can anyone give me an idea of the weight of a kitebuggy. I'm building a buggy/landyacht hybrid at the moment and want to know if the weight is going to in the ballpark.. Then I'll have to learn to fly a kite again. the last one I had was a Marconi sail kite that needed a Game fishing rod and reel lashed to a fencepost to hold onto. Ive got a 500km sq salt lake to sail on. it does flood to 18" deep occasionally . I crossed on a Hobie 14 in 1992. bit salty.
cheers Paul

A typical buggy weight between 8 and 16kgs, much heavier than that and it gets a bit streeful to push around, although in buggy racing riders do add weight to the buggy for ballast and to allow them to use a bigger kite. This happens in at races in Europe where buggiers strap into the buggy.

The Peter Lynn Comp Mk2 with 20mm bearings weighs around 15kg and it the most common and popular buggy in Australia.

If you just want to cruise/go fast make the rear axle wide, at least 1.3M and up to 1.5/6M wide, measure from centre of wheel to centre of wheel.

Cya and

Goodwinds

Steve

PS We sell buggy parts too, so any bits you don't want to or can't make you can purchase from us.

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Originally posted by landyacht

can anyone give me an idea of the weight of a kitebuggy. I'm building a buggy/landyacht hybrid at the moment and want to know if the weight is going to in the ballpark.. Then I'll have to learn to fly a kite again. the last one I had was a Marconi sail kite that needed a Game fishing rod and reel lashed to a fencepost to hold onto. Ive got a 500km sq salt lake to sail on. it does flood to 18" deep occasionally . I crossed on a Hobie 14 in 1992. bit salty.
cheers Paul

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The buggie Im working on is a bit different in that it has to be able to support a glass mast and 3-3.5 m of sailboard sail, and convert to a trailer,with or withoutmast and sail to tow behind a land yacht. the need to use it as a kitebuggy is when the gound becomes a bit soft for the land yacht ,or you want to investigate a tight inlet where ther is no wind low down. The weight will be aroundv 18kg rigged as a yacht. my dimensions are quite close. What size Kite am I going to need, keeping in mind Im getting oldand suffer from a few old landsailing injuries.
cheers paul

Hi Paul

There is no need to build in weight, unless you are racing and can strap in to the buggy. Its actually better and easier on the body to go light, heaps of other good reasons why its better to keep the buggy/land yacht as light as possible. For increased strength without massive increase in weight simply up the diameter of the tubing. Also square tubing is more rigid, if rigiditiy is needed, in my experience (have built several buggies).

Personally I would not bother with making a kite buggy that could carry a mast and sail - why?
The kite will always be able to be launched and flown if there is wind, even if there is not much ground wind, you can run it up into better wind. You can still tow it, and then tow the yacht if need be, but you may just find that the buggy is more versatile and manouverable, at a slight loss of upwind ability.

I would suggest something around 4M in a fixed bridle and around 7M in a depowerable foil.
Kites recommended are - Easy launching and predictable handling fixed bridle foils like the Ozone Samurai2 we have on clearance, or the Flexifoil Sabre2 or Ozone Frenzy depowerables (also on clearance).
Flexifoil Blade4 in a 4M is another ideal choice, flown on handles for a buggy application.
The depower foils can only be flown on bars.
I started using kite buggies in 1992, heaps of experience with buggies and land power kiting, send me a PM if you need any other info.

Cya and

Goodwinds

Steve

quote:

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Originally posted by landyacht

The buggie Im working on is a bit different in that it has to be able to support a glass mast and 3-3.5 m of sailboard sail, and convert to a trailer,with or withoutmast and sail to tow behind a land yacht. the need to use it as a kitebuggy is when the gound becomes a bit soft for the land yacht ,or you want to investigate a tight inlet where ther is no wind low down. The weight will be aroundv 18kg rigged as a yacht. my dimensions are quite close. What size Kite am I going to need, keeping in mind Im getting oldand suffer from a few old landsailing injuries.
cheers paul

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