Photo credit – Peter Lyons
Back in the UK now. I’ve been on holiday for a week, which is a rare event (ask my partner… 
) and sod’s law determined that an even rarer event would coincide with that – the perfect conditions for a land speed record attempt.
My disappointment at not being there though was marginal compared to the huge excitement of the result – the smashing of the record.
All the credit for this goes to Richard Jenkins of course (with just a little to the gods of wind… ).
Richard’s the guy who’s been pursuing this dream for a decade. To say he’s dogged would be an enormous understatement.
I’m really chuffed for him, it’s just fabulous that he’s got there, and by some big margin. He might get to get his life back now… )
After the ice challenge of course, which should reconvene this winter.
Actually given the speed of the land version and the relatively low ice record of just 80 mph or so – I reckon it’s a dead cert he’ll smash the ice record, put your money down if you can get odds.
We’re hoping to bring the Greenbird back to England to put on display somewhere, maybe at our Ecotech centre in Swaffham. More on that later.
On a personal note, it’s been a great pleasure to be a part of this. And to see a purely wind powered craft running at such an incredible speed (and four times the actual speed of the wind) is a huge thing. Greenbird has grabbed headlines all over the world and in the process it’s made an awful lot of people think again about wind power, it must have. For me that was the reason to be involved, Greenbird makes a statement and actually breaks down the door for what’s coming next – the second generation wind powered car, the one you could drive down the shops.
I’m chuffed for all these reasons.
Cheers.
Yes it is a rare event – but it was really worth the wait!
The Greenbird news made the holiday even more special – well done Richard and the team.
Just been reading the ecotricity progress report, and noticed something you said about the greenbird, namely the “solid sail”.
If this solid sail is such a great concept, could it be used in other applications? Could yachts be fitted with them? (Or are they already?) Can gliders or light aircraft use them? (Might be a bit more complicated though) I suppose turbine blades already use these principles, and perhaps the solid sail idea in fact came from turbine blades…