Land-Speed Lust

With the engineering might of the America's Cup defender, foiling ace Glen Ashby finally has the right stuff to take a crack at the land-speed sailing record.

- KIMBALL LIVINGSTON

This is a story about a lake and a boy who loved the lake and how, when the lake disappeared, the boy made do. And how that leads to something big.

The boy was Glenn Ashby, growing up in the interior of Australia. Lake Eppalock, built as a reservoir, was his playground each year until it was annually drained to satisfy thirsty crops. What’s a sailor boy to do? Build a landsailer, of course.

Quietly, Ashby grew up improving his rides, year by year, and harboring a dream, never daring to really count on a day when he would, no fooling, convince his teammates in the America’s Cup defenders camp, Emirates Team New Zealand, to focus their might, main, expertise and dollars on something not the America’s Cup. While he was banging away in the garage, would mama Ashby ever have imagined an America’s Cup team designing and building a landsailer for her son to drive and attempt to beat 126.2 mph, the sailing speed record on land?

Think about it. The smalltown kid from a Jet Ski lake made himself into a multi-time world champion in catamarans, an Olympic medalist, and a critical player in multiple America’s Cup victories. Then came downtime between matches for the Cup, and today you can get a self-conscious crackup out of Ashby by suggesting that everything to this point was all about maneuvering to get Team New Zealand right where he wanted them. It might even be a little bit true.