. Now there is only Prince Baldini, the father of the Prince of Speed ... And in the end, I got used to my new identity - it was like a rebirth for me!
How did your passion for speed surfing come about?
I've always had a passion for speed, from cars to skiing and windsurfing. When I was a child, my parents and the then mayor of Rome and former minister Clelio Darida (my mentor along with my father) went to Cervinia to the hotel of Achille Compagnoni, the man who climbed K2 in 1954 with 18 kilograms of luggage on his back. Ever since I was a child, Achille Compagnoni always repeated his motto to me: "If you quit, you never win." I felt it from day one. All his children loved speed: skiing, water skiing, bobsleighing ... They all suffered countless injuries and fractures and one died. I discovered one-kilometre skiing with his son Giordano. It was 1983 and at the age of just 15 I reached a speed of 158 km/h on skis that were almost twice as long as me. I was then a terror on the slopes for years - but I'm rather ashamed of that today.
In 1980 and 1981, I had a windsurfing board with three steps, probably the first speed board, which I also used in the waves. The feeling of speed, driven by the wind on the water, was incredible, and it still is. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do speed races for many years because it was difficult to train without a car. But after I finished my studies and started working, I got back into it.
Is the Prince of Speed your invention, and what drove you to create this event?
I wanted to do the Prince of Speed back in 2005 in Italy on the beach at Sant'Agostino, a stand-by race, but I couldn't make the local connections to get it organised. Since 2009, I've been surfing regularly at Plage du Rouet, the beach at La Palme in the department of Aude in Occitania, on the beautiful Côte du Midi. It was here that I founded the Forever Speed association in 2016 and made contact with the institutions to make speed surfing official.
The project was and is to create a world-class event: Prince of Speed, divided into several competitions, open to all sailing categories. There was a risk that access to the beach would be closed and I thought that creating a world-class event or events would make the institutions reconsider, and they did.
What were your other projects?
To create an artificial speed channel, not in competition with Lüderitz, but in synergy. Organisation of GPS competitions throughout France, run by the various clubs, where I would set the rules and donate prizes - free speed training lessons, free test runs on the eventual channel, T-shirts and so on.
And I also had the Waterman in mind as part of a school project: a free project where I would explain to students how the sea moves, how we should move at sea and that to become a good Waterman - a word made up of water and man - we must first and foremost be a good person who knows himself, respects the nature he will encounter, as well as himself and others.
Do you have a team that deals with the organisation, or are you more of a one-man show?
We are a small team: Vanessa, my partner, takes care of the administrative and logistical side of things, she is the timekeeper at Forever Speed Vision and 12 months a year she is the official photographer of all the speed action on the beach.
I deal with politics, with the World Sailing Federation, with the class, the sponsors of the Speed Knights, I am the race director, I am the shuttle boy at record attempts, I sing and I am the speaker at ceremonies, I edit photos, videos. I take care of social media and mass media.
What do you do in "real" life, and where do you find the time and money to keep the Prince of Speed alive?
I left my previous life behind me because we were in danger of losing access to the beach here in 2016 because it was in danger of becoming a victim of speculation. That's why I thought that successful international events could save it and dedicated myself to them. I sacrificed a lot and paid a high price for it, especially leaving my family and giving up my business, but in life sometimes we have to make decisions and I don't regret my decisions, no matter how many tears and blood they cost me.
Here in France, in the Aude, I found political people, from the mayor of La Palme, who believed in me from day one, to the Aude department, which was my first institutional partner, then the Occitanie region, the Côte du Midi and local entrepreneurs like Qair, which manufactures offshore wind turbines, foreign entrepreneurs like R-Techsolution AB, IPP Pump, the technical sponsors who have supported me for years. But above all, all the great champions who have believed in the project from day one, such as Antoine Albeau, Rob Douglas, Paul Larsen, Matteo Iachino, Zara Davis, Charlotte Consorti, Thierry Bielak, Marine Tlattla, Heidi Ulrich, Vincent Valkenaers, Hans Kreisel, Cedric Bordes, Ben Van Der Steen and many more.
The politicians here are attentive and sensitive to new ideas and sport, and it is thanks to them that I can organise the events. Of course, I used to live on 500 square metres by the sea near Rome and now I live on 20 square metres in a small village. But the project required it, and I do it with infinite joy!
What is on the programme for 2024?
Our 2024 programme comprises four events:
- Prince of Speed - ISWC World Championship 21 to 30 April 2024 (Click here for the follow-up report)
- Prince of Speed - world record attempt 1 to 30 June 2024 (all categories)
- Prince of Speed - World Speed Tour Cup (all categories)
- ISWC Grand Prix Prince of Speed GPS test version with GPS speed surfing over 12 months
How do you see the canal in Lüderitz? Is it more competitive and a bit frustrating because it's probably a bit easier to set records there?
