I have some questions about this photo that I copied from the GPS and Speed Talk forum.

Who designed this board? Has it ever been raced in FISLY Class 7? If so, how did it perform?

How long was it produced? How many were produced? Is it still in production?

I would be interested in any first hand accounts of sailing on it over soft, sandy or rough terrain?

Thanks, Barney

I designed it and built it with my friend Mike. We called it Windwheeler.

I have no idea what FISLY Class is, but it was never raced to my Knowledge.

We made maybe 25-30 complete as pictured over a couple of years in the mid 1980's. We also sold more as DIY kits: Wheels, Axels and trucks - make your own board.

I still have the casting pattern plates for the trucks, so in theory I could still make them. Can't see any demand though. I stopped production when our market was flooded with cheap, wobbly, low quality boards from China.

We were inspired by the French 'Speed Sail' which was very popular in Europe but outrageously expensive in Australia. The French design also had a turning circle that was far too large for our beaches. So we designed our own trucks with a nice tuning circle, but to retain good stability at speed.

They had cast aluminium lower trucks on a Nylon base plate like a skateboard. Aluminium axels were bolted to the truck and the wheels were golf buggy plastic wheels with sealed ball bearings.

We used them on the tidal hard sand flats at Sandy Point, but more often on the wide flat hard sand beach at the adjacent Waratah Bay. On hard sand, 5-8 knots of steady onshore breeze was plenty to get up to speeds faster than I could run (as a much younger man ). We had no GPS in those days, but I think we were able to go around 2-3 times wind speed with an old triangular, 4m wave sail in 5-10 knots of wind. More than about 15 knots of wind and it got very scary fast! . We could tune the trucks for stability, but crashes really were dangerous. There was always an element of sideways skidding/crabbing when at max power and we stood with our feet very close to the mast foot.

We tried them a few times on asphalt airports aprons and runways, and large sealed car parks but they were far too fast to be safe, and very sensitive to slope.

It worked well on a short grass lawns or smooth paddock, but the slightest interruption to steady wind made it hard. Finding such a place that was level with steady consistent wind (no trees upwind) was near impossible.

In lighter winds, on the hard sand beach, it was a joy to gybe. Many of us learned to duck gybe on this thing and then transferred it to the water. With practice, we could do big 4 wheel drifting gybes and even 360's

They didnt work on softer sand.

I believe a few may have made there way onto large salt lakes / clay pans in other parts of the country, but have no direct knowledge of this.

I actually made a set of skis and tried it on the snow plains at Perisher. Total failure! The wind was just not steady enough and it would not go up even a slight slope.

I have often thought it would have worked well on skates on a frozen lake, but we just dont have anything like that in this country.

I will have a search, but I don't think I have any photos of it in action, and certainly no videos. This was in the days before digital photography and video cameras.

The Blokarts are quite popular here and that looks a lot safer and more interesting to me.

Select to expand quote

sailquik said..
I designed it and built it with my friend Mike. We called it Windwheeler.

I have no idea what FISLY Class is, but it was never raced to my Knowledge.

We made maybe 25-30 complete as pictured over a couple of years in the mid 1980's. We also sold more as DIY kits: Wheels, Axels and trucks - make your own board.

I still have the casting pattern plates for the trucks, so in theory I could still make them. Can't see any demand though. I stopped production when our market was flooded with cheap, wobbly, low quality boards from China.

We were inspired by the French 'Speed Sail' which was very popular in Europe but outrageously expensive in Australia. The French design also had a turning circle that was far too large for our beaches. So we designed our own trucks with a nice tuning circle, but to retain good stability at speed.

They had cast aluminium lower trucks on a Nylon base plate like a skateboard. Aluminium axels were bolted to the truck and the wheels were golf buggy plastic wheels with sealed ball bearings.

We used them on the tidal hard sand flats at Sandy Point, but more often on the wide flat hard sand beach at the adjacent Waratah Bay. On hard sand, 5-8 knots of steady onshore breeze was plenty to get up to speeds faster than I could run (as a much younger man ). We had no GPS in those days, but I think we were able to go around 2-3 times wind speed with an old triangular, 4m wave sail in 5-10 knots of wind. More than about 15 knots of wind and it got very scary fast! . We could tune the trucks for stability, but crashes really were dangerous. There was always an element of sideways skidding/crabbing when at max power and we stood with our feet very close to the mast foot.

We tried them a few times on asphalt airports aprons and runways, and large sealed car parks but they were far too fast to be safe, and very sensitive to slope.

It worked well on a short grass lawns or smooth paddock, but the slightest interruption to steady wind made it hard. Finding such a place that was level with steady consistent wind (no trees upwind) was near impossible.

In lighter winds, on the hard sand beach, it was a joy to gybe. Many of us learned to duck gybe on this thing and then transferred it to the water. With practice, we could do big 4 wheel drifting gybes and even 360's

They didnt work on softer sand.

