Oldest videos of Land Yacht sailing

Wind propulsion on land is almost as old as the wheel © GSBM

We have a huge library of sailing-related video footage, and today we look back for footage of racing on dry land, from the 1910s to 70s. There was a lot more than you'd expect, so we've whittled it down to just the top ten.

Previously we looked at ice yachting, where the oldest video was from 1924. But looking at hot sunny beaches, rather than cold frozen lakes, gave us an even earlier start - the year 1918!

British Pathé are the champions for providing pre-war newsreels in the UK, and this is silent, yet amusing because of the gaff rigs in use.

We skip the twenties and move two decades ahead. In The Desert - Egypt, 1938 appears to show a deliberate capsize - via a wooden ramp for one wheel. (The Sahara crops up in this 1967 video too, where a crossing is attempted.)

Now in the forties, let's move to the other side of the Atlantic. Sand yachting mass race 1946 at Daytona Beach, Florida is an impressive event.

From 1954, this shows an attempt to build the Largest land yacht in Britain, and you will want to examine the spar construction closely.

Now we have colour footage - Land Yachting in the 1950s at Gransden Lodge and a tremendous variety of designs. Some show their age, and some look space age.

Into the early sixties now, and you'll have to sit through some beach scenes from St Peter-Ording, Germany until the land yachting scenes are shown (0m35s).

In the video from the British Open Sand Yacht Championships 1965 at Lytham St Anne's we see a "DN" on the sail for the first time. Up till now the only sail insignias have been "A" and "B".

European Sand Yacht Championships 1966 is in the same UK location. The DN is way more popular, one year on. (See more in a similar video from the same year, if you haven't had enough.)

Our last sixties video is the DN class in Lancashire, 1969.

Finally we have some silent footage from the seventies - Sand yachting in 1973 - but the location is unknown (we apologise again for the bias towards UK footage!).

What of the other countries?

Do you know the location of any other interesting videos from the analogue era prior to the year 2000? We would love to share these with other sailors. You can submit video links to us for immediate review.

Keep watching with:

• The very oldest sailing videos of all
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