The Ritual

The smell of neoprene mixes with the warm coffee I've just brewed. It's 8:30 and I'm driving up the Coastal Highway heading to Waikanae again. It's become a weekend tradition; wake up early on a Saturday or Sunday, load the car up with gear, get a quick breakfast and hit the road.

Kitesurfing has become a big part of my life. It's been just under a year since my first lesson. Since then, I've gone out 20+ times. Rain, shine, winter, summer so long as the wind's blowing, I head out. In the last 2 months I've really hit my stride. Confidence is up, I'm developing a style and some good endurance. I've gone from 2 to 3 kites, increasing the wind range I'm equipped to deal with to 12-40knots.

I even had my first crazy wind experience, heading out to tackle 30+knot winds. Every time I head out, I learn something new. There's always something to try and as I expand my set of locations, more times I can head out.

I won't always be have the flexibility so I might as well make the most of it while I can.

How to Start Kitesurfing.

A friend of mine recently asked me for my opinions on how to start kiting. I figured it might be good to have my thoughts on a website that's indexed by google so more people can get my opinion. Most of the stuff you'll find here is an accumulation of good information from the locals here so it may have some wellington specific content.

Ok, first off, find yourself an IKO certified instructor and get yourself signed up for the basic lessons. Usually it'll be 2 days worth, one using a trainer kite of some sort and one on the water.

I personally bought myself a trainer kite before the lessons so that I knew the basics of flying a foil kite. I bought a Peter Lynn land kite, but they have since put out an EXCELLENT trainer kite called the Impulse, it's what all the instructors here use.

http://www.peterlynnproducts.com/

Once you're comfortable flying a kite, get the lessons and find out what kind of kites are appropriate for your area. There are three types of kites, C-Kite, Bow Kite and Hybrid, with radically different characteristics.

C kites have more power but don't handle gusts very well, so it's easy to get in trouble with them. Bows have a wide variety of power so they are better for inconsistent conditions. Hybrids try to do both, though they tend to be more complicated than most.

I have a 14 sqm hybrid and a 10m bow, if i'd known better when I was starting I would have stuck to 1 type.

Boards are a lot easier to pick. Get a big one to start, as it'll be easier to get on the plane quickly and it's a more forgiving board. My first one was a 142cmx42cm board and I was up and running quicker than the other beginners that started with me. Your snowboarding skills will come in very handy, though I hope you like riding switch, because that's what you'll be doing 50% of the time ! :)

So now for costs. You need:

• 1 or 2 kites (most people start with 1 but it's frustrating because you have to wait for the "perfect" wind for that kite. having 2 different sizes lets you get out more often and get better faster) (make sure they come with lines!!)
• 1 board
• 1 seat harness
• 1 leash
• wetsuit (depending on temperature)
• safety gear (impact vest / helmet, optional but highly recommended. I ride with a vest but no helmet yet because I can't find one that fits)

Optional gear:

• Booties
• gloves
• trainer kite

In Kiwi dollars (currently around 0.75$ CDN to a kiwi dollar)

• I got both my kites for 1050$ each used, in good nick (with lines)
• my first board was 400$ (lost it) my second was 600$
• harness i bought new (don't trust used harnesses) 189
• leash was 40$
• wetsuit depends on local climate (i have 2, paid 250 for the summer one and 500 for the winter one)
• impact vest 189 new
• booties 70
• gloves 60
• trainer kite 200

And yes, Carly knows about all these expenses :)


So total expenses when I started was about 2000$ kiwi, but i started with 1 kite (it took me about 2 months before i got fed up and bought my second one) I'm now completely sorted and it's cost me closer to 3200 before the wetsuits that i use for all other watersports

Now, things I learned:

When you are just starting out, stick with the major brands, you'll have an easier time of it. Get one of the brands that's most popular in your region, likely there will be a good rep for that brand for maintenance issues.

If you're going to buy 2 kites, buy the same brand and if possible model. I have a lot of trouble still switching from one to the other because they fly completely differently

Boards are the least important piece of the puzzle when you are learning, pretty much any big one will do.

Buying used is good, but make sure you can look over the kites. if there's damage, make sure it's professionally repaired. If it's got a lot of damage (say more than 2 repairs requiring sowing, or 1 full length of kite repair) walk away.

be patient, practice flying the trainer, and listen to the other kiters at the beach. You'll very quickly figure out who to listen to and who's an idiot. When in doubt, either rig the smaller kite or tune your kite for LESS power, not more.

You're going to get in trouble, know your safeties. make sure you do a dry run or two of the safeties in good conditions before you need to use them when you're in trouble.

Wait for the right conditions. Too light or too strong for your kite will be frustrating. bow kites have a good range of conditions, but keep in mind that gusts can be as much as 15knots over the average)

The Kitemare.

Being in the Southern Hemisphere has it's perks but the close proximity to Antarctica isn't really one of them. You see New Zealand is about as close to it as you can get and Antarctica is a windy place that likes to share its breezes with us. So whenever wind coming from there (e.g. from the south) comes to Wellington, the temperature drops by 5-8 degrees, the wind picks up speed and generally makes it pretty unpleasant.

