Land Sailors Ride the Wind--on Wheels : Old Copter Pad at Mile Square Park Sees New Life as Home Port of High-Speed Sport

The abandoned helicopter landing pad at Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley was never meant to be home port for high-speed yachts that sail on three wheels.

But the old U.S. Navy site is the best--and only--spot around for speed-loving pilots to hoist sail on the masts of aluminum land boats that sometimes zoom at 50 m.p.h. down the concrete runway.

“We’ve tried to find a place closer to our home,” said Joan McCarthy, 41, of Torrance, as she sat in her lounge chair waiting for the wind to come up at the park so that she and her husband, Dan, 50, could land sail. “Besides this spot, all that’s left is the desert, and even then you never know if the wind will be up. Land sailors learn to wait a lot.”

But Harry Bourgeois, 66, of Costa Mesa, one of the dozen or so land sailors who came that day from as far away as the San Fernando Valley, said, “It’s more fun in the desert where you can get a long run going. Here,” he said, looking down the short runway, “when you just get going, you have to turn around.”

Breeding Ground

Dwight Pope, secretary of the Garden Grove-based Western Land Sailing Assn., one of seven groups in California that make up the North American Land Sailing Assn., said Orange County is the breeding ground for the sport because “the park is about the only open land available to us outside of the desert.”

He said some skippers of the land sailing boats, outfitted with colorful sails, bucket seats and safety belts, try to practice on big parking lots and shopping centers closer to their homes, “but that can be dangerous. It’s also trespassing.” The Fountain Valley park is fine for the smaller 7-foot craft, “but pilots of the really big and sophisticated land yachts have to take a weekend trip to the desert to do their racing,” said Nord Embroden, president of of the state association.

That’s why the sport never did take off like wind surfing or skateboarding, Embroden said. “Not many people know we even exist. Sometimes people driving in the desert will see us and wonder who and what we are, but that’s about it,” he said.

America’s Cup

Land sailors probably number only about 1,000 in the whole state, he said. This spring, some of them will travel to Ivanpah dry lake on the California-Nevada border in campers, trucks and trailers for the association’s biggest event, the America’s Cup of Land Sailing.

The April 2 race is expected to draw about 100 land boats, which will compete in five runs. The winner is the sailor with the largest accumulated score.

Some racers are outfitted with an airplane-like solid wing and Dacron sail and can attain speeds of 100 m.p.h., making them the fastest vehicle on land without a motor.

“Some of the land yachts made from Fiberglas with enclosed bodies can cost as much as $10,000, because they’re all custom made,” Embroden said. The smaller ones cost about $600.

Windy Russell, 35, of the West Side Land Yacht Club in Marina del Rey, said “the low initial cost makes it one of the cheapest forms of sailing either on land or water since it doesn’t cost anything to operate.”

Although land sailing dates back hundreds of years--and is still popular in France, Germany and England--it first became known in Orange County in 1971 when the Anaheim Parks and Recreation Department bought 10 of the pint-sized boats for $170 each from Newport Beach frame builder Don Rypinski and ran a youth program using them on the Anaheim Stadium parking lot.

“I still have four or five of them lying around,” Rypinski said. “The sport never took hold because there weren’t enough areas to go land sailing.”

Boats Sold

Until about three years ago, wind sailors cruised around Anaheim stadium, which billed the activity as the only city-sponsored wind sailing program in the United States. The boats have since been sold.

Land sailing in the desert is “the most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life,” said Charles O’Leary of Marina del Rey, who often gets in some practice runs at Mile Square Park. “You get this exhilarating feeling when your yacht starts to accelerate and all you hear is the sound of the wind slipping by.”