What are northenerns up to in winter ?

Well this is our residential Swedish Cook (Tony_F18) in my class 5 landyacht :


http://www.xs4all.nl/~whijink/landyachting/Landyacht_class_5_sat_23_feb_2008_on_board_run_2.avi

Beware ; 37 Mb download

I advice you add your own music score (it is raw uncut video afterall)

I propose the following song; for maximum effect start the video first and start the song 10 seconds later and listen to the lyrics.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIfiQePVbqU&feature=related


Great little gadget that Hero3 camera Tony and I hope you don't mind that I've placed this on the F16 forum.

Notice the part where Tony almost drives himself into the water by underestimating the turning circle at 90 km/h

The guys at the GC 2007 had only the Sailkart toy to play with (beach was too small) but this is how a real high performance landyacht looks like :

The purchase on the mainsheet looks much better for a start!!!

Wouter, in the far background of that picture I see three little wing type sails, what are they and do you have any close up pictures of them?

You guys have lots of wide open hard packed sand at low tide, not too many places in America have that type of beach that is also accesable. Daytona might be a good location. Any Blo-carts there?

Hi Timbo,

The wings in the background are called kitewings, the boards they use are called dirtsurfers.
http://www.wingsurfer.co.uk/generic/template.asp?ACT=nav&mID=189


There where about a dozen Blokarts on the beach at the same time we where there.
Wouter's yellow racing landsailer was MUCH faster than the Blokarts though, downwind I must have hit something like 70km/h (Must bring a GPS next time!).
His other landsailer was more similar to a Blokart.
Because it was blowing pretty good it felt like it was overpowered most of the time and when you sheeted in to quickly it would spin into a 180. Lots of fun.

(btw. the guy in Wouter's picture is not me, i was the guy behind the camera <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />).

Neither do we overhere. There are basically only 3 places in NL that have such broad and firm beaches at low tide as you see in the video clip.

The beach at IJmuiden (near to Zandvoort)
The beach on the sand island Terschelling
The beach near Ouddorp on the province of Zeeland.

But IJmuiden is most dependable. Class 5 and Class 3 landyachts need space and a really firm beach to good performance. More so then the Sailkarts and Blokarts. It is either one of these three beaches or we have to go abroad; mainly to Northern France.

At Zandvoort we got really lucky at the GC 2007; I've seldomly seen the beach there so level and firm. It was excellent for the GC 2007 participants as it was easy to learn on such a nice surface. However, I did take a few of them to a medium sized parking lot. Actually you know which parking lot as I parked my car there when you came to visit. That is about what you need to go full out on a blokart or sailkart and you can do it with a little less as well.

Surely you have something like that near to your home ?

Blokarting appears to be really popular on these tarmac surfaces as well. They even sell mast top protectors for when you go over on abbrasive surfaces like tarmac.

Of course the beach is the romantic place to go landyachting, but any firm and equal surface will do. I never tried it on lawn but that might work as well.

Wouter

Actually Tony,

Rob and I have clocked you at 51 km/h when you were still sailing the Sailkart (blokart look-a-like). We were driving after you in the car and had to speed up in order to let you get further away.

The Sailkart feels more nervous because its sail is fuller (for good drive at lower speeds) and because it is more narrow. The Class 5 width and additional wheelbase give it a much more relaxed feel ii combo with the flatter sail. The latter makes getting away at low speed harder in the class 5 as you have probably noticed yourself.

Also my yellow class 5 is not a competitive landyacht anymore, not by a significantl stretch. That is one reason why got our hands on it for a decent price. The newer competitive yachts go much faster still and those are beginning to get really scary. There is a point at which you simply don't want to go faster in cars like these and the current top of line class 5's appear to have reached that point a few years ago. Doing over 100 km/h in such a car is ALOT.

With respect to the picture, indeed, that is Olaf in the landyacht. In my post I meant to say that you were the pilot that handled the car in the video file. But please next time don't drive it full speed into the soft sand with chucks of floatsam. I had to repaint the front today.


Wouter