I believe a few may have made there way onto large salt lakes / clay pans in other parts of the country, but have no direct knowledge of this.

I actually made a set of skis and tried it on the snow plains at Perisher. Total failure! The wind was just not steady enough and it would not go up even a slight slope.

I have often thought it would have worked well on skates on a frozen lake, but we just dont havDe anything like that in this country.

I will have a search, but I don't think I have any photos of it in action, and certainly no videos. This was in the days before digital photography and video cameras.

The Blokarts are quite popular here and that looks a lot safer and more interesting to me.

FISLY, the International Land and Sandyachting Federation has 8 racing classes. Class 7 is the windsurfer rig class

Thanks, Andrew, the reason I asked is your Windwheeler looks a bit like a contemporary longboard-skateboard with bigger wheels and longer axles - but of course pre-dates these by a couple of decades. Did your Windwheeler have the dynamic instability that skateboarders refer to as 'high speed wobble? Most skateboard derivatives like the American 'Freeskate' ice-board have this instability mode built-in to the board design. If possible, I would like to see a picture of your trucks and the underside of your board?

I agree with your comments regarding crashes. Unlike on ice where you just slide after a fall, on land you are likely to roll and tumble. I built a wheeled board without a high speed instability mode about the same time as your Windwheeler. I sailed it on paved parking lots and on ice but I never went faster than I could run. Learned duck gybes and 360s on it.

Select to expand quote

sailquik said..
cheap, wobbly, low quality boards from China.
our cheap, wobbly , low quality skateboard to windboard conversion was an even dodgier high school project.....

crashes really were dangerous. There was always an element of sideways skidding/crabbing when at max [or any] power
can confirm this.... no photos - but pretty sure dear old Mum still has the x-rays
We tried them a few times on asphalt airports aprons and runways, and large sealed car parks but they were far too fast to be safe, and very sensitive to slope.
no airport runways for us - we had Coolibah drive, and the adjacent Greenwood high school carparks.

steady wind made it hard. Finding such a place that was level with steady consistent wind (no trees upwind) was near impossible.
steady wind.... vivid memories of a rather steady wind, that the BOM named "Alby", which made going UP Coolibah drive pretty breathtaking

With practice, we could do big 4 wheel drifting gybes and even 360's
without practice, I could do all sorts of fancy stuff [wouldn't say it was under any form of human control though]

They didnt work on softer sand.
but the softer sand on the verge was much preferable for "unplanned impact", when compared to the road and kerb [refer to the x-rays above]

would not go up even a slight slope.
google for BOM's April 1978 cyclone Alby weather conditions around Perth and the south west of W.A.

great to hear from the person who built those aussie boards.
we built a number of boards a few years ago on lake leroy when some good windsurfer rigs became available, none of us ever really felt comfortable sailing on salt, the didn't seem to go well on sand or other softer surfaces. on my last sail i suddenly realised i was catching a blokart, then realised I couldn't tell when i was about to round up and fall off at high speed. gave the complete rig away. there is a thread on the boards in the construction section. i got to version 6 from memory

A mate n I made one in 1986. Year 11 manual arts project.(no pics) Very similar to Sailquiks. Made our own trucks based on skateboard setup, but scaled up. Was great fun. Turned in about 10ft. Didnt really work on our beaches around SE QLD.But pretty fast on grass n deadly in a carpark. I Vivdly remember ripping my entire bigtoenail off in a stack, when i hit a tree stump. Bent the axle. So thats how we left it. Stacking was always the issue!!

This is young 8yr old Cooper and his Dad on Lake Lefroy with his homemade rig on 4-6-16.

.be

geeze Sailquick, I hope I don't owe you royalties, I made one too when I was in about year 10.

I was given an old school timber skateboard that had slightly taller and wider trucks than I had seen before.
Dad welded lengths of threaded bar onto the trucks, and I bought a length of hardwood from the local timberyard for the deck.
RipCurl in torquay had a new sail made for shop display or something, which was constructed from Blue tarp material, and sold it to me for $40 bucks. A sidchrome unijoint from the toolkit was donated to the project, and a length of aluminium tube brought the costs up to about $100. Some hot pink paint from the shed, sprinkled with sand, and a homemade footstrap, and plastic wheels from Magnet or Mckewans and she was ready to rock.

I hadn't seen a '" professional'' board at that stage, and ended up putting the mast fitting infront of the front axle, mainly because my bargain sail had a foot around 3km long and I had no idea.
It stayed rigged up most of the time, and went pretty well at the local footy oval due to crap groundskeeping and the drought.As soon as it got powered up though, the back end would go alarmingly light, and you ended up powering down the whole length of the oval, drift style.

Probably explains why I could never really windsurf properly.