Use to do this many years ago and it was a blast. Anywhere that's open and got no wind interruptions like netball courts, school playgrounds are fun.
we used to use old booms and storm sails (it was the 80's) so when you dropped them, and you will, its not good gear getting scuffed.
Best way to learn tricky stuff like duck gybes etc as you just keep trying . No need to go super fast either but don't try it if you have crook knees. Running off excess speed hurts.
make sure you attach mast base in FRONT of skate boards trucks.
If you've got an onshore day try skate sailing up moderate hills and then depower rig and S turn back down.
A decent longer board makes it heaps easier too.

Nice, thanks Carantoc. I was looking at how to modify a mountainboard to attach the mast base like in that photo. Problem solved :)

Tarmac all the way, so smooth and fast. I bolted a mast base onto my longboard a couple of months ago (www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/Victoria/Project-Windskate/) and it's unreal fun! Was suprised how much wind you need though but was using on old 80's topsails 4.7m. Haven't dropped the sail yet - touch wood!

These large wheeled "landsailers" were the bomb.

The large wheels allowed them to be ridden on all sorts of surfaces, including hard sand and grass. The rolling resistance was so low you could easily hit 30km/hr in 5-8 knots of wind. With a bit of skill the sail could be backwinded to loose speed very quickly if required.

I spent probably twice as much time on this as I did on the water. There was a carpark and large grass areas on a headland a few hundred metres from where I lived (Wollongong NSW). The headland would cause even a light sea breeze to accelerate up the hill, making a 5 knot SE'er fully powered up and heaps of fun. Throw in a few mown grassy banks, and it was all on. I'd blast all around the carpark and grassy headland near the lighthouse most afternoons of the week (seen behind in the photo).

Crappy old wavesails were the way to go, this old 5m simmer was more than enough. By the way, that luff sleeve was the casualty of a broken mast, not a crash on the pavement. I used to put the mast base pad on the tip/head of the mast (in the days before they were sewn in to the tack of the sail).

That particular model was made and distributed by the bombora/windsurfer distributors on Sydney's northern beaches (Narrabeen?). The wide and short deck allowed them to be gybed in a very short radius (unlike the long and narrow french/british "speedsailer" type boards) and sailed naturally on both tacks.

It turned all those marginal days into great "sailing" conditions. For those who remember, note the green and yellow Aussie mast extension and red Rip curl one piece mast which were de rigeur for the day. How 80s are the mambo shorts.

Clarence

back in the day - great fun with Mrs KA643

Its great fun that's for sure I like to go to the park at nights a lot of carparks are under lights now, If I hit about 70km I start to get the death wobbles have been thinking of getting luggimg board with drop through trucks they reckon there good for a 150km no death wobbles .

I don't who uses that...

hey just found this clip thought id share it.

fjdoug said..

during winter we used to sail on a rooftop carpark at the mall, those were the days when there was no sunday trading or saturday after 12!

Snap

gavinpiggott said..

d11wtq, have you figured out a way to mount the mast foot to the front of the mountain board? or do you know where to get the metal mounting plate in the picture you posted?

The photo is taken from the Windskate Torino Facebook page, which is all in Italian. I asked the guy who runs that page and he said he'd made it by hand in a workshop. Using a longboard looks a lot easier, as you can just attach the mast foot directly to the board. You'll need to find the right shape of longboard though, with the trucks far enough back to allow for the mast foot to be placed in front of them.