On Monday, March 22, 2010 our project with San Jose State University overwhelmingly succeeded in demonstrating 'direct downwind faster than the wind' on the Ivanpah dry lakebed south of Las Vegas, Nevada.
There were numerous NALSA (North American Land Sailing Association) officials in attendance, and one NALSA BOD member (Bob Dill) was there for each of these runs, and collected some of his own rough wind and ground speed data. All collected video and data corroborate the personal witnesses.
To be clear, this was NOT a NALSA sanctioned event but was presented as a demonstration to the NALSA BOD that the vehicle was capable of ddwfttw. Post demonstration, the team is working out the details with NALSA for rules and instrumentation related to any upcoming official NALSA ratified tests and records.
Pending NALSA BOD approval, we expect to be able to certify a record according to these upcoming rules in the range of 3 times the speed of the wind.
