Here are the things that I have learned as I’ve started kiteboarding. I’ve found that at several instances where something has gone click! and I’ve made a progression kiteboarding.

Early on

1. Taking a lesson is great! You learn alot about all the different stuff in kiteboarding including safety, how to set up and down, and flying hooked in and unhooked. That is just a starting point. What is even better is practising the things you learned in your lesson.

2. Sand is much harder than water! I found this out the hard way when I flew my 9m kite for the first and last time on a big sandy beach in gusty conditions. The kite hindenburged on me (lines went slack) and fell forward across the power zone and powered up and yanked me right off my feet. I did a face plant in the sand. Ouch! Fortunately, only my pride was hurt.

3. Do not fly your kite on the beach! Launch with your kite out towards the water and get it out over the water ASAP. This is not just a safety thing for you. It also protection for any beach goers nearby.

4. Pilots develop a checklist to go through before they take an airplane up. I know this because I am a private pilot. I found that I have developed something similar for kiteboarding. I have a sequence that I go through during setup, preparing to launch and just after launch.

5. If you want the kite to stay in a particular position when you are not riding, ensure that your back steering lines are tensioned. If you depower the kite too much, the kite will fly more to the edge of the wind window. What you are trying to do is balance depowering the kite, not getting dragged and absorbing gusts.

6. Absorb gusts or lulls by sheeting out or in. Sheeting out or in is moving the control bar away from your body or closer to your body. What it is doing is changing the angle the wind hits the kite.

Getting Up in the board

7. Relax your grip on the bar! It is not about brute strength flying a kite but a nice light touch. If you golf think of the same grip for a golf club - firm enough that your hands don’t slide around.

8. When you sine the kite for the