Prince Maurits' sailing carriages had been designed by Simon Stevin. The Prince, always accessible to new inventions of his old instructor, could not please the foreign ambassadors more than by inviting them for a ride in his carriage.
The big sailing-carriage could seat 28 persons and could reach a speed of seven miles per hour.
Land sailing : The Chinese had "wind-driven carriages" since the 6th century AD, during the Liang Dynasty, and eventually mounted masts and sails on large wheelbarrows.The earliest text describing the Chinese use of mounting masts and sails on large vehicles is the Book of the Golden Hall Master written by the Daoist scholar and crown prince Xiao Yi, who later became Emperor Yuan of Liang (r. 552–554 AD).He wrote that Gaocang Wushu invented a "wind-driven carriage" which was able to carry thirty people at once.
There was another built in about 610 for the Emperor Yang of Sui (r. 604–617), as described in the Continuation of the New Discourses on the Talk of the Times.
The precursor to the modern land yacht was invented in the autumn of the year 1600 by the Flemish scientist Simon Stevin in Flanders as a commission for Prince Maurice of Orange. It was used by Prince Maurice for entertaining his guests. In 1898, the Dumont brothers of De Panne, Belgium, developed a land yacht whose sails were based on contemporary Egyptian sailboats used on the Nile River.
The first races were held on the beaches of Belgium and France in 1909. Land yachts were also used in the late 19th century and early 20th century to transport goods on dry lakes in the United States.