Hello! I'm a blokart and iceboat sailor from the US midwest (Madison, Wisconsin).
Locally we landsail on parking lots, but our group makes regular trips to other locations (Ivanpah dry lake in California and Bader Field in NJ).
I also sail a DN iceboat around the country, and I'm the North-American Secretary of the International DN Ice Yacht Racing Association (IDNIYRA).
There's a group of us who get together and build/restore/repair iceboats (and sometimes our blokarts...).
Cheers,
Geoff S.
blokart: US-56-BB - DN US-5156
Here are a couple of videos of mine.
The first is from blokart sailing in NJ a few weeks ago, and the second is iceboat racing last December.
Hi Geof. That blowcarting looks like a lot of fun. I'm surprised that the tacks are that fast. It seems like you don't slow down at all. Good stuff.
Wow Geoff, you get the best of both worlds. Nice disused airfield gives a fantastic surface.
I would love to get a run on ice. 
Great videos too I really enjoyed them. 
Thanks for the warm welcome!
The airport is a great venue, unfortunately it's about a 15 hour drive from where I live.
I guess it's better than the 30+ hours it takes to get to Ivanpah...
Locally we sail in pretty small car parks.
We can still have a great time:
Select to expand quoteSaltylips said..
What a great spot to landsail , thanks for the vid
Hi guys, hows everyone,, saltylips, you guys still coming to kingston ?
Hi BB,
I'm planning on being there. Have some new fat land kite wheels to try out, if there is moisture on the claypan.
After watching GeofSobering's blowkart video, I'm slowly sinking into a future with a blowkart.
Select to expand quoteSaltylips said..
After watching GeofSobering's blowkart video, I'm slowly sinking into a future with a blowkart.
It's really hard to beat the blokart's fun-per-minute.
I keep my frame assembled in the back of my Subaru so it only takes me 7 1/2 minutes to go from parking to sailing.
Occasionally, I'll stop somewhere and sail for a half hour on my way home from work, or even go sailing over lunch.
The course in the car park video was only 90 m (300 feet) long so you don't need a lot of space to have good fun.
Big spaces do have their attractions...
Here's a video from yesterday sailing around a 415' (126m) parking lot course.
I'm following the fellow who let me sail (and flip) his blokart many years ago.
This was his first time out in quite a while, and the first time he's ever sailed a 5.5m (thankfully he's a very good sailor, so my loaner sail survived the day without any luff tears!).
Sorry for the length. Right at the end there are a couple of "full speed" laps around the course to give an idea of what it was like:
Thats really cool Geoff. It seems that you are able to sail very close to the wind. I presume closer than what a water sailor could do. 5.5 meter sail!!?? That sounds big. I guess that for my sand sailing I should not be shy about the larger sails.
What a difference 12 days make!
Last time I got out in my blokart it was 63°F (17°C) and sunny.
Last Friday the temperature was just below freezing and the sun was nowhere to be seen...
I forgot my iceboat facemask and goggles, so my face got a bit cold in the 10-16kn wind (nice rosy cheeks...).
Hopefully we'll be iceboating next weekend! (maybe up in Canada, though...)
Very cool Geoff, the rigging is interesting. Surprised to see the downhaul going slack as you sheet in. I think I would do well to copy it.
I'm glad that you mentioned doing ice boating. First, that must be awesome. Second, I've been thinking about how cold my beach is going to be this winter. I must remember that you ice boaters have been doing this cold sailing for a long time.
Some more cold-weather sailing:
My first local sailing of 2016!
I'm still amazed by this sport!
From my GPS track (geoffs.net/tracks/2016-01-23_Monona.html) I was sailing upwind at about 45 km/h (28 mph) and downwind at well over 60 km/hr.
All this with about $3500 USD worth of kit...
Who needs an AC 45 catamaran when you can sail as fast on ice or land?
No wind so far for the first day of the DN North American Championships.
Practice Satuday was great, though:
Today I got to sail a friend's Renegade iceboat. It's a bit larger than my DN and was a real hoot to sail in the 19 kn (gusting to 25 kn) breeze:
The strong wind shifted the ice unexpectedly and we had to scramble to put together something to get the five boats and trailers onto dry land:
I'm looking forward to the northern hemisphere summer sailing season so I edited some video I shot last September...
A couple of videos from the blokart North American and World Championship races at Ivanpah early in April.
The second one has some commentary about how the race went.
Iceboat season is getting underway here in the northern hemisphere.
I'm battling an elbow/shoulder injury so I haven't been out yet, but here are a couple of videos from last weekend:
Nice video, especially the second one with the drone shots.
God dam I wish we had some ice lakes over here in Aus.
Hi roomie!!
