IT’S OFFICIAL! The new world record has been ratified by NALSA (North American Land Sailing Association). After detailed analysis of the data, the final figure turns out to be 126.2 mph.

Many Many thanks to Bob Dill, the Nalsa secretary and GPS guru who has painstakingly analysed the accuracy of various GPS units and overseen the speed measurement of all my efforts over the years. Bob designed and built the Iron duck (previous record holder), but has been tremendously helpful to me throughout the project. He has hung out with me for weeks at a time at the various locations around the world including Australia (exactly the opposite side of the world from his home in Vermont), at his own expense, to oversee the attempts as an official observer. As it turns out, we managed to do it in front of the whole Nalsa Committee, but if the weather had played it’s hand in one of the remote locations, Bob was there on standby to be the official witness. Thanks for all your support and company over the years, Bob.

Here is the official Statement of ratification as well as the supporting documents submitted to the Nalsa Committee; The measurement report (PDF, 784kb) and the GPS data (Excel, 81kb) from the fastest run.

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Dear NALSA,

The NALSA Board of Directors has ratified a new world record for speed in a landyacht of 126.2 mph by Richard Jenkins in Greenbird on March 26, 2009 at 11:04 PDT on Ivanpah Dry Lake California.
The wind at the time ranged between 30 and 40 mph with occasional higher gusts. As required by the NALSA Regulations for Speed Record Attempts, the top speed was measured over three seconds during which the yacht traversed about 560 feet. Speed measurement was made by a total of five logging GPSs which agreed within 0.1 mph and which all have a demonstrated accuracy (U at 95%) of 0.2 mph (well under the NALSA requirement of 0.5 mph). Additional information can be found at NALSA.org.

Bob Dill
NALSA Secretary