SO! What better weather to go kitesurfing in! To be quite honest, after 3 weeks of unnaturally calm weather, I had a jones on for some kiting, regardless of the conditions.

The conditions were looking good, at least as good as winter Southerlies get. Forecast was for approx. 20 knots of wind, bitter cold and some light rain. Throwing all my gear in the car (including new gloves, my booties a thick, full body wetsuit and my oh-so-sexy neoprene cap-with-ear-flaps) I headed out to pick up T and M and off we went for our first ever kite at Petone.

Petone's not a great beach it turns out. Despite having a nice football field to setup our kites, the beach itself is mostly shells (can cut a kite to shreds), there's tons of logs and other debris and a tree line about 10-15 meters up from the waterline.

The wind started off very light. In fact, we sat around debating if it was even worth rigging up. In the end, having the biggest kite (thus having the lowest wind requirements) I decided to rig and launch. Out on the water, with about 14knots of wind, I was having a good time of it. The water wasn't too cold (probably 10-12 deg) and the waves were reasonable.

Then Trouble started. The wind started building very quickly gusting strongly as it came over the hills. Within 15 minutes it went from 14 to 20-25 knots. Gusts were pulling kiters off the water.

I managed to get back to the beach, but once there things got worse. The wind was so strong that no matter what I did, I was getting dragged. Fighting a losing battle, I was pulled through (and over at times!) the debris, my kite getting snagged on an old stump. Dislodging it sent the kite in a mad kite loop (basically, the kite will start spinning rapidly, creating TONS of power) and quickly cleared the tree line.

I'd had enough, I pulled the safety on my kite, the bar flew out of my hands and the kite crashed down behind the trees, into, it turns out, a model railway layout. Luckily my friend T had seen it all happen and was rushing to grab the kite and make sure I was ok. I was uninjured, I had no idea about the kite, my lines were caught in trees. Suddenly, another kiter signaled to me that he was in trouble. Like me, he'd been tricked into rigging too big a kite and was about to replicate my experience. Unclipping from the safety line, I ran to his rescue while T dealth with my kite.

We got him landed more or less safely (I got some rope burns on my ankle from his lines) and we both headed to where my kite was to assess damage. Surprisingly, there's very very little. A few pinholes in the canopy (easily fixed) was all my big kite sustained.

It felt like i'd been fighting the kite for 20 minutes, but really it was more like 5. It's incredible, when you're in trouble, how much time slows down. At no point did I feel like I was out of control. I knew what to do, how to do it and what would happen when I did. I have my instructor, Kavae from ONU Kitboarding School to thank for that.

I learnt a couple of very important things however:

1. when in doubt, rig the smaller kite first. If you need more power, THEN go to the big kite.
   
2. Kitebuddies are your lifeline. At the end of the day, we all look out for each other and will do what it takes to be safe.

The day ended well, however. After deciding Petone wasn't for us, M and I raced up the coast so that I could get "back on the horse" as it were. We ended up at Raumati beach, which was STUNNING. Gorgeous sand, no obstacles for miles and lots of other kiters out on the water. A reasonable session later, any fears I had were erased and my love of this sport confirmed.

Chasing Wind

One of the problems with wind based sports (Wind surfing, kite surfing, sailing, paragliding, hang gliding, base jumping, pinwheel spinning) is that you're pretty much completely dependent and at the mercy of the mother nature.

This has been the source of some frustration over the course of the last week.

Last Saturday, I happily loaded all of my gear into T's car (T and I are at roughly the same level, along with another newb named M) drove the 75km (roughly an hour) to Waikanae, parked and looked.

The ocean was beautifully calm, not a spec of wind blowing to bother us. We were not happy. We waited for an hour, drove on the beach and, finally, headed back home.

Fast forward to Monday this week (two days ago). Again, I'm watching with eager anticipation the various meteorological websites, the webcams at the various clubs near the beach I go to... I've got my gear packed and ready to go..

I get a phone call about 3:00 from M asking if we should brave the drive during rush hour to get out to the beach. I hum and haw, try to rope T into it, finally decide that it's time to drive out.

Driving through "rush hour" traffic to get to the burbs was surprisingly not as bad as I had expected, a good omen!I pull up to the parking lot to see a car filled with kite gear! hazzah! .. wait. Why isn't that gear on the water.

The two guys standing next to my inform me of my plight. Dead calm. AGAIN! In fact, so calm that the ocean is actually glassy in places. Damnit. At least the two other guys there are nice, so we all decide to get out our trainer kites and practice our kite control. They've never played with a 3m land kite like I have, so we rig up and I let them have some flight time. They get a real kick out of being pulled around the beach with the little kite. The wind is probably 4-5 knots at this point (minimum to fly my big kite is about 12)

Overly optimistic because of the successful 3m kite, i decide to get changed and rig up. As I'm inflating my kite, M shows up, and, despite all common sense, starts inflating her kite as well.

Just as we've finished putting the lines on, the sky opens up and we're rained on. and with the rain comes the dead calm of a nice shower. A few pathetic attempts at getting first my kite then hers up and it's clear there's no way we're getting any big kite time tonight. Defeated, saddened, we pack up the now very wet and sandy kites, go for a dip in the surprisingly warm water and call it a night.

