 (Charlie O'Learys class IV at speed) |
Landsailing is the sport of moving over sand and land using a board carrying a sail for propulsion by the wind, in other words, it is a sport of sailing and racing on land in modified boats. A landyacht is basically a sailbot that travels on small wheels on the surface of land.
It is (the landyacht) a wind-driven board, usually light and comparatively small, mounted on 3 wheels. The front wheel is attached to a certain system of controlling. The sail is about 5 square meters in area (and depends on the type of landyacht). The sailor sits on the board (or sometimes lays on it) while his uses his hands and feet to control the landyacht, note that the landyacht does not use any fuel. The board on which the sailor lays is about 1.7 meters in length (and varies), and it is quite narrow. There are many types of landyachts, what you will mostly see in this site is the Manta and Seagull types. |
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 (flags showing the wind speed of 25 mph at the starting line of 1998 Americas Cup Regatta ) |
A landyacht that is sailing downwind can reach no greater a speed than that of the wind itself. But a landyacht can reach much faster speeds when it sails across the wind rather than being pushed along by it (actually it can go 5 times as fast as the wind), since the landyacht creates a wind from the velocity of its own movement that greatly supplements the natural wind. These principles were only vaguely understood in the early days of landsailing.
The speed of the landyacht also depends on its type, landyachts that are built for the purpose of speed can go up to a speed of 100 mph. The world record of landyacht speed is held by the Iron Duck which reached the speed of 116.7 mph in a wind of aproximately 30 mph (as you can see the Iron Duck was going in a speed of about 4 times the speed of wind). In certain circumstances landsailing is quite easy to learn, please review the 'getting started' section for further information about learning it. |
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| Yachting is taken to be the ancestor of landsailing, it (yachting) first appeared as the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power (in the 17th century), and it became a pleasure craft used by royalty and burghers on the canals of the waters of the Low Countries. It then began in England when King Charles II visited the Low Countries, when the city of Amsterdam presented him with a 66 foot pleasure boat with a beam of 18 feet in width, it was named Mary. This sport started to get known in England, and soon afterwards clubs were formed, and competitions started on the Thames.
In North America yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English gained control. The first yachting club in America was the Detroit Boat Club, which was formed in 1839. From that elegant sport, lot of other sports came, including landsailing and iceyachting, which both became well-known sports in North Americe and Europe, the citizens of relatively cold places are used to practise iceyachting, while the citizens of sand-land and desert practise landsailing. |
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