What is this?

Hi all
I went over to Yeppoon, only 10klms from home, and met all the "blowies" and then some. The wind was rather quiet but I think everyone who came had a great time. A lot of time was passed chatting and listening to each other's stories of successes and failures, design info and "how to do it".
I have to say I felt very honoured to have met up with "aga" and Jess. They certainly are a wonderful family and Jess is a pleasure to chat with. His dad showed me all the work that Jess had done and it was just amazing to see the skills developed in this young man. My only wish is that I could pass onto him many of my own skills and knowledge.
Dave and Ruth met up with me and we shared a cuppa and chocolate cake (provided by "aga") and again swapped lots of info. The one thing that impressed me most of all was the friendliness and hospitality of all who came to Yeppoon. The bottom line for all, was, that the name of the game is to have fun and enjoy each other. My deep thanks to all who came and shared so much with me.

Kody

It's called a freebie!!!!

Good score there Aga!! They were the Rydges resort's "Sand Sailers" up until about 4 years ago. I was trying to sell a few blokarts to them at the time. The activities manager there told me they had just spent quite a lot of money doing them up. Then they hardly got used due to lack of interest and/or experience by the activities staff.

The resort took a policy of not hiring them during winds above 15 knots I believe, as there had been a couple of accidents (notice the lack of seat belts) and they are quite heavy machines.

There was two or three more of them there. Could be a good score for you Kody if you can find them.

Cheers Cisco

Vic,
The Vikings were Paul's design, similar to the Faze 5. He used aero tyres on go kart type rims (which I sent him from local manufacturer in SA) on the rear.
Paul also made wood / fibreglass seats for them.

The original "Faze 5 Given" as we called the yachts we took to America in 1990 had the Ron Given designed fibreglass seat.

If you want to use the same ally wheels I can probably still get them, but talk to Paul first as I think the salt eats them pretty badly.
Cheers,

Thanks Bill
I have a alloy wheels,they are in good nick. The axles where rotted out so I replaced them also fitted wheel barrow wheels.
Thanks for the info
Cheers
Vic

G'day Aga,

The Faze 5 was more or less an in between yacht in class 5 design. It was particularly aimed at performing at Ivanpah USA for the Pacrim 1990.

Lake Ivanpah is hard clay, & a very fast surface & we were warned that winds could be very strong. The yacht was deliberately built solid to handle high winds & hard sailing & did well in such conditions. Overall some 30 were built.
The "A" frame for the mast will work fine as it is, but on softer sand it may be worthwhile to run the boom above it to give you more room to sheet out.

You're right in that a yacht can take off when the boom is limited, but it can happen with any sheeting at times & we always had a policy of tipping the yacht over when not being sailed.

Cheers, Bill

Couple of things to note. Put some full length battens in the sail before you use it as they will punch through the sail.
The upper A frame /boom relationship is correct. In real landyachts you dont sheet out like they do in a blokart. Youve got a proper yacht now. When sailing downwind as giz said you gybe from leg to leg, the opposite to tacking. those attens are broken due to beginners letting the sail toooo far out and just letting the sail wrap around the mast.
Blokarts are easier to learn on. That s the whole point of them welcomr to the big world have fun sail fast,wear a seatbelt

Thanks Bill,
I"ll have a play and see how it goes.
Once happy I'll give it a bright coat of paint
Actually hopeing to get the Mrs into it as I can't imajine
the weight and width of it allowing lifting of the windward wheel in Mackay's breeze
aga

Yes exactly " Why limit your options" You now have a yacht designed and built by one of the top landsailors in Australia if not the world, so why limit your options by changing the rig set up he designed?
Perhaps you should try it as is both upwind AND downwind against another yacht and if you aren't happy only then change it.( but at least you can compare the results)
But have the thought.... did the designer know more about the subject then than you do now? And if it was a better rig setup why wouldn't he have used it?

I see so many people change things because they can ... but not often do they come up with a better result

lifting the boom above the Aframe will be worth keping in mind if you have the narrow beach/wind direction situation you describe.
you aint going to go as fast ,but you are going to get there, as opposed to be left down the beach in a REAL landyacht looking and feeling like a plonker.
this may explain why landyachting hasnt taken off until BLOWIES came along in your area

Is the boom movement these things have enough to depower quickly to get out of trouble when something unexpected comes along?

I wanted to put a lot more sheet rope on my cl5, but was told in no uncertain terms that it wasn't needed. I doubt I would be able to get my boom much further out than yours even though I don't have a brace. Its probably just there so that they didn't drag the sheet along behind them.

And no I don't think I would be able to depower it from the sail alone, I would have to take evasive action with the steering to achieve that. Several times I've approached the leeward mark thinking "Faaaaar..., I wish I was going a lot slower!!" I always seem to make it around though, a testiment to the great design of the yacht.