Sailing Car
December 14, 2010 at 8:52 pm | Boat Building Projects,
The Sailing Car is a lot of fun if you can find a flat place to run it (the harder the surface the faster). The full-battened rig runs loose since the side-stays are connected to the ‘sprung’ axle arms. At Carlson Design in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
We built the car in an afternoon of 1″ by 2″ by 1/16″ mild steel rectangular tubing and a little MIG welding. The rear axle arms come off to fit in a pickup bed, originally sprung from springs hung from the back of the seat. After stretching lots of springs, we changed this to a compressed 2″ stack of natural rubber, which also helped keep the rig tighter. We added also one spreader facing forward to strengthen the forestay. The sheeting tension and rig tension gets pretty high when you go fast.
