Hi, my name's Jim and I live in Scotland. Got three son's and a great wife (read as patient).

I have absolutely no idea where to start with land sailing! All of the beaches near me are a very fine soft sand (only hard area is when the tide is out). I want to build a landyacht with my eldest son.

I've had a good look around the forum's here and googled till I'm blue in the face. Almost all info I can find on building a landyacht refers to what I presume to be racing class types. Also searched for a good while for the fallshaw wheelbarrow rims suggested on here, most of my finds I can tell are unsuitable and others I'm not so sure about.

Here's what I'd like to build:
-scavenged/salvaged materials
-use as cheap a sail as possible
-provision to Safely seat a small child between my legs
-useable on soft and hard sand (is this possible?)
-something with brakes, I think I'll need them

ANY IDEAS??

Also, Is it easy to learn how to use these 'craft' (don't know what to call them)

Any and all advice / constructive criticism welcome
Thanks in advance. JIM

I've practically memorised the lefroy mini pages

I really like the look, BUT, can I modify this so I can safely seat a five year old between my legs?
I think I can handle any other modifications I'll need to make, I just don't know how a second seat will affect the handling.
Also, how does changing from hard to soft to hard sand affect the handling?
A couple of the beaches near me have varying tide marks along their length (correct nomenclature??).

I've been contimplating using 50cc scooter front wheels from a (semi)local motorbike scrapyard.

They're 10 inches diameter, 3.75 inches wide and come complete with drum brakes.
Haven't weighed them but willing to bet they're more than 10 times the weight of wheelbarrow wheels.

THANKYOU for the advice thus far.

Hi Jim, Another welcome to the forum.
Point One:- Landyachts do not sail well, if at all, on soft surfaces. Work your tides, football fields, big car parks etc.

Point Two:- The LLF Mini is a successful yacht. If you build one, STICK TO THE PLAN. I did and I have a great yacht that I love. You will certainly be able to find the equivalent wheels to the Fallshaws in Scotland somewhere. You do use wheel barrows there don't you??

Point Three:- Have FUN.
Cheers Cisco
PS:- It is as easy to build two yachts as one. It is also easy to devise something where one yacht can be attached to the rear of another in tandem. The rear yacht of course will have it's steering removed. It can be used like a trailer or have a rig and sail and the combination sailed like a ketch or schooner.

Yeah Jim, balloon tyres are spongey in them selves and my experience has been that even the slightest sponginess of a surface sponges the energy right out of a land yacht. Where did that word "sponge" come from anyway.

Of note is that blokart no longer offers the baloon tyres as an accessory except maybe in Japan.

Re:- Wheels. As a rule the bigger diameter of the wheel the less the rolling resistance, however for beach work I would suggest that a 4" wide tyre is the optimum. Narrower will dig in too much and wider will have too much contact resistance on the straights and too little in the turns. Just my opinion from experience.

Another welcome Jim! the land yacht works on a close ratio tolerance. This is :-length equals(=) width times(x) 1.1 to 1.2 . Also altering the length will alter mast placement and balance of where force from sail acts on frame. Having a second mini allows two to sail side by side(you can learn from each other) and has been suggested can be adapted to attatch to the rear of another again the tow-er can learn from the tow-ee by copying the sail positions etc.

Point taken, I'll leave it as standard and find a work around after its built and tested.

@gizmo;- I dunno if you've seen a lot of people modifying designs before, but you managed to read my mind.
I thought that landyachts looked mechanically quite simple (sure I'm going to find out otherwise though) so a small modification wouldn't make that much difference

Motor scooter wheels are on a 10" rim.... some of the wider tyre ones would be great on a good rim.
Mind you the scooter tyres are I think are 6 ply rated which would be harder to get going in light winds than 4 ply, but scooter tyres would have a better speed rating than the wheel barrow ones.
Some of the cheaper pressed metal wheels may not stand up to the side pressure.
The front wheels look better than the rear.
Dont worry every time a scooter goes past a thought goes through my mind ..... "could i push him off and grab his scooter for the wheels?"
but thats not nice is it?

As you said they look quite simple, but one of the more critical things in the design is the how the rig fits the yacht with centre of effort / centre of resistance.
Changing the length / width / seat position will effect this.
Have a read of this thread
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=45236&SearchTerms=centre,of,effort
With the building of the Lefroy Mini all of this stuff has been done for you.
Thanks "Landyacht" (Paul)

landyacht said...
Och Tha Noo!( ok what does it mean) hope Im not offendng anybody.

