Streetsailing Black Rock

streetsailing · Joined: 10 Apr 2000 Posts: 245 Location: San Francisco

Just had to share this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3SahxO04cw
Shout out if you want to go this year.

TheItalianJobber · Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 121

...very cool!

tramontana00 · Joined: 15 Feb 2010 Posts: 204

You have extra kit for me to give it a go?

streetsailing · Joined: 10 Apr 2000 Posts: 245 Location: San Francisco

loopless · Joined: 30 Jun 1997 Posts: 426

All you need for the experience is an old long-board skateboard. Drill a hole in the board for the mast base and find an empty parking lot. Be prepared as you can get going scary fast in 10 mph with a 4.7. Helmet and body protection not optional.

DelCarpenter · Joined: 06 Nov 2008 Posts: 499 Location: Cedar Falls, IA

Anyone who tries the longboard skateboard route should know a board with big wheels such as a Streetsailor is vastly superior. Skateboard wheels can get stopped suddenly at low speeds by a 10 mm pebble or crack or bump that a Streetsailor would just roll over. Even mountain boards with 5" to 8" diameter tires are much better than longboard skateboards.

Parking lot sailing is a joy. The lots are often lighted at night. Doing continuous jibes in a 200' x 200' space is pretty easy to learn.

I wear elbow pads, knee pads, bulky clothing and a motorcycle helmet.

I'd love to do Black Rock sometime or any place else with really long fetches, the best I have locally is about 500' x 500'.

isobars · Joined: 12 Dec 1999 Posts: 20935

We used land sailors with 13" bicycle tires on grassy public parks, big corporate and university lawns, and large (tens of acres to miles) newly bulldozed housing developments, all hilly or flat as we wished, in the city, the 'burbs, and the boondocks. Just like windsurfing decades ago, ya just DID it, without ever being even asked, let alone ordered, to leave.

Our local injury rate made us quit, and that excellent production land sailor halted U.S. distribution because of our suit-happy legal environment.

Be careful out there, wear full MX gear, and expect injuries anyway.

streetsailing · Joined: 10 Apr 2000 Posts: 245 Location: San Francisco

It's nice to see that Streetsailing is being discovered again and again. Seems like it's been around for a long time.
Doing it on the playa of the desert is amazing. You can just go on forever. I did a 10 mile round trip for breakfast. Can't wait to do it again.
I remember my first time doing it. Landlocked in Southern Louisiana at LSU. It was my first year of trying to windsurf but there wasn't much wind and the lakes were to far away. I foundd a cheap skateboard. Nash was the brand. Took my old stock Windsurfer sail and just went for it in the LSU tiger stadium parking lot. That was 1987. The local paper got a photo of it and published it on the LSU paper. The rest is history.