F-16 warm up?

Not me. February is for my honey.

We can't; but will be in Gulfport for the Invitational. And then Spring Fever. Which BTW only has 3 F16's registered so far. <img src=

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/> If we get at least 2 more we can have a fleet.

I'll try to do S.F. but it's a long shot.

My wife will not allow me to miss Easter at home with the family, especially for (more) sailboat racing!

Pete, when does the regular racing at Gulfport start up again?

March 1st I believe, have to check.

Timbo-
You could bring the wife and family and have Easter on the lake. A lot of others do that. But I don't want to cause family strife. It was just an idea......

...and the horse's, boyfriends, in-laws, ...

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And the 5 dogs of course, and the wife and kids will all be bitching about no TV, no video games and

nothing to do

...that idea was nixed a long time ago.

It really sucks being the only one in a family of 6 who likes to sail, that's why I try to do it on layovers as much as possible, and thanks to Dermot, Erez, Andi, Wouter and Dave, that has been possible. But my wife still gets mad if I come home with a smile on my face! Seems I should have to suffer at work as well as at home. <img src=

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Tim,

Do you have any layovers in the winter time ?

I'm assuming you never done a bit of landyachting ?

Wouter

I'm laying over in Bombay right now, as I write this! BUT, they don't do much sailing around here for some reason. I don't get to Amsterdam anymore because the plane I'm now flying doesn't go there. I do miss it though, and all the other great Europe layovers and Ireland. Now all I see is Bombay, Seoul and Dubai, which luckily is where another Blade racer, Dave Holligan is. He as taken me out to his club and even got me a flight in the brand new, super size, Airbus A380 simulator! <img src=

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That land yachting looks like great fun! We just don't see it in the US for some reason.

You'll be amazed, the blokarts are really growing as a class in the USA as well. Pretty soon they'll be the largest landyacht class in the worlds if they are not already.

Take a look here :

http://www.classactionracing.com/

Here a clip of them doing their stuff on an empty parking lot :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2u8YL5rQOo

And you did even need a large parking lot like this guy is showing :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EfGZPLWvL0&feature=related

There is even a youtube video about a New Yorker blokarting under an overpass, right in the middle of the city.

There are actually heaps of video's of Americans blokarting.

Maybe of interest to you Tim.

The blokart was designed to be dissassembled (in 5 min) and transported in a bag that is only 4 feet high, 2 feet wide and a feet thick. You can bring it with you on the plane as hand lugage !

Now you only need to ask the tower to clear a runway for you and you are good to go on your layovers !

The little karts are surprisingly fast as well, with with the kids sail on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57moRA0SdmE

Actually, this may not even be such a bad idea in your case. Any firm underground with a nice breeze blowing over it will do, tarmac, firm sand, grass, dried up lake bed or river, ice !

Lately they have been reduced in price alot. In Europe they used to be 3000 Euro's but now you can get them 1850 Euro's. I guess the popularity of the blokart is allowing mass production and associated cost savings.

Wouter

Funny I was just talking with a local about building/purchasing a landyacht.

I will be at Spring Fever. But, I can't race Sunday... Dad duity calls.

Great!! Look forward to meeting you. Two days is better than none. <img src=

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All I can say about that is that I'm very happy that I did. I now own 6 landyachts, all second handers that were revived to operational status with a little effort. Among these I got 3 identical landyachts that are very similar to the Blokarts. At the time the old owners were thinking about throwing them away. These little karts are actually a heap of fun and so easy to handle that newbies get the hang of it in 10 minutes flat. After 20 minutes you can see them go flat out in speed trying to make them go even faster. Hell, nearly everybody who was present at the GC-2007 can attest to that fact. The only exception being Matt McD as he went flat out after 10 seconds already. Here a picture of somebody more restrained, albeit by only a little.

Just yesterday I brought a total novice along, he even didn't have any significant waterborn sailing skills to mention, and indeed after 20 minutes I had to use all the tricks I knew to overtake him very slowly at 60kph = 35 mph. It took about a mile to do it.

More and more I'm starting to conclude that landyachting is actually a very good way to get people to appreciate sailing. On these crafts it is just so easy. 80 % of the learning is covered by only one rule :

Speed is everything

. When you have speed, then tacking and gybing is nothing more then putting the steering wheel over and let the sail weathervane itself to the other side. Like this there are no procedures to put in a proper tack or gybe; it just all happens automatically when you steer through the curve. Also the skippers remains in his seat and doesn't move about the craft at all.

The second rule to remember is to not steer (aggressively) upwind when heeling over (in that way it is different from sailing waterborn craft). The forces associated with speeding at 30 mph will actually heel you over more due to centrifugal principle. The best response is to steer straight and let the sail out realitively quickly or actually to steer away from the wind and have the centrifugal force put your luff wheel down while sheeting out and only then steer upwind.

ALl the other stuff, you'll learn in the first 10 minutes by just trying it.

And landyachting is great fun !

Homebuilding a landyacht is not too difficult and if you go that route then I have some good pointers for you. Otherwise you just can't go wrong with purchasing a secondhand blokart. The fact that you can fold them up into a 4x2x1 footbag and store it in the back of you car is a huge advantage.

If I would own a blokart then I would bring it with me to regatta's and just go landyachting on the nearest free beach or parking lot when the regatta is blown out. Saved the last few days of the GC-2007 when we had to cancel the races due to strong winds.

You can landyacht from 13 knots to 30 knots. Below 13 knots you'll need an entlarged sail. Which are available for the blowkarts but at extra costs.

Wouter

BTW, you may not know that one of our own is a land yacht builder - Dan Feldman, a Blade sailor and factory rep for Vectorworks in Illinois is the owner of Windline International - http://windline.net/

I love the look of those rigs.