Blokart
Wijk aan Zee, September 30, 2006
My wife and her colleagues had been arranging some outdoor activities for several times. Last year they did hot-air ballooning, kayaking in Biesbosch, and tandem jumping. After vacuum for quite a while, recently they planned for blokart carting activity. Always fond of speed, I joined the event enthusiastically.
The activity was located at the Wijk aan Zee, a nice beach village near Haarlem. We traveled from Eindhoven by car together with two friends who did the tandem jumping. We arrived at the nice village around noon, and directly went to SunSeaBar cafe, the event provider. Waiting for other participants, we ordered drink and lunch. Finally we were complete, 10 of us, and we got introduced to the blokart.
The blokart was more or less the same size as the normal go-cart, except this one only had three wheels, one at the front and two at the back, bike-style steering bar, and no engine but a high sail above the driver seat.
We got explanation about how to enter the seat, and obligation to use the seat belt and the helmet. After that we were explained about how to steer and at the same time handle the sail. The basic principal was to pull the lower sail rope to accelerate and release it to slow down.
Ready to sail...
Having a sufficient theoretical knowledge, we were told that we would 'sail' along an 8-shaped route on the beach and we should take the corners against the wind direction on safety purpose. We got 5 blokarts so two of us need to take turn. I did the first turn, and the first long line sailing went perfect until I took the corner. Releasing the sail, I had no speed at all after the corner! Well, it happened to all five of us. After the same situation after few rounds, the instructor told us to reverse the direction, so we took the corner along the wind direction. It went much much better, although I felt we had not enough wind.
After about 15 minutes we changed turn. The second batch had stronger wind, and my wife happily took the corners in what seemed to be quite high speed. When I got my second turn, the wind was quite strong. With more experience, I could handle the blokart better and did fast-in fast-out on the corners. At that round I found out the best part of the blokart, which was the corners taking. It was fun to tighten the sail on the long track until the corner and release it on time so it would flap to get the wind force back and took you out from the corner fast. Another fun thing was to overtake on the corners and ensured that you would not hit the others.
Taking the corner
After changed turn one more time, we moved our track a bit because there were more people did the blokart. On that round we experienced the wind changed its direction, so we need to slightly release the sail on the long line instead of pulling hard. Luckily it gave stronger wind on the corners so we could take the corners in higher speed. Quite unfortunate for some of us, the wind was too strong and some blokarts were flipped over while turning. That made us understood the function of the seatbelt and the helmet.
Spending two hours for the blokart, we finished our event with some drinks back in the SunSeaBar. It was a fun experience.
My wife and her colleagues had been arranging some outdoor activities for several times. Last year they did hot-air ballooning, kayaking in Biesbosch, and tandem jumping. After vacuum for quite a while, recently they planned for blokart carting activity. Always fond of speed, I joined the event enthusiastically.
The activity was located at the Wijk aan Zee, a nice beach village near Haarlem. We traveled from Eindhoven by car together with two friends who did the tandem jumping. We arrived at the nice village around noon, and directly went to SunSeaBar cafe, the event provider. Waiting for other participants, we ordered drink and lunch. Finally we were complete, 10 of us, and we got introduced to the blokart.
The blokart was more or less the same size as the normal go-cart, except this one only had three wheels, one at the front and two at the back, bike-style steering bar, and no engine but a high sail above the driver seat.
We got explanation about how to enter the seat, and obligation to use the seat belt and the helmet. After that we were explained about how to steer and at the same time handle the sail. The basic principal was to pull the lower sail rope to accelerate and release it to slow down.
Ready to sail...Having a sufficient theoretical knowledge, we were told that we would 'sail' along an 8-shaped route on the beach and we should take the corners against the wind direction on safety purpose. We got 5 blokarts so two of us need to take turn. I did the first turn, and the first long line sailing went perfect until I took the corner. Releasing the sail, I had no speed at all after the corner! Well, it happened to all five of us. After the same situation after few rounds, the instructor told us to reverse the direction, so we took the corner along the wind direction. It went much much better, although I felt we had not enough wind.
After about 15 minutes we changed turn. The second batch had stronger wind, and my wife happily took the corners in what seemed to be quite high speed. When I got my second turn, the wind was quite strong. With more experience, I could handle the blokart better and did fast-in fast-out on the corners. At that round I found out the best part of the blokart, which was the corners taking. It was fun to tighten the sail on the long track until the corner and release it on time so it would flap to get the wind force back and took you out from the corner fast. Another fun thing was to overtake on the corners and ensured that you would not hit the others.
Taking the cornerAfter changed turn one more time, we moved our track a bit because there were more people did the blokart. On that round we experienced the wind changed its direction, so we need to slightly release the sail on the long line instead of pulling hard. Luckily it gave stronger wind on the corners so we could take the corners in higher speed. Quite unfortunate for some of us, the wind was too strong and some blokarts were flipped over while turning. That made us understood the function of the seatbelt and the helmet.
Spending two hours for the blokart, we finished our event with some drinks back in the SunSeaBar. It was a fun experience.
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