It’s taken 10 years, but Richard Jenkins has at long last achieved his dream of setting the land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle. The British engineer climbed into the land yacht he calls the Ecotricity Greenbird and peeled off a 126.1-mph run across a California desert Thursday to take his place in the record books.

His record-setting dash eclipsed the previous benchmark, which American Bob Schumacher set a decade ago, by almost 10 mph. It also continued a British tradition for speed that dates to the 1920s, when Sir Malcolm Campbell set several records on land and sea.

“It has been an incredibly difficult challenge,” Jenkins said in a statement issued Friday. “Everything came together perfectly and the Greenbird stepped up to the mark and performed amazingly. I am absolutely delighted.”