Post Tagged with: "Record"

Another one for the record book — Rowing crew smashes 114-yr old transatlantic record

July 31, 2010 at 6:28 pm

One challenge, four rowers, 43 days, 21 hours and 26 minutes, a whole lot of “guts” and little food gets us a New Transatlantic Rowing Record.

Amplify’d from www.bbc.co.uk

Four rowers have smashed a 114-year-old record by crossing the Atlantic in 43 days, 21 hours and 26 minutes.

The Artemis North Atlantic Rowing Challenge crew left New York on 17 June and touched the quayside at St Mary’s, in the Isles of Scilly, just before 1500 BST on Saturday.

In 1896 Norwegians George Harbo and Frank Samuelson had set the record at 55 days and 13 hours.

Two years ago, an attempt by a crew called The Scilly Boys nearly ended in disaster when their vessel capsized, 13 days after leaving New York.

It is the Artemis crew’s second attempt after a broken rudder at the beginning of June forced them to retire.

For the past two weeks the crew had been surviving on powdered supplements after running out of food, so all four said they were looking forward to “solid food”.
Team Artemis leaving New York

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Freak of nature – Land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle is now @ 126.1mph

March 30, 2009 at 11:32 am

(Source: Wired)

Greenbird_ivanpah01

It’s taken 10 years, but Richard Jenkins has at long last achieved his dream of setting the land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle. The British engineer climbed into the land yacht he calls the Ecotricity Greenbird and peeled off a 126.1-mph run across a California desert Thursday to take his place in the record books.

His record-setting dash eclipsed the previous benchmark, which American Bob Schumacher set a decade ago, by almost 10 mph. It also continued a British tradition for speed that dates to the 1920s, when Sir Malcolm Campbell set several records on land and sea.

“It has been an incredibly difficult challenge,” Jenkins said in a statement issued Friday. “Everything came together perfectly and the Greenbird stepped up to the mark and performed amazingly. I am absolutely delighted.”

Jenkins set the record Thursday in Greenbird, a land yacht he’s spent the better part of a decade developing, on Ivanpah Dry Lake — the same place Schumacher set the previous record of 116.7 mph at the wheel of the Iron Duck on March 20, 1999. Perhaps more impressive, Jenkins managed to hit 126.1 mph with winds clocked at just 30 mph.

Click here to read the entire article & to see cool pictures of this blazing speedster.

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