Welcome to the forum Ian, look forwrd to seeing your creation at a landsailing event someday

Hi' this is the i built by using a windsurfer and kids bike

Hi all,

Congrats on an excellent Forum! I have enjoyed reading up on all the great threads and have learned heaps in the last few days.

I sail out of WesternPort Bay in Victoria, stationed at Somers/Balnarring. On a windy day a few BloKarts sometimes come out to play and it looks like a lot of fun, up and down the beach at low tide. we have a growing and serious interest from the KiteSurfers too as the wind angle is just right and the breeze has heaps of pressure behind it. Our sand is nice and hard to ride on too at low tide.

We often see our races being blown out and it is a shame to see so many sailors not wanting to bust their boats up in a big sea, wasting all that wind. Some of us travel long distances just to get there from the 'burbs, and some decent land based sailing fun could give added value to our membership in a big way.

Initially I want to make something that handles well, goes fast and looks the part. I figure that if I do it right enough we could quite easily generate some real interest from other sailors in the area. We are a big enough club with over 75 regular sailors across a wide range of classes: Tornado, A, Hobie, Paper Tiger, Mosquito, Laser, 420, etc and this could well evolve into a winter sport for us.

I have a few broken A Class bits to play with, as many do, and wish to make a decent enough machine to start with. I have 6m of HallSpar carbon mast, alloy beams, fully battened dacron and mylar sails, rigging and running gear; all detritus from 15 years of racing. I have extensive experience, too, in building fully faired recumbent racing trikes which seem to have a lot in common with landyachting, particularly in the chassis area.

I would welcome any suggestions of where to start and what directions are realistically possible.

I'll second that. I am in the throes of building one at the moment. It might take you a few weeks to build your first one but you will build your second one in a weekend.
Cheers Cisco.

It is unfortunate that it has gotten to that situation in some locations ie permits and liability insurance.

If it is not required for surfers, wind surfers, kite surfers and kite buggys why the differentation when it comes to land yachts?

WN,

you are quite right the public liability is not for the construction of the Blokart, its for the people that may be injured by that Blokart being used, & yes you can not insure against stipidity of people.

I know for a fact you can not sail legaly of the beach at Balnarring with out insurance & a permit.

Can you obtain insurance to cover you useing a home buit LY, I am sure aus751 will find out in due course.

RS

And you cannot stop individual stupidity.
Out side an organised event.

Hi RocketShip,

This really puts a dampener on things! and suggests that all beaches around the country are in the same situation on this issue, when you come to think about it.

To me this implies that everyone using the beach on some sort of machine, bikes included, need to have PLI cover these days. I assume you guys have the necessary policies and permits from your post? If so, how did you go about getting them?

Maybe the idea stays just that...

That's a good point Gizmo. We are insured through the Adelaide Landyacht club and we only have home made landyachts... at this stage anyway.

cisco said...

Have you been on holidays Hillsy? I cast a little bait for you recently on the forum and didn't even get a nibble.

Haha, I've been out riding my bike every day so that I can respond! ;)

Its already used by them with a permit.

Gidday Tigger, You!!!!! are my kinda man what a Kool ,Cool, Craft that's one for the independents, You and I together could build a jumbo jet for $76.40 keep up the good work........sailing, sailing

Thats like the "Ass kicking machine" !!!!

The answer to your question is yes rear steering has been tried and in fact some ice yachts use it.
The problem though with rear wheel steering it is VERY twitchy... just like steering on a forklift at speed it is almost impossible to keep in a straight line.
The caster angle of the wheel that steers at the rear would need to be vastly different from front wheel steering.
Also class 5 rules mention that the yacht needs to be front wheel steering, which has discouraged experimentation in yacht design.
One of the most novel ways of steering was a yacht was where the rig was fixed and ALL wheels steered and positioned the yacht under the rig, it was called the "crabber" .
I never did see it but I would expect scary going down the beach as speed ... with the pilot sitting sideways or backward!!!.

Rear wheel yachts have other problems as shown in the diagram below.

I think ive got what your thinking... lets assume for simplicity (at the moment) that a wheel was put into a catamaran rudder stock with the wheel axle being where the piviot point for a rudder blade would have been?
The distance from where the tyre contacts the ground to where that rudder stock piviots (on the transom ... so to say) creates an angle this is the caster angle.
As i mentioned that trailing caster wheel set ups dont work well at speed... just try pushing a shopping trolley fast and watch the wheels wobble all over the place.
I dont know of anything that goes more than 20km/h that has rear steering.(and uses wheels.... some ice yachts have rear steering but these are blades and would not be subject to the same caster problems)
If anyone knows of anything i would like to know how they do it.

ps. There is a skateboard thingy just come on the market called a "Ripstick" that uses an inclined caster setup for the wheels and seems stable.