Land sailing, also known as sand yachting, land yachting or dirtboating, entails overland travel with a sail-powered vehicle, similar to sailing on water. Originally, a form of transportation or recreation, it has evolved primarily into a racing sport since the 1950s. Vehicles used in sailing are known as sail wagons, sand yachts, or land yachts. They typically have three (sometimes four) wheels and function much like a sailboat, except that they are operated from a sitting or lying position and steered by pedals or hand levers. Land sailing works best in windy flat areas, and races often happen on beaches, airfields, and dry lake beds in desert regions. Modern land sailors, generally known as "pilots", can go three to four times faster than the wind speed. A gust of wind is considered more beneficial in a land sailing race than a favorable windshift. A similar sport, known as ice yachting, is practiced on frozen lakes and rivers. Another variation is the Whike, which combines land sailing with bicycling and can therefore also be used in everyday traffic because it does not fully depend on wind.
History
Sailing carriage
The earliest text describing the Chinese use of mounting masts and sails on large vehicles is the Book of the Golden Hall Master written by the Daoist scholar and crown prince Xiao Yi, who later became Emperor Yuan of Liang (r. 552–554 AD). He wrote that Gaocang Wushu invented a "wind-driven carriage" which was able to carry thirty people at once. There was another built in about 610 for the Emperor Yang of Sui (r. 604–617), as described in the Continuation of the New Discourses on the Talk of the Times. European travelers from the 16th century onwards mentioned sailing carriages with surprise. In 1585, during the Chinese Ming Dynasty, Gonzales de Mendoza wrote that the Chinese had many coaches and wagons mounted with sails, and even depicted them in artwork of silk hanfu robes and on earthenware vessels. In the 1584 atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum written by the cartographer Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598), there are large Chinese carriages depicted with sails and masts. Likewise, there are the same Chinese vehicles with sails depicted in the Atlas of Gerardus Mercator (1512–1594), as well as the 1626 book Kingdome of China by John Speed. The English poet John Milton (1608–1674) exemplified western interest in the Chinese sailing carriage when he mentioned it in a metaphor in his epic Paradise Lost, published in 1667. In the 19th century, "windwagons" were occasionally used for transport across the American great plains. Rail-running sail cars were also used in South America. One such sailcar existed on the Dona Teresa Cristina Railroad in Santa Catarina, Brazil in the 1870s.
Early yachts
The precursor to the modern land yacht was invented in the summer of the year 1600 by the Flemish scientist Simon Stevin in Flanders as a commission for Prince Maurice of Orange. It was used by Prince Maurice for entertaining his guests. In 1898, the Dumont brothers of De Panne, Belgium, developed a land yacht whose sails were based on contemporary Egyptian sailboats used on the Nile River. Louis Bleriot, the French aviation pioneer was instrumental in developing landsailing as a sport. It was viewed as an alternative sport when strong winds would have made flying in early aircraft too dangerous. Bleriot's landsailers were first tried on the Buc airstrip (SW of Paris). Bleriot machines gave their best on Channel and North Sea wide and windy beaches at low tide (Calais, Hardelot, La Panne, Quend, Audresselles etc.). The Blériot firm coined the name "aéroplage" (plage is the French for beach) and even registered it as a trademark. The first races were held on the beaches of Belgium and France in 1909. Land yachts were also used in the late 19th century and early 20th century to transport goods on dry lakes in America.
Modern yachts The modern land yacht, a three-wheeled polyester/fibreglass and metal cart, often with a wing-mast and relatively rigid (full-batten) sails, has been used since 1960. In 1967, a French Foreign Legion officer organized a land yacht race across the Sahara Desert. Teams from 7 countries assembled at Colomb-Béchar in Algeria and using French-designed and built machines for the most part, sailed 1,700 miles (2,700 km) through Algeria, Spanish Morocco and into the capital of Mauritania. Due to the harsh conditions, the idea of racing was abandoned, though at the time three young American boatbuilders, Larry Pardey, Richard Arthur and Warren Zeibarth (Captain, Pardey), were leading the race, with scores double those of any other team. The story made the cover of National Geographic in November 1967. A reenactment of this event took place three years later and was filmed by National Geographic.
Landsailing on Venus
In 2013, NASA scientist Geoffrey A. Landis proposed that a sail could be used for propulsion of a rover on Venus or other planets. According to Popular Mechanics, it is "an ambitious proposal […] to develop a rover that works with Venus's topography and winds. In 2017, Landis's work was the subject of the book Land-Sailing Venus Rover With NASA Inventor Geoffrey Landis, published by World Book publishing.
Speed record The world land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle was broken on 11 December 2022 by Emirates Team New Zealand with Australian Pilot Glenn Ashby with a speed of 222.43 km/h (138.21 mph). It was previously held by Briton Richard Jenkins in his yacht Greenbird with a speed of 126.1 mph (202.9 km/h). Wind speeds were fluctuating between 30–50 mph (48–80 km/h) at that time. The previous record of 116 mph (187 km/h) was set by American Bob Schumacher on March 20, 1999 piloting Iron Duck vehicle designed and engineered by American Bob Dill in Burlington, Vermont. Both records were set on Ivanpah Dry Lake near Primm, Nevada, United States. A previous attempt at the record by Britons Dale Vince and Richard Jenkins at Lake Lefroy in Western Australia in their carbon-neutral vehicle, Greenbird, failed on 12 September 2008.
Classes
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