Hi cisco,
I'm from Califronia, and I go to El Mirage dry lake bed. Kinda far from Aus! I stumbled across this forum while I was researching to build my land yacht. There was a lot of good information on here.
I have been going to El Mirage dry lake bed for about 8 years now (1 to 2 times per year), but usually to launch rockets, drive around RC cars and have a good time. Every time we went we saw these land sailers and they always looked like a blast to sail. My buddy and I built a kite buggy about 2 years ago, but never could get the hang of flying the kite well enough to have fun. We spent most of the time untangling the lines after the kite crashed.
So about a month ago I was given a windsurf sail and mast and we decided to build a land sailer. Before last month, I knew nothing about land sailers or sailing them. I did a lot of research and looked at lots of pictures before I designed and built my own.
I've posted some pictures here:
webshots.com/weeklyWe still haven't painted it, and need to add a small floor pan, and lower the steering 'T' a bit. Our El Mirage trip came up on us a little to fast!
There were some minor flaws such as the mast, and our support turn buckles being to small diameter to handle the force. They bent quite a bit, but we just kept bending them back. We were able to sail all three days by making repairs with what we had. And we had so much fun, we are already designing to build a class 5 style sailer.
Oh ya, and our kite buggy is up for sale!!! We are completely hooked on land sailing.
Terry
