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Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Land sailing: Nth Island champ seeks Blokart home

By Anendra Singh
Hawkes Bay Today·
12 Jun, 2015 06:11 PM4 mins to read

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John Marshall with the spoils of winning the North Island Championship super heavyweight class. PHOTO/Paul Taylor

John Marshall with the spoils of winning the North Island Championship super heavyweight class. PHOTO/Paul Taylor

ALL John Marshall wants is for a council to give his club "a piece of dirt" for some mind-blowing sailing.

"Napier, somewhere close to sea breezes, would be great," says Marshall, one of 20 members of the Hawke's Bay Blokart Club who engage in land sailing.

"We desperately need a venue to call home," says the Taradale High School deputy principal who won the North Island Championship super heavyweight (90kg-plus) title at the 1ha (100sq m) Manawatu club course a fortnight ago.

"To beat Wayne was quite something," says the 54-year-old of the Aucklander Wayne Osborne, who was the 2013 world champion in Ivanpah, Los Angeles, but had to settle for third at the Perth Worlds last year.

"I'd love to go to the world champs one day but I'll have to juggle it with work," says Marshall before Ivanpah, a dry lake bed, beckons before Easter weekend next year.

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It will be a far cry from the Hawke's Bay club's interim venues of the Tareha Park and Mitre 10 carparks in Napier on Sunday afternoons.

He thinks a slice of the windswept Landcorp farm next to the airport in Eskview will be fantastic.

"We've had an initial discussion so we're in need of another chat [with the council]."

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In his Manawatu victory, Marshall took advantage of light winds in the land of windmills to claim three firsts, just as many second places and a third.

"Manawatu didn't live up to its reputation so it suited me."

Other Bay land sailors included John Graham who finished fifth in the middleweight (70-80kg) grade; Tony Unsworth, seventh in the heavyweight (80-90kg) grade, and Neil Absalom, fourth in the lightweights (60-70).

Land yachts have been "around forever" but designer Paul Beckett, of Papamoa, revolutionised the machines in 1999. They are built in Tauranga and 14,000 of them are in use throughout the world.

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"Paul took the idea of land yacht and made something one can fold up and put into the boot of a car," explains Marshall of the birth of Blokart, which renders the use of trailers unnecessary.

A Napier Sailing Club member who enjoys taking his catamaran, Adrenalin Express, out to the Ahuriri waterfront, he sees the benefit in sailing land yachts in summer and winter.

"They are fast and exciting. It takes hours to rig and unrig a catamaran but I can be sailing a Blokart in under five minutes."

Marshall says "the excitement machine", which travels three-four times faster than the speed of wind, is easier to sail for a novice than a water-based vessel. He has clocked 75km/h at Ohakea Airbase near Waiouru.

Not for a second is he claiming the "environmentally friendly" land sailing will eclipse the aquatic sport. For purists it's akin to replacing cork tops in wine bottles with aluminium ones.

The best Blokart sailors have a history of plying the water but the appeal of the land-based one is undeniable.

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"I have never met anyone who had a turn on it [Blokart] and didn't love it."

Marshall juxtaposed the need for speed with what the catamaran sailors experienced on the foils during the America's Cup regatta in Emirates Team New Zealand's meltdown against Team Oracle off San Deigo in 2013.

Gender isn't a barrier, with men and women competing alongside each other.

Unlike cycling, there is no issue with drafting but it's not simply about following the leader.

It can become quite tactical, depending on wind shifts, when organisers mark the downward and upward set course.

Sailors, sitting or semi-lying on the pod-like Blokart machines, don helmets but Marshall reckons the sail is more likely to be scuffed when the mast hits the tar-seal surface after they capsize.

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"I have never lost a piece of skin. Maybe lost pride but never skin."

A basic machine will cost $1500-$2000.

Marshall bought his first one two years ago for $2000. The single-sail kart with a stainless steel structure is more versatile, ideal for racing at beaches.

"Like anything, it can become serious and you start buying carbon-fibre pieces and bigger sails," he says, revealing the cost can escalate to up to $5000.

People in their seventies enjoy land sailing but Marshall sees the potential for significant growth with exposure to youngsters.

"I'd love to see an interschool competition," he says, drooling at the prospect of getting out there yesterday in the 120-knot gusts but couldn't get out of his office.

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That is, once the code finds a home, of course.

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