Reading the excellent Sandyachting by Andy Parr, I've Always been intrigued by Peter Shelton's crabber.
The main feature of this yacht - pretty popular in the first Sixties, together with the tripod, both designed for smooth airfield runways - was the sail/boom and the chassis were linked together. There was no sheet, so to the only way to adjust the angle of the yacht to the wind was playing with steering. Indeed, all the 3 wheels were independent, the 2 front wheels hand operated by tillers and the rear one by a foot pedal. Not an easy job, I guess.
Some years ago I wrote to Ian Dibdin, who sailed some of these yachts in their days. Ian was as usual very kind, replying with a letter full of information (and, unfortunately, full of phrasal verbs that are not so friendly to me if we're talking about mechanics...) By the way, his last suggestion was to build an RC Crabber, so I'm going for it. You can find full articles at
ruotenelvento.wordpress.com/ Ciao - Enrico
