When I hear the term land yacht, the first type of vehicle that comes to mind is a large luxury sedan or an SUV. Can you imagine a Cadillac Escalade setting a land speed record? Not me. There’s a new land sailing yacht looking to raise the bar, though. Emirates Team New Zealand, America’s Cup-winning sailing team, has launched a land yacht to try to break the wind-powered land speed record later this year. The current speed on wind powered land is 126.1 mph (202.9 km/h), set in 2009.
Earlier this week, Team New Zealand officially introduced land speed record challenger, Horonuku. The car will be powered, no better term, by a 10 meter (32.8 foot) high stiff carbon fiber spoiler. The sail is designed to propel yachts on land up to 155.3 mph (250 km/h) if conditions permit.
Glenn Ashby will drive the car. Ashby won two America’s Cup games as a sailor with Team New Zealand. He said in a statement:
“There is certainly an element of star alignment when achieving a world record like this, and that is you need conditions on the ground and in the air to be perfect. Our mission now is for the next over a month, to get as many useful trials as possible in Auckland, before we take Horonuku aboard to Lake Gairdner to continue testing and tweaking the salt lake to We are ready to roll when there is a weather window. “
Team Emirates New Zealand and Horonuku are scheduled to make their record in August on Lake Gairdner, a salt lake in South Australia. To break the record, all Ashby had to do was exceed 126.1 mph in three seconds during his run. The sailing team is also gearing up for their next Cup of Americas match in 2024 in Barcelona, Spain.
