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.
She also holds the Windsurfing World Women’s 500m record. Set in Luderitz Namibia in November 2012 Ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council.
Zara is also ranked No1 in the world by the ISWC (International Speed Windsurfing Class)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 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, 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. 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. She also broke the British record with a new 500m record at 37.24 knots which had stood for over 11 years. All records were acknowledged by the World Sailing Speed Record Council.
Zara achieved No 1 status on the official ISWC Women's world ranking for 2010
She also achieved a new Women's Production Board Speed Record in Luderitz Namibia in November 2010 on her Mistral Speed Board.
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“Before the birth of the New Woman the country was not an intellectual desert, as she is apt to suppose. There were teachers of the highest grade, and libraries, and countless circles in our towns and villages of scholarly, leisurely folk, who loved books, and music, and Nature, and lived much apart with them. The mad craze for money, which clutches at our souls to-day as la grippe does at our bodies, was hardly known then.”
—Rebecca Harding Davis (1831–1910)