Thanks for that Gizmo its appreciated...

Outstanding!! Well done!!

And here are the models we created, so we could observe any errors, before making the real-life size land-yacht

Good advice TP1.... This should be of concern to newcomers to the sport.
That's the reason for the long seat on the LLMini, Class 5 also restricts your feet falling to the ground and blokarts keep your feet locked in safe.

Totally agree to that guys.
We stress the necessity to keep the feet on the rudder bar at all costs. During training we do not let them go solo until we are reasonably convinced they fully understand the consequences of having their feet dragged under the yacht. The instructors lift the wheels off the ground and capsize the whole yacht.....all the time the trainee must keep their feet on the rudder bar. This is repeated until it becomes second nature.
We have considered using toe clips and/or having feet contained AKA LLM. One thing that is a problem is the nature of our oval.....it being wet and slow often results in the land yacht being unable to carry through in a tack. We are able to complete the turn by engaging opposite lock and pushing backwards with our feet.....this would be difficult with a floor.

Gizmo said...

tassiefubar said...
One thing that is a problem is the nature of our oval.....it being wet and slow often results in the land yacht being unable to carry through in a tack. We are able to complete the turn by engaging opposite lock and pushing backwards with our feet.....this would be difficult with a floor.

The problem of a soft surface is common to most land sailors over time whether it be beaches, salt lakes or ovals. Most smaller yachts a leg can be lifted over the seat to assist a turn or lean out a little and push the rear wheel with your hand like the blokart guys do.
And NEVER lock the feet to the pedals.....

Whats the problem with locking your feet to the pedals?? Is there any problems?? Because we are looking into getting toeclips to keep your feet secure..

Seat belts and toe clips lock the person into the yacht, over the years I have seen 2 people nearly drown in an overturned land yacht that flipped on a beach and a wave broke over them. Similar with toe clips if your feet are locked to the pedals and you have a fast crash you may break a leg, if there were no clips the feet would slip off. [maybe with a cut leg but not snapped bones]
PLEASE look at the yachts you have built critically and think what if !!!!!
ALWAYS THINK SAFETY

Part of the design on LLM's a weak pedal bar. If you hit something head on at speed the sudden stop will bend or break the steering bar not your ankles

***UPDATE***

Latly we have been unactive in the forums because we have taken a few weeks off landsailing because I done a chinease gype and unfortunalty bent the good landyatch.

but were back and ready


In a few minutes I will upload a video i created on movie maker 3 weeks ago on Friday . . . it was really windy that day!! from my experience

Dog damn it!
We finally got to sail on a real beach with a decent breeze. Mark 1 land yacht had a new set of Falshal wheels and Mark 2 had some really spiffy looking spoked plastic 20' that an ex student had fixed with sealed bearings.
Things started slowly and got more and more exciting as a cold frontal system started to kick in. The troops had never had so much fun and were blown away by both the acceleration and the speeds they were able to get up to!
With the wind gusting to 30++ knts we rerigged both with our smallest sails and got into some serious sailing. The beach was only sailable for 150 meters and narrowed out to only just a tight turning circle at the fast end. (We had to run into the sea to turn a few times before the tide went out enough!)The other end was a little wider and had a comfortable amount of soft sand to help slow down in before the turn.
Things went down hill from there. Bodie went into the soft stuff at a huge rate of knots and ran over a sharp stick.....Mark 1 was out with a puncture.
I was in Mark 2 and performed a massive power slide as I had run out of options with no beach left after being hit by a huge gust. The wheel just buckled and gave way........troops said it was the most spekky thing they had seen in a while.
The moral for our tale of woe is that we are now saving up to inverst in Falshal wheels.
All a bit sad really......those wheels had performed so well....for a couple of hours!!
Guess I need to go on a diet
The troops now see how a ketch rig would be overkill in those conditions......one tiny sail and 2 crew would have been more than enough fun. Now to incorporate a third mast step option perhaps......back to the drawing board!

We had the puncture repair kit and spare wheels etc along the "bad" end of the beach, about 1k away where the rest of the school community had set up for an end of year picnic etc.
To get to the "good" end we had to trudge through 100m of soft gunky mud...plus the rest of the walk. We then ran out of time as the school bus had to leave etc etc
Next time WE will decide what beach to go to!
Good to see the troops fired up......I suspect a few may be constructing their own land yachts in various parts of the state while they are on holidays. They didn't believe me when I told them the type of speeds you could get up to...they thought I was kidding.......now they are converts!

thats some nice looking sand there tassiefubar

Well, we are back at school and have started to put this thing together. We found an old scooter at the tip which had been flattened in all the right places......let's hope some poor kid wasn't flatttened with it. It had a very robust head set ..so we decided to use that......if it bends..well, we will just custom build something stronger.
We still have one of those plastic 20" wheels....with nice bearings and 2 sets of axles. The tyres have done about 2 hours on sand and were performing really well until "too fat to fly" broke the other wheel......if this one fails we will go for a wheelbarrow wheel at the front.
The scooter was cut and welded to some 40mm square section 2mm thick tube. This will slide nicely over the next size down and will be welded in place when we sort out the masts and seating positions.
As you can see from the pics we have decided to use a low pivot steering system.

When I saw the metal foot supports I just shook my head ..... have you thought safety?
What would happen in a crash?

Have a look at the pictures of the LLMini seat and see how they are constructed.
It might give you some ideas.

as a suggestion , why not make the footwell much deeper, this will stopp feet falling out and get the sharper edges away from the feet