L'Hydroptere

The brainchild of French sailor Alain Thebault (pictured), the state-of-the-art yacht features a 28-meter mast.

Skimming across the water at 95 kilometers per hour, with its giant wings stretched out over the waves, it would be easy to mistake this sleek machine for a plane preparing to take off.

Named after the Greek words for water (hydros) and wing (ptere), the innovative vessel broke the World Sailing Speed Record in 2009, notching up 95 kilometers per hour over 500 meters. That record was broken by Australian Paul Larsen's Vestas Sailrocket last year, which hit 121 kilometers per hour. But the battle for the fastest sailboat isn't over yet...

While the Hydroptere easily zips across flat water, one of the biggest challenges for the crew in the upcoming transpacific challenge will be negotiating waves around four-meters high. "Twenty years ago everyone said it's not possible to make a boat fly. I did it. Now they're saying it's not possible to make it fly over swell. I will do it again," Thebault said.