Hi

Just a bit of background first. I’m from South Africa and I belong to a very small (5 members) Air Force sailing club where we sail Proton, Bosun and Laser class dinghies. Unfortunately we only get 2 days in a month to get our kicks and after a couple a of slow sessions on the water the idea of land sailing reared its ugly head. After all, we have a couple of miles/kilometers of runways to our disposal, flying permitting of course.

I’ve built, with lots and lots of help from friends, one of the Mini Lefroy’s but had to make some changes. The main deviation from the plan is the size of the square tubing. For some or other reason the 25mm and 30mm square tubing is just about unobtainable locally so I substituted it with 38mm and 32mm square tubing. My seat is made with 20mm ply only because that is what I had on hand. I plan on making a proper seat quite soon. It is probably built like a tank but then again I am quite “muscular” too, so it is maybe a good thing. I have not painted it yet and it still needs a brake but I took it out for the first time today. With the wind blowing between 15 and 20 knots it was more fun than should be allowed but it would have been a lot more fun if I had brakes!

The only damper was that my friend and co-planner left for Switzerland and could not be present at the maiden voyage.

I would like to say a big thank you to landyacht for making the plans available and also thank you to everybody on this forum for sharing their knowledge and experience.

Thanks a lot
Johann