I think I was the first European to windsurf in Lüderitz. From the 90s to 2011, I spent a few weeks in South Africa in winter. I travelled to Namibia a few times to explore new surf spots, including one that is now very famous: Skeleton Bay, which is five kilometres as the crow flies from the Walvis Bay spot. That's why I always had two surfboards with me when I travelled to the World Cup in Walvis. Hennie Bredenkamp, a brotherly friend, always told me about Lüderitz. He brought me there. Then in 2006, during a race in Walvis Bay, we came up with the idea of showing Finian Maynard and Sebastien Cattelan, who were organising speed events. I didn't take part because I was too busy with my property projects.
Since a conversation with Anders Bringdal in 2009, I had always hoped to have a channel with a half-wind start to facilitate the start and then accelerate into the turn. The half-wind start and the turn would also dampen the brute super acceleration in the first few metres. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to build a channel in Saintes Maries in the south of France, even though windsurfing journalist and filmmaker Christophe Simian was there and I had commitments from big champions like Zara Davis and Björn Dunkerbeck.
Then we suggested it to kiter Seb Cattelan for Lüderitz, who realised it for a small number of windsurfers in 2010: Bringdal, Farrel O'Shea, Nick Vardalachos, Zara Davis and myself and of course a few kiters
The controllable slingshot was possible, but a 1.5 metre high wall on the windward side prevented the windsurfers from getting enough wind into the lower part of the sail. That day the water level was 20 centimetres in some sections, so we shortened the G10 fins to 16 centimetres, and I was even faster than Anders (laughs), but at an irrelevant speed. Then in the afternoon the wind got stronger and the water was almost zero, and the first 100 km/h came from the kiter Alex Caizergues. A few days later he was beaten by Cattelan and then by Rob Douglas, who won the event with 55.45 knots.
The canal and the open sea are two different things. You can only set a record in the mile here in La Palme. We have documented around 20 world records and 45 national records from 2018 to today. I don't know if there's ever been anything like it in the history of sailing. And we did it at a spot where any normal windsurfer can also surf.
What were your own greatest successes as a surfer?
Winning the F2 Speed Challenge on Lake Como, winning the Dungarvan Speed World Cup stage in Ireland in November 2009, where I became European Champion.
A certain Björn Dunkerbeck came second in Ireland, didn't he?
Yes, it wasn't easy for a mere mortal back then. It took the run of my life and I was sailing with an 85-litre board, a normal symmetrical 28 cm fin and with a 7-metre sail, a maximum of 43 knots and an average of 40.6 knots. Not bad for the time!
Then you also recently set the Italian sailing record on the Mile and were the 2021 Tag Heuer Performance Sailor of the Year at an awards ceremony with the world's best sailors?
Yes, I forgot the Italian record at the Prince of Speed 2018. If I have the opportunity this year, I'll try again. In 2021, it was wonderful to be honoured together with the giants of sailing such as the American Paul Cayard, Luna Rossa skipper Max Sirena and the owner of Luna Rossa Patrizio Bertelli. What an honour for windsurfing!
Last April you were unanimously elected President of the ISWC International Speed Windsurfing Class and as your first official act you awarded a Speed World Championship title also for Windfoil and Youth for the first time.
The speed riders have given me this responsibility and I try to do my best in the service of speed surfing. Yes, I wanted to award a Prince of Speed world title in the Youth and Windfoil, which has been a speed category since 2020.
You are developing your signature series Principe Speed Line for Challenger Sails and have been accepted into the Starboard Dream Team 2024: Congratulations!
Thanks mate! I try to keep myself young but also use the old man's experience to give the others the thrill too!
Can you tell me if there will be a project on speed sailing in the future?
For many years I have been trying to realise a kind of world speed centre. A spot on the open sea for foil boats, boats and for the nautical mile and inside there is a channel for kiting and windsurfing. I think the canal would be very useful for the innovation of the material. There are 50 days a year with winds over 50 knots and a total of 150 speed sailing days. That would leave a lot of room for progress in material development. The local politicians are more and more enthusiastic about it every year - maybe this World Speed Centre of La Palme will soon come true.
There's a lot more to say ... I think a second instalment will be necessary ...
Thank you Thomas, thank you Andreas, a hug to all surf magazine readers and remember: speed helps you to face your demons, gives you courage in life and lets you forget the dark moments. FOREVER SPEED!
