Hi,

Can anyone advise me of the best setup for a landboard for windsurfing?
I tried Matt's board at Moorabin DFO carpark in 2008 and was a heap of fun!.

Ive done some research and now understand that mountainboards can be slow on grass/sand and need at least 15knots. So ive been steered toward a skateboard setup with rollerblade wheels, and the mast base attached just in-front of the wheels.

I think i need 180mm skateboard trucks @ about $50 (is this ok?)

What board dimensions are best? Make or buy Sector 9 board? Id like to keep the price down too.

There was a post on Seabreeze last year for how to make one...anyone know the link?

Cheers Simon

How about here?
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=46763&SearchTerms=landboard

Or you can do a search youself with the "search" function a the top of the screen, just under the main menu bar. See it? It's written in english with blue ink. ( isn't science just wonderful? )

{edit} Hey! What's this?? That's the last time I make a helpfull suggestion! I just noticed some miserable pillock has red thumbed my helpful advice.
Who did that??
I want names!!! [}:)]
Oh well, I spose it could be from someone who just accidentally clicked the wrong flag. Yeah,.. that'll be it. ok then,..

I have "made" a few skateboards not for this purpose but from cruising through the city from uni to the traino and back (longboard style)

So far I have learnt;

big wheels = smoother ride and less stoppage on bumps and cracks. I now use 90mm 'Abec 11 flywheels' and can cruise over everything, whereas on the wheels that can with the first sector 9, a bottle cap would stop the board dead.

drop decks are super stable, easier to skoot and have more of a surfy feel. raised decks are easier to make.

spending heaps on bearings is a waste of time, the abec rating is meant for smooth machinery conditions and once you go bumping over rough ground you turn your abec 7's into abec 3's anyway. Titanium on the other hand is da bomb if you dont like rust.

Probably try to put the mast deck directly over the front trucks so it does not hinder turning. you could go infront but risk 'nosediving; the board.

you would want quite a long deck too so you can place your feet back a bit.

flexible deck are really comfy but fo your purpose a stiff single or double concave pintail longboard would be the best. super wide trucks and the biggest wheels you can get clearance with.

I have actually bought $20 kmark skateys and cut them up to fit my wheels under without fouling and am yet to snap one so if you pick up a cheap deck (urban skater?) I would not be afraid of cutting it up a bit.

rollerblade wheels might not grip enough.

have you found those skateys with the 4 massive inflatable rubber castor wheels meant for practising spoacks etc?

an old water ski ,three wheels ,set skateboard trucks ,bit of tinkering and your in buisiness.the single front wheel doesnt like soft stuff.mast base pressure means you need back foot in strap start.two front wheels mouch easier.

I made one of these back in the mid eighties, they scream in 5 knots in a beachside carpark, great way to practice gybes as they are soooo easy to do.

Any bit of timber works but I found marine ply around 20mm has enough flex to soften the ride yet still be stiff and strong. Board outline is whatever looks good to you. A mate of mine was a french polisher and made his stunning board out of some you-beaut exotic timber with a teak finish, gorgeous. It looked so good you could hang it on a wall. Deck grip from a skate shop, I used left over boom grip strips.

Use the widest trucks you can find and the widest skatey wheels for good turning grip (cheap complete boards from BigW will do as donor parts). I added risers between the deck and the trucks which gave some wheel clearance, in addition i had cutouts just above the wheels. These things can lean over quite a bit in tight turns especially when you set-up a slalom course.

Length is approximately 1 metre max, too short (skateboard size) and the thing goes into death wobbles at speed. Width same as today's skateboards and nothing wider, look at longboard skateboards for inspiration, pintail designs look great. It helps to tighten up the trucks pivot rubber too, you don't want it to turn as easy as a skateboard as I found was too loose and caused the wobbles.

I reckon a big Rip Stick would be a hoot.

Have fun!

I would use skateboard trucks but not the wheels, they are too small and a little bump or rock will cause u paaaaiinnnnnn

Have a look at my post in the thread that pweedas posted.

www.seabreeze.com.au/Forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=38787
this was last years pet project. learnt t handle a windsurfing rig from all this, so th boards did work
www.seabreeze.com.au/Forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=39065
a few other versions here

I've got one of these and from what i can remember its 1.2m long, but i made it when i was about 13 so i can't remember. I sailed it around the street in gusty 0-25ish winds and the accelaration is insane. I use standard skateboard wheels and trucks off my old skateboard, so it roars once it gets moving. I love it when your on a beam reach parked in the gutter then a nice puff comes along, hits your old 5.7 sail from the late 80's or early 90's, then you get luanched out of the gutter, then you lean in and back and turn down the street, then carve from gutter to gutter until the big house 4 doors down takes all the wind. It's like revving a car up then taking your foot off the brake.
Anyway we use the same mast for normal sailing and my little brother was down at point henry the other day mucking around close to shore with his 3.7 and managed to snap the universal joint, and they don't make them anymore so i'm kinda between windsurfers at the moment, but as homer simpson says, crisistunity (crisis+oppourtunity for better windsurfer)

Here is my landsailor, made it myself using a peice of marine ply, I added an extra peice of wood underneath down the middle to give it extra strength as without it, the board still bowed in the middle when standing on it. I used some old trucks that I bought from someone, and purchased the golf buggy wheels for like $5 each at a trash and treasure market. I have stuck some really course strips of sand paper on it for grip and used an old tyronsea mast base. It works really good on grass and sand (like sandy point!) and once on the roll keeps going easily. Its 1.6m long by ~30cm wide.

we made 4 boards last year and found that if you were after more speed you needed to reduce the steering ability of the rear wheels to almost nothing. we ended up wth 1.6m boards as well.
also keep the board as low as possible.
now youve made me want to gt mine out to play with

Yep rear trucks have -ve castor, front trucks have +castor.

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landyacht said...

we made 4 boards last year and found that if you were after more speed you needed to reduce the steering ability of the rear wheels to almost nothing. we ended up wth 1.6m boards as well.
also keep the board as low as possible.
now youve made me want to gt mine out to play with

I found that 1.6 was just right for me, as I stand right near the back of the board when the power comes on. Like you said, I have tightned my trucks too, to avoid the speed wobbles once it really gets going...

Probably not much help , but heres a vid of me on mine ( its the same as grumps' board )

Bit of sailing at the end too!

Closing scene - you're mental! Remind me to make sure I'm sailing something waaaay faster than you if we're on the water together!

haha it was not sposed to go like that, he was sposed to fall harmlessly backwards but he saw me coming!

He laughed about it straight away.

Good times caught on cam i guess.

How do you think this will go in carparks with some bigger wheels fitted?
The mast base may need drilling and tapping into the front trucks through the board.

love the vid lol at your mate... thats a bit savage! ha. Where were you sailing there? its shallow as!

I think i want one of those land sailor doobers... Many places to use them in WA? I'ma b out to mmove there... Was thinking of sailing across the nullabor plain on my way over and having the girl drive the car :)

Hi everybody, this weekend i made a trimaran influenced landyacht, but due to the amout of sail i put on it it was part windsurfer, because i had to help hold the sail up until i put a little backstay on it, and it used a windsurfing rig, solid tube instead of a universal joint(which later snapped), 5.7m windsurfing sail from the 80's and a 1979/80 8ish sqm cherub spinnaker. Me and my friend got towed around the street on it in under 8 knots of breeze and at one stage we had a crowd of 6 people watching us and taking photos and a guy in a car stopped to tell us that was bloody awsome. I'm thinking about building an alluminium normal landyacht next weekend with 22sqm of sail i can talk my perents into it!

how do you steer that one? you cant tilt the boards can you?

have fun with the next one. with 8m2 on a 100kg landyacht I carry 2 adult pasengers!

Hey sbir555. If you liked the skater you saw on Mavericks Vid I have 1 for sale. We made 6 of them a few years ago and my son has the original, but he has now joined the army and I'm selling the gear he left behind. I also have 1 frame/truck set up that the powder coaters messed up a bit if ur interested. E-mail me on seabreez 4 info if u like. They're great fun!

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Alfredo said...

how do you steer that one? you cant tilt the boards can you?

It does carve, just really slowly with great effort. If its still windy tommorow i might set it up and try and sail it down the street...

the problem with the hole land boarding thing is the ground is alot harder than water

and yet the main injury I keep sustaining is tripping on the rear of the board as I come off. always the ankle injuryyet to do the bad salt graze, havent done one of those for 25years

I just tried the trimaran landyacht in about 0-35 knots of breeze using just a 9sqm yacht spinnaker attached to the windsurfer mast and it didn't seem to work too well. I had one run across the street (i live in a pretty quiet court) then the breeze howled in, and the mast went over the front. Then instead of building the alluminium one i made a very crude but extremly fun one just then, by tying the spinakker to my bikeboard, which is like a scooter but with skatebaord back wheels so it carves well. Awsome fun, and cheap rather then buying all that alluminium. Too bad it got dark coz i was just getting the hang of it too!

Something we have learned from building and riding windskaters is the two wheelers don't get speed wobbles as much as the four wheelers. On a four wheeler the deck of the board has to be below the height of the axles, same as a formular 1 car to reduce wobbles.
The two wheelers can be built with bigger wheels (mine has 20" bike wheels) so they get going easier when there is next to no wind and the bigger wheels are more comfortable off road
.

What about using the 2 wheeler in the sand? If you hit a soft patch do you go A over T?? I am real keen to build one but as it will be used on sand as well as grass and hard surfaces, I want to make sure I choose the right design.

And what was the final conclusion regarding steering issues with the 4 wheel versions? I have been through most of the threads and there are a lot of differing views.

I can tell you that mine (4 wheels) goes fine over any surface, you definately want rubber wheels if your planning on using it on the sand, and inflatable ones if using it on really soft sand.

But as Krisiz1 said, it will get the speed wobbles when you start to go really fast. For me thats not a problem as it goes fast enough for my liking before that happens anyway, any faster and it becomes scary! Steering it is no problem, I can adjust the stiffness of my trucks to make it harder/stiffer to turn, but also prevents the wobbles from kicking in sooner, or I can loosen them for really easy and tight turns. I like using mine to cruise around and do tricks rather than outright straight speed.

So it really depends on what you want from it? If you want to go really fast, make a 2 wheel one. If you want to practise gybes and do tricks then I'd go a 4 wheeler.

What price are u looking at for the 4 wheels and axle?

I picked up my wheels for $15 (for all 4) from a trash and treasure market ages ago. I bought the axels for about $40 (mine are bigger and stronger than your regular skate board ones)

I think if you look hard enough you could get the trucks and wheels for ~$50

I will probably buy pneumatic tyres - similar to wheel barrow wheels if I go the 4 wheel option but with bearings and can manufacture any sort of truck/axle I want as I have Mig, Tig, Oxy and Plasma cutter in shed.

While I want to be able to play around doing gybes etc, I do have a thing for speed so I would probably be looking at dropping the board in relation to the axles to try to eliminate some of the wobble issue.