Yacht Racing... (Dry Lake)

[Tools]

There isn't a lot of water to be found in the Desert, let alone Lakes.... So, the guys do what they can do.

With the blowing sand, heat thermals, and distances (the lakes are a mile or more across) getting decent photographs is a challenge..

A long 500mm lens would have been nice........... But I did get by with a 70-200 and 1.4TC.

At the Starting Line:


Into the back stretch:


At the far end:


The Final Turn:


Trying For Position:


Final Stretch:


Last Pylon:


Last Place:




Whew......... I'm tired just watching..........

...............

[diablojota]

That's awesome! I would love to do that kind of racing.

[Lion]

Larry, Thanx for sharing, looks like a lot of fun!!!

[Latrodectus]

Larry, that looks good and like lots of fun! Thank you for showing!

[CharlieG]

Wow, nice shots.

How fast can they get up to?

[Tools]

Originally Posted by CharlieG

Wow, nice shots.

How fast can they get up to?

Well, they are limited to how fast the wind is blowing............

Gusts were up to 50mph on this day......

[CharlieG]

Originally Posted by Tools

Well, they are limited to how fast the wind is blowing............

Gusts were up to 50mph on this day......

Your answer intrigued me and it seems they are not limited to wind speed and can actually move 5x faster

A landyacht that is sailing downwind can reach no greater a speed than that of the wind itself. But a landyacht can reach much faster speeds when it sails across the wind rather than being pushed along by it (actually it can go 5 times as fast as the wind), since the landyacht creates a wind from the velocity of its own movement that greatly supplements the natural wind. These principles were only vaguely understood in the early days of landsailing.
The speed of the landyacht also depends on its type, landyachts that are built for the purpose of speed can go up to a speed of 100 mph. The world record of landyacht speed is held by the Iron Duck which reached the speed of 116.7 mph in a wind of aproximately 30 mph (as you can see the Iron Duck was going in a speed of about 4 times the speed of wind).

[Tools]

Originally Posted by CharlieG

Your answer intrigued me and it seems they are not limited to wind speed and can actually move 5x faster

A landyacht that is sailing downwind can reach no greater a speed than that of the wind itself. But a landyacht can reach much faster speeds when it sails across the wind rather than being pushed along by it (actually it can go 5 times as fast as the wind), since the landyacht creates a wind from the velocity of its own movement that greatly supplements the natural wind. These principles were only vaguely understood in the early days of landsailing.
The speed of the landyacht also depends on its type, landyachts that are built for the purpose of speed can go up to a speed of 100 mph. The world record of landyacht speed is held by the Iron Duck which reached the speed of 116.7 mph in a wind of aproximately 30 mph (as you can see the Iron Duck was going in a speed of about 4 times the speed of wind).

Very Interesting.............

I can assure you that none of these were traveling 5 times the prevailing wind speeds.......

[Tools]

To amplify on all this, I took these pictures at Ivanpah Dry Lake March 30, 2009.

Here is a Site that seems to confirm that a Speed Record of 126.1 mph, was set the weekend of these very same races.........
http://www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/t...TOPIC_ID=49334

But you can see from this photo that one for that kind of speed looks nothing like the typical land yacht:


And, here is the blog for the record setter....

http://blog.greenbird.co.uk/

[kcmo]

How neat!

[Alcan]

Great pix, Larry.

If I was landlocked I'd be there.