You were close Its "Och Aye the noo", just means "alright, how's it going/hanging" (although we tend to say "Aarite min" nowadays)
Another one "Lang may yer lum reek" - "hope your in good health next time I see you" Kind of the Spok "Live long and prosper" thing

As for the offence, non taken. "If you can't laugh at yourself you're not entitled to laugh at anyone else", thats another of my fathers pearls I find repeating from my mouth these days.

Speaking of which (I reckon he's a pretty wise man); back in my youth(around 2min's ago according to him) my dad suggested making a landyacht as a father/son project and I kept putting it off. Wish I hadn't now.

Anyway back on subject. Thankyou for sharing your designs with the www.
Can your Lefroy Mini design be scaled? I mean can I scale it down in the future.
Reason being that I'd like my middle son to have a bash at this too when he's around 3yrs old. I feel by the scale of the pipes I've started cutting that the lefroy mini will be too big for him.

Another pearl before I go "Knowing a tomato is a fruit is Knowledge, Knowing not to put tomatoes in a fruit salad is wisdom"

Again a HUGE thankyou for sharing your design's

lightninjim said...

Another pearl before I go "Knowing a tomato is a fruit is Knowledge, Knowing not to put tomatoes in a fruit salad is wisdom"

Hahaha, I like that one!!

Hopefully you find plenty of knowledge on here and perhaps a splattering of wisdom too!

cisco said...

Yeah Jim, balloon tyres are spongey in them selves and my experience has been that even the slightest sponginess of a surface sponges the energy right out of a land yacht. Where did that word "sponge" come from anyway.

Of note is that blokart no longer offers the baloon tyres as an accessory except maybe in Japan.

Re:- Wheels. As a rule the bigger diameter of the wheel the less the rolling resistance, however for beach work I would suggest that a 4" wide tyre is the optimum. Narrower will dig in too much and wider will have too much contact resistance on the straights and too little in the turns. Just my opinion from experience.

Not sure how current this site is but...
coastalkarts.auctivacommerce.com/inactive.aspx

How much?
For a set of wheels!

Edited as I hadn't fully read the rules
My apologies

you can fit 6.00x8 tyres onto 4.00x8 rims to give a Fat tyre .the main reason I suggest 4.00x8 wheels is that they are the closest to being universal that you will get

I know it's difficult to tell from the picture but is this a suitable wheel for the LLM?
http://www.axminster.co.uk/product.asp?pf_id=642382&src=froogle

It's the closest looking one I can find locally.

Thanks for the replies

Hi Jim
That wheel looks super. If you want to get better performance, you could try grinding the tread down as landyacht has suggested a few times. At the price of only £6.00 each you cant go wrong. What is the overall diameter of the tire? The bearings look like they might be a cheap and nasty roller bearing that you will have to replace. Check out Cisco's post on using "as is" bearings. The big advantage of plastic wheels is their light weight compared to steel wheels and they dont rust. If I could buy them here in Aust for £6.00 ($20.00 aud ?), I'd buy six of them right now. How heavy is the tire? Heavy wheels/tires degrade the aceleration badly. If you can find a lighter tire it would help but not necessary to start with unless you get bogged in the sand.

EDIT
Just looked at the picture again, is the 250mm the diameter of the tire? If it is 250mm, then Gizmo is correct in suggesting the wheel is a bit small but I would still buy them for my property.
Kody

Gizmo said...

Hi Jim ... i think the answer would be no don't waste your money.

Whats your closest large city?

edit; Jim have a look here and contact these people they might be able to help you..

My closest city is Aberdeen. I already turned it inside out looking for wheels. I can't find wheelbarrow wheels with bearings (6204), they're all bushed. The example wheel has the largest bush of those I've found.
I tried the mobility shop in Aberdeen too. The wheels are either really skinny with a decent diameter or wide with a small diameter.

Kody said...

Hi Jim
How heavy is the tire? Heavy wheels/tires degrade the aceleration badly.

Just looked at the picture again, is the 250mm the diameter of the tire? If it is 250mm, then Gizmo is correct in suggesting the wheel is a bit small but I would still buy them for my property.
Kody

The wheel diameter of the ones I found locally was 10.25", so unfortunately yes the overall diameter is 250mm-ish. They weighed 2 to 2.5 kilo's at closest guessstimation.

My dads going to be passing a scrapyard at Elgin next week. maybe see if he'll drop in past as they have a lot of ex-M.O.D. stuff, maybe see if he can get wheels from a bomb trolley or somesuch.
I assume from the responses that a large diameter, wide wheel is what I'll need for sailing on wet sand. Preferably plastic to reduce weight (and for the zero corrosion aspect).

I'll trawl the www. down england way and see if I find much there.


EDIT:- Although the beaches around this corner are absolutely beautiful I'm starting to envy you guy's n gal's that live near dry lakes