Ready for a new adventure? Try sand sailing in Belgium

The wind catches my sail and the buggy trundles forward, reluctantly at first, before picking up speed. The crackle of old clam shells under my wheels grows increasingly insistent as I hurtle along, my head centimetres above the beach.

Belgium’s coast may not be long, but it’s made up of one fine, wide, nearly unbroken stretch of sand, as I spotted yesterday on a walk from Westerpunt through the dunes, with their cuckoo calls and maze of caterpillar webs.

It was from this vantage point that I saw sand yachts being launched on to De Panne beach like spaceships, the sleek, three-wheeled craft speeding off along the wet sand. I stood transfixed — suddenly, what had been a pleasant walk felt too pedestrian.  

Luckily, sand yachting is one sport anyone can get good at quickly — unlike surfing, kitesurfing, windsurfing and many others. So, over a dinner of grey shrimp and dulse seaweed at Petit Comité restaurant, I got my phone out and planned a two-hour taster session with the Royal Sand Yachting Club.

The morning brought a darkly foreboding sky and plenty of wind. Once clad in the club’s waterproofs, 10 of us found our crafts already lined up — one per person — and received a brief instruction from our guide, Reint, on how to rig the sail. This, when fixed on to a buggy with a bucket seat over the rear axle and a crossbar foot control for steering, is all you need to make it go.

I say ‘all’, but at first when the wind proved fickle, we had to get out and push. But it wasn’t long before we were scooting along at speeds I’ve rarely experienced this close to the ground. Why the waterproofs? Because the innocuous-looking rivulets and pools would drench us in a cold spray each time we crossed them.

By now, we’re getting proficient at the course Reint has set with the aid of a few cones, on a beach shared with horse-riders, runners, walkers and swimmers. Only Callie, a middle-aged woman from Wallonia, is struggling, so Reint squats on the outrigger Mad Max-style and manages her sail until she gets the hang of it.

The wind picks up and I’m told we reach 25mph, with the buggy tipping on to two wheels until we let the sail out. As the tide starts coming in, it’s fun to speed over the shallows at the water’s edge and skirt the waves, since we’re soaked anyway.

You can sail for three hours either side of low tide, when the wet sand is baked into a nice, firm base, and before the sea reclaims it. But our time is up, and — exhilarated by the experience — we head back to the warm showers at the clubhouse.

Over a fireside coffee there, Jan Leye, the club’s vice-president, explains how the sport began in the 1890s after children were observed rigging makeshift sails to their charrettes anglaises (carts) to transport their beach paraphernalia to the sea.

The sons of Albert Dumont, the architect who turned the isolated fishing village of De Panne into a stylish seaside resort, developed new prototypes every summer, staging the first race in 1909.

On a tour of De Panne’s Dumont quarter, you can see the town’s art nouveau architecture, often side by side with the modern glass-fronted blocks.

I dream of travelling Belgium’s entire 40-mile coast in a sand yacht, but that would’ve involved learning to tack and travel with the wind — we’ve only done the easy bit, with the wind side on — and the port of Zeebrugge would have got in the way. A simpler way would be to glide on the tram, with its dinging bells, that runs the length of the coast.

The Belgian shoreline has a genteel, family-friendly feel, with children pedalling cuistax — seven-person go-karts — along the wide promenades, and couples young and old wining and dining in upmarket restaurants and bars on the beach, under skies decorated with kites. And while Belgian towns can lack greenery, Zwin Nature Park — a former airstrip east of Knokke — has been turned into an ‘international airport for birds’. Storks’ nests sit like control towers, surveying the network of reedbeds, dykes and floodplains, with hides I can dive into to see the birds close up.

In Ostend, I take a bike along the city’s mural cycling route, a self-guided tour of some of the 100 or so murals often filling the entire blank end walls of buildings, mixing local history with contemporary street art. I end at Café Botteltje, which has a remarkable array of Belgian beers and jenevers (flavoured gins), plus delicious beer-flavoured pâtés and seafood.

Cycling along the waterfront after lunch, the sea air and beach take me back to sand yachting. Like riding a bike, it’s something I won’t forget.