I'll get on the water soon! I'll have photos and videos! really! believe me!

A Quick Update: The Kite.

I've talked a lot about the kite of late, but realized I hadn't shown the actual kite. When I say a 14sqMeter kite, that's the total surface area of the wing. Given that it's just under 2meters wide, I'd guess the kite is about 8 meters long (as it tapers at both ends, that would make sense) That means it's bigger then most cars. In fact, in the photo below, you can see a small part of the car it manages to fully obscure.



Click on the photo for a larger view.

This is about the biggest kite you can fly in Wellington. Typically you go bigger for lighter winds and smaller kites are better for stronger winds. As I'm just a beginner, it makes sense to have a fairly large kite. My weight (just over 90kg right now) makes it possible to keep a slightly larger kite under control in stronger winds.

Kitesurfing?

View Larger Map

This is the beach I've been spending a lot of time on and will be spending a whole lot more time to come. You see, this beach has a few very important properties.

1. It's within an hour's drive to Wellington
2. It's got a long, shallow beach front and tides that extend the beach even further
3. It's on the West coast but is exposed from North all the way through West to South
4. It has steady, fairly strong winds.
   

All this combines to make it the best "beginners" beach in the region for all sorts of wind sport activities. In my particular case: Kite Surfing. I spoke of this wonderful activity recently... It's a relatively new sport which came about by the development of powerkites. Essentially, you get a big honkin' kite, a wake board and a harness, you attach them all to your body, find a good wind and go. It's more similar to wakeboarding / waterskiing then to any other form of wind based activity.



My particular experience so far has been pretty standard. I bought a small (3sq meter) kite to learn kite flying skills. I then signed up for two lessons. The first lesson was to go over the anatomy of a kite, its safety systems and to get comfortable with flying a kite attached to me. This involved a lot of getting dragged (intentionally) through the water by said kite, learning all about the dynamics of power. This was no problem for me, big kites and small work on the same principles.
The second lesson, we added a board to the equation. Now, I've tried to water ski before, not successfully, so I was a little nervous about this. We picked a day that was just at the very lower limit of wind speed, but I still managed to get up on the water multiple time, with a 12 second ride being the day's best. The main problem I was having wasn't getting up on the water, it was keeping from sinking once it slowed down :) My instructor assured me that with proper equipment (a properly sized kite, board and reasonable wind) I shouldn't have any problems given my comfort and skill.

Conveniently enough, he also had a properly sized kite he was looking to sell for a good price. Guess what came next?

So now I've got a 14sq meter kite (a 2008 Airush Vapor II) a board coming in the mail (Jimmy Lewis Model 3 145x42) a proper harness and of course my wetsuit I got for Christmas.

We (Wes, Carly and I) headed out to Waikanae yesterday for a short body dragging session so that I could get used to the larger kite.



Inflating the kite, attaching the lines and launching all went fairly well, with the help of a local instructor showing Carly what to do. The kite in the air was very docile. These kites have a TON of adjustable settings to work with the available wind, allowing you to power up or depower for appropriate wind conditions (and in my case skill levels!)

Once I was in the water, I just flew the kite, letting it pull me down the beach for a good couple of hundred meters.



Going the other direction was significantly harder because of the direction of the wind, and, though I managed a few times, overall it was quicker and easier to just walk the kite back.

We practiced landing, water relaunching (for when you screw up :P ) and generalized flying in all sorts of conditions. Because you're never in deep water (at most chest high) you're never in any real danger of losing control. At worse, your kite crashes and you do some damage. Now, that's not to say it's a completely safe sport, given its reputation as an "Extreme Sport" but learning the basics with an instructor gave me a definite head start.

So what was the net result? A much higher comfort level with my new kite, a sunburn on my head, a bruised up chest from where the harness contact points were and an incredible desire to head back there today, tomorrow and Sunday.

I think this could be the start of a wonderful relationship :)

Lets Go Fly A Kite...

I love wind sports. I've been sailing for years, Paul and I raced last summer in Laura's Tanzer 22. Buying a boat here however is currently not in the plans. I've also been looking for something a little more... adrenaline based. Two options have popped up. Windsurfing and Kite Surfing. Of the two, I've always been more interested in Kite Surfing... Seems like a much more dynamic way of riding the waves. Also, the gear's a lot easier to carry around.

I've been getting advice from my friend Nick in Canada who's been doing it for years and I decided recently to buy my own first kite. Following his advice, I bought a 4 line, 3 square meter land kite from Peter Lynn. The kite I bought was actually an end of line, called the Pepper II. It's been replaced by

Anyway, I managed to get a nice day (about 10-15 knots) and Carly had the day off, so we headed out to Berhampore Park to get a first flight in. Here's the results:



End result? I've got a sore back, shoulders, blisters on my feet and a giant grin on my face :)

The plan is to get good enough at flying this that I'd feel comfortable on the water. Kite surfing requires a kite 3 to 4 times the size of what I'm using, with proportionally more power as well. That's a lot of lift!