I know someone at the club was thinking of trying windsurfing on skateboard/mountain board a couple of years ago. I tried it in the 90’s with a skateboard and it worked well, but would wipe out now and then due to small wheels/and rocks on the parking lot.
Recently I found a used mountain board, and tried it again on hard packed beach in North Carolina (Sunset Beach). It worked amazingly well, and I found that instead windsurfing on the ocean with an 8m sail, it was way more fun to go on the beach with a 4.5 on the mountain board. It’s great practice for hand/sail coordination.
So the question is: Given that there was interest in this before, did anyone find a good place around Atlanta …an unused parking lot, relatively flat and somewhat open to the wind? (Ballpark with hard packed dirt would work well too.)
Marek
Marek,
Mountain boards are the best way to go - opens up more options for you.
I did a lot of landsailing several years ago. The biggest obsticle is finding a good location. I spent a lot of time driving around looking for suitable spots. There are hundreds of parking lots in the ATL area, but most are wind shadowed, not level, too small, etc. I never tried it but it seemed to me the very best spots were the parking lots at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Six Flags, Turner Field and the like.
The place I sailed the most was a Morgan Falls park, (used mainly for Little League Baseball). I haven't sailed there in a while. They planted some trees there which may now be a problem. I may try it one of these days, and report back.
The second best place I used was Roswell HS, which may still be ok, though they build a shopping center south of it. I also went to a number of ther places. There is a Mega Church in Alpharetta, but the name escapes me. It was probably the best place, and it was huge and pretty flat. Saturdays it seemed pretty vacant. There were some other big office parks I tried, though they usually had No Trespassing signs. I also used Northsprings HS, though the lot was not very good. There was an interesting lot over at Southern Poly, but the pavement was literally falling apart, so don't know what shape its in now. I also used a big parking lot at Kennesaw State, which is now filled with student housing.
A sort of crazy alternative is to get a rather small sail (I used a 3.0) and try parking lots with too much slope for landsailing. You don't need wind at all - the sail gives you something to hold onto, and the slope provides the energy. You can control the speed with the sail (its basically an "air brake.") You can do jibes, etc at the end of your run.
I always used wrist guards, knee and elbow pads, and a helmut.
One more solution is to try "Stand Up Paddle" landboarding......
http://www.kahunacreations.com/bigstick
Finally, I never tried it but I heard that "Dog Boarding" was cool. I heard 3 or 4 pittbulls can pull a guy on a board really well.
Heck, they do it in Alaska in the snow. Using some dogs on a parking lot shouldn't be too bad....
Let me know if you find any good places. I would think big car dealerships that have gone out of business would be worth a look, Mega Churches, and school parking lots.
What happens in a black hole stays in a black hole.