Unfriendly territory — Part 1

For more than 10 years British engineer Richard Jenkins has been working away at setting enduring new marks in the three principal outright wind-powered speed categories: on land, on water and on ice. In 2009 he achieved the first of his goals... but there is a lot still to do

It all started when I was 18, at college with Pom Green. One weekend I was invited to accompany him and his father Bill, of Green Marine, to Wales to test a landyacht on an airfield. Little did I know this was the start of a mission that was to occupy the next 14 years of my life. The landyacht had been built by Green Marine and was designed to break the 100mph mark. The current record stood at 98mph and was held by Bertrand Lambert of France. For me this quest embodied everything I enjoyed and found fascinating; it used sailing principles, but involved the technology of the racecar and the aeroplane.

The yacht was way ahead of its time and worked pretty much straight out of the box, but the impracticality of the machine (the time and manpower required to set up and test) and the inclement weather of Wales, combined with job pressures, meant it was never really finished. It became more hassle than fun for those involved. It was taken back to Lymington, UK and parked in the Green Marine archive.

A couple of years later I was studying engineering at Imperial College in London and, in an attempt to avoid coursework, I thought the landspeed record project might make a suitable distraction. After all it was going to be easy, right? The yacht had already done 85mph in its infant state and the record was only 98mph, so I could put it back together and simply cruise in there and take the glory…

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