Project Landspeed: Looking for windows of opportunity on Lake Gairdner
by Emirates Team New Zealand 11 Oct 2022 05:10 BST
11 October 2022
Horonuku - Emirates Team New Zealand's land yacht designed to beat the wind powered land speed world record attempt at South Australia's Lake Gairdner © Emirates Team New Zealand / James Somerset
With the Wind Powered Land speed World Record being so heavily dependent on Mother Nature, Glenn Ashby and the team on Lake Gairdner are having to constantly monitor the weather and the windows of opportunity presented each day to get out for vital runs in ‘Horonuku’ to learn the incremental lessons that will push them closer to the World Record speeds.
“The surface has really dried out quite a lot over the past two or three days,” explained Pilot Ashby
“We have made a couple of tire changes, a couple of configuration changes and the plan for us to basically step up the speed and see how it is griping on the surface.
Every day, every little learning is a great experience. We haven’t really pushed the speeds much over 150km/h in this craft yet, so hopefully over the next few days we will get the opportunity with the weather.”
The team managed to get four runs squeezed into the afternoon session in a breeze of 15-18 knots and Ashby and the team were pleased with the progression forward.
“The changes we made to the tires and the grip have been incredible to the difference in the craft.
Unfortunately the breeze didn't quite blow as much as we were hoping today but still managed to clock 156km/h which is the fastest run we have done to date. So there is plenty more in the tank we just need a bit more breeze.”