The Extreme 40 is a class of sailing

Sailing

Sailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...

 catamaran

Catamaran

A catamaran is a type of multihulled boat or ship consisting of two hulls, or vakas, joined by some structure, the most basic being a frame, formed of akas...

 created by TornadoSport and designed by Yves Loday

Yves Loday

Yves Loday is a French sailor who competed in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, where he won gold medal in the Tornado Class together with Nicolas Hénard....

. 40 feet long and constructed of carbon fibre. They have a top speed of about 40 knots (~46 mph, 74 km/h) and can sail at about 35 knots in 20-25 knots of wind. The first extreme 40 was launched in 2005. They are sailed in the Extreme Sailing Series, formerly known as the iShares

IShares

iShares are a family of exchange-traded funds managed by BlackRock. The first iShares were known as WEBS but were since rebranded.Each iShares fund tracks a bond or stock market index...

 Cup. Extreme 40's are essentially a scaled up version of the Tornado sailboat

Tornado (sailboat)

The Tornado is an two person multihull class recognised as an International Class by the International Sailing Federation. It was used for the Olympic Catamaran discpline for over 30 years.-Background:...

 used in The Olympics.

Extreme 40's are 40 feet long, have a 23 foot beam

Beam (nautical)

The beam of a ship is its width at the widest point. Generally speaking, the wider the beam of a ship , the more initial stability it has, at expense of reserve stability in the event of a capsize, where more energy is required to right the vessel from its inverted position...

, displace 1250 kilogram

Kilogram

The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...

s of water, have a mast height of 62 feet and a claimed top speed of 40 knots (46 mph, 74 km/h). The mainsail

Mainsail

A mainsail is a sail located behind the main mast of a sailing vessel.On a square rigged vessel, it is the lowest and largest sail on the main mast....

 is 75 square metres and the jib

Jib

A jib is a triangular staysail set ahead of the foremast of a sailing vessel. Its tack is fixed to the bowsprit, to the bow, or to the deck between the bowsprit and the foremost mast...

 is 25 square metres. The Gennaker

Gennaker

A gennaker is a sail that was developed around 1990. Used when sailing downwind, it is a cross between a genoa and a spinnaker. It is asymmetric like a genoa, but the gennaker is not attached to the forestay like a jib or genoa. The gennaker is rigged like a spinnaker but the tack is fastened to...

used for downwind sailing is 110 square metres.