Up here in Queensland, our favourite DF65 sailing venue gets drained during some winter months, so we thought we’d explore radio controlled Land Yachts.

As we already have DF65s, the idea of taking rigs off our sailing boats and dropping them into a land yacht seemed appealing.

Bob (known as ‘Beep Beep Bob’) came up with his original 3D printed version and is still developing it.

Later, I found an option on Instructables (see blog). This wonderful version was already designed to work with a DF65 B-rig. This design is much longer with the swept back wheels, so fails our rules and regulations. Straightening the wheels and with a few tweaks, this design was able to run most of the range of DF65 sails (C, B and A). The A+ can be used but you’d have to add an additional forestay swivel on the mast.

We found some original guidelines from the USA (See ircssa classes) regarding sizes etc but decided to come up with our own. Hey, this is our OZ Land Yacht concept, so who cares what has gone before.

We are still exploring the idea and developing more prototypes…..

Finding a place to race our yachts was the next problem, but a few netball courts provided the answer.

You do need a consistent wind to sail these craft and its very different from sailing on water. It’s fast and the main focus is keeping them upright, Great thing is, when the wind gets up you can change rigs!