Land sailing, also known as sand yachting, land yachting or dirtboating, entails overland travel with a sail-powered vehicle, similar to sailing on water. Originally, a form of transportation or recreation, it has evolved primarily into a racing sport since the 1950s.
An early 20th-century sail wagon in Brooklyn, New York
Carriage with sail in China, 1599.
Land yachts designed by Simon Stevin in 1600
The "Zephyr" landsailing rover, a concept for a wind-propelled rover on the surface of Venus. Image from NASA John Glenn Research Center, for the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts ("NIAC") project.
A sail is a tensile structure, which is made from fabric or other membrane materials, that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails may be made from a combination of woven materials—including canvas or polyester cloth, laminated membranes or bonded filaments, usually in a three- or four-sided shape.
Square rigged frigate
Bermuda-rigged yawl.
Sailing hydrofoil catamaran with wingsail.
Egyptian sailing ship, ca. 1422–1411 BCE