sailquik said.. "
Ian, I can sail on 'PB locations' 60-100+ days a year now. I am pretty sure that applies to a lot of other people as well. I have not sailed a PB for over 2 years though, and they were in a canal! What I require for them now is ideal (and very rare) wind conditions. The same thing would apply to any venue, be it closed waters or 'open waters'. "
That was point I was trying to make Sailquick, Open water sailors aren't dependant on "ideal (and very rare) wind conditions", they're more likely dependant on an improvement in skill to get a pb. 25 knots again today on the Illawarra open water. A 40 knot 2 sec is theoretically possible right now if you have the skill. Not too many sailors who might be going for an open water pb are going to say they "need more wind".
sailquik said.. "There are multiple definitions for open waters. Do some searches.."
I googled "open water definition for speedsailing purposes" and got bounced back to this thread

Which definitions were you thinking of?
Anyway my suggestion of " 2 NM of fetch over deep water" is just a suggestion. Other suggestions welcome. But a good percentage Australia's 19,000 km coastline should qualify with onshore winds.
( By "deep" maybe just deep enough that you can't touch the bottom with a big toe, that would be easy to determine for a not-playing-for-sheep-station competition ).
ps.
Another advantage to add to the list.
For board manufacturers... they could market specialised open water speed boards.
Of course there's lots of discussion and opinions here already on what board is the best for open water blasting, slalom, mistral, free ride, tabou, someone mentioned a Starboard Acid the other day. But until we start posting comparisons, who really knows?