Richard Jenkins (engineer)

Richard Jenkins is a 32-year-old engineer from Lymington, UK. He is known for engineering and sailing wind driven vessels on land, ice, and water. In 1999, he founded the Windjet Project [1] while studying Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College. Since then he has designed, built, and tested 4 separate speed record craft.

Jenkins became interested in sailing and engineering at a young age: he was dinghy sailing at age 10, working on the last airworthy Short Sunderland flying boat at age 12, building an International Moth dinghy in his early teens, and doing design work for super maxi yachts while attending college. He first crossed the Atlantic when he was 16. He also helped to sail the Matthew, a replica of John Cabot’s 13th century galleon in which the explorer discovered the island of Newfoundland.

On 26 March 2009, Jenkins broke the world land speed record for a wind powered vehicle. He reached 126.1 mph (202.9 km/h) in his car Greenbird on the dry plains of Ivanpah Lake in Nevada. The previous record of 116 mph (187 km/h) was set by American Bob Schumacher in 1999, driving his vehicle the Iron Duck in the same location.