While some of us may be cursing the springtime winds as they ruin a picnic or a good hair day, one couple in Kingman jumps for joy when the winds pick up. They use the power of the wind to send them on a thrill ride called land sailing.
"It's very addictive. Wait till you get in one of these," said Scott Young, referring to his land sailor from manufacturer Blokart.
Red Lake north of Kingman may be dry, but that doesn't stop Scott and his wife Patty from sailing it.
"We probably sail fifty times a year out here," Scott said.
"If the wind is blowing, then it's pretty instant. You just turn it in the right direction and it just takes off," said Patty.
The couple moved to Kingman from California 11 years ago. "We used to sail out of Long Beach and we'd sail catamarans," said Patty.
Lacking water in Arizona, they thought their sailing days were over, until they found the dry and flat Red Lake, 20 minutes from their house.
"I looked at this and I said, 'This is perfect. Hey! Land sailing! We can land sail on this thing!'" recalled Scott. "So, that night I got on the phone and called the Blokart rep on the phone and I bought two Blokarts that night."
They set sail and have been doing it ever since.
They key to speed, they say, is in the angles. Forty-five degrees off the line of the wind will get you flying.
"I held the Blokart speed record here at Red Lake for about four years, 62.2 miles an hour," said Scott. "That was a world record."
But Patty won't let it go to his head. "Certain winds and certain conditions I can beat him," she said.
The season for land sailing is coming to an end in Kingman as temperatures will get too hot. Though Patty and Scott may be hanging their sails up for a few months, when things cool of in the fall they'll be gone with the wind.
"I'll do it until the day I die," said Scott.
With Red Lake so close, surprisingly, Patty and Scott say they're the only ones in the Kingman area who land sail. They're hoping to get more people from the area into the sport so they can race.
