Windsurfing on Land

I've always kinda wanted to try "skatesailing", where you put a windsurfer on a big-wheeled skateboard. So when Windsurfing Magazine editor Josh Sampeiro said he was selling his "Turfdog" board for real cheap, I picked it up. It's kind of a weird design. The back wheels are on a regular axle, but the front wheels are on swivel-mounts like shopping-cart wheels, so you can slide the nose around in funny ways.

Since I couldn't drive to the beach today (my @#$%! car has something wrong with the electrical system AGAIN) I figured it would be a good time to try the turfdog with Scott, my neighbor / coworker / friend / windsurfing buddy. It had been windy, so we cautiously rigged an old 3.2 msq sail to start with. It looked cool, but barely moved us in the dying wind.




So next we rigged Scott's cambered 5.5 msq sail. By then we had attracted the attention of our neighbor John, a retired episcopalian priest. He helped out, I guess. Neither Scott nor I got seriously injured, so maybe he was praying for us.




Most of the time we were barely moving because of the light and swirly wind. Of course when a gust did come it could be kinda scary, what with the variety of solid objects to run into and our unfamiliarity with the board's handling. It's going to be a while before I get this thing dialed, but I can already tell it was a good investment. :)