awesome

I wonder what angle to the wind he was pointing? It looks like he sets off at 45 deg higher than a beam reach, where we head 45 deg off...

on the vid it looks like they were just getting to there limit but i dont know.

You were right , here are the Navi units

Richard worked with The Nalsa Officials and TRimble representatives on previous visits to Nevada , and was able to establish the accuracy of thes simple units as being suitable for this type of speed attempt

Last time he was sailing on Lefroy he had all sorts of brands of Gps fitted to the yacht and they were interfering with each other, batteries crapping out etc,leads to data loggers coming loose..
So silly old me says " have you tried one of these?"
Now I know the answer.
That little bank of Navis replaced a whopping Military unit,from a missile guidance system, whos slowest setting was 1 reading per second.
The timing gear would probably be the cheapest bit of gear, or "kit" as richard would put it, on the yacht

At first you get a sense that they were added as an afterthought, But Richard doesnt work that way. Everything has been planned, and he got better at it every time he came to Lefroy. I think that platform on the tail is there just for that reason. It is a great place to give constant clear vision for the satellite reception.
the previous model had a clear hatch with all the GPS units inside, protected from the salt, but had to be unscrewed evry time you wanted to access the gear.
This latest version is simply easier as he can rapidly set or read the speed gear.
The yanks call the stuff 100mph tape, so now they can change it to 126mph tape
there is some tape over some other joins on the yacht.
Iron Duck was vitually faired with the stuff