Into the Wind – but faster
We all know that multihulls can regularly sail faster than the wind, but no man made machine has ever gone straight AGAINST the wind powered by wind alone. Not possible we thought! Yet Blackbird, a wind-powered vehicle recently shattered a world record by traveling 2.8 times faster than the speed of the wind that propelled it. Rick Cavallaro and his crew at Fasterthanthewind.org knew they could break the record with their simple — but mind boggling — lightweight aerodynamic cart. The wheels of Blackbird spin the 17 foot wind turbine, which in turn gets a boost from the prevailing winds, transferring power back to the wheels. Through a remarkable feat of physics the cart goes faster than the wind. Since this vehicle has a wide triangular base formed by the three wheels – we at Aeroyacht want to think of it as a multihull…of course.
