But Glenn Ashby’s speed-breaking ride of 222.4 kmh on Sunday across the dried sands of Australia’s remote Lake Gairdner is off the charts. Team New Zealand’s 46.2-foot-long land yacht,, is a colorful, slender carbon-fiber structure with four wheels and a 36-foot-tall rigid-wing sail that burned up the white sands with only a paltry wind speed of tk knots . There are no engines and, according to race rules, the vehicle had to be pushed by Ashby’s team at the start.
Ashby, a native Australian who has been on the Kiwi team for 12 years, had dreamed since he was a child of breaking the record. Englishman Richard Jenkins, who held the previous record, only did so after designing and building five vessels for a decade before establishing the 202.9 kmh record in 2009. On the day Jenkins set the record, the winds were blowing from 26 to 40 knots. Under the rules, Horonuku had to establish the new record by at least 1 mph.
There had been much drama leading up to the record run. The lake had received an unusual amount of precipitation earlier in the year and wouldn’t be ready for a record attempt until the sand dried. In November, the team sat around for several weeks waiting for the chance to break the record, but rain kept the sand waterlogged.The team returned in early December. Ashby nearly broke the record on his first day back, maxing out at a hair over 200 kmh in about 23 knots of wind.
“The steering was tough work,” said Ashby after the earlier run. “So that is the main focus to identify solutions to lighten the load as this will help with performance. To be able to build speed more efficiently and effortlessly will help reaching higher speeds.