A British man’s plan to break the world land sailing speed record — on ice
Earlier this month, MWPS World reported on Richard Jenkin’s land speed record in his Greenbird wind-powered car in which he reached 202 km/hr on the sand in the dry Lake Ivanpah in California – the USA. The Greenbird is made of carbon fibre and weighs only 600 Kg and is able to travel up to four times greater than the speed of the wind.
The Greenbird’s speed record took over from the previous record set by American Bob Schumacher in 1999. Schumacher reached 116 mph in his vehicle named “Iron Duck”. Jenkins has been working towards this record for just over ten years and was absolutely ecstatic to have achieved the record. Jenkins is now working on his new version of the Greenbird. The Greenbird Ice Sailing Craft – The Briton feels that his “Ice Craft” has even more potential to be quicker than the Greenbird land racer. “Theoretically, the Ice Craft should be a lot faster, but for yet unknown reasons, ice yachts are not as quick as land yachts.” “We are working on this to figure it out,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins is planning for his new record on ice in next December on the Canyon Ferry Lake in Montana USA where the ice is large and safe enough to carry a high-speed vehicle. Jenkins says that it is important to make the attempts before the snow falls on the ice, as this is creating more drag. Ice sailing is also much riskier then land sailing. “It depends where exactly you go and the ice can be a lot more unstable” “There is a high risk of water holes in the ice which would need to be avoided” “Hitting a waterhole at a speed of over 100 mph, would rip the craft apart.”
We wish Jenkins and his team the best and we shall let you know about the record attempt in December this year the moment we will receive any news on this. Watch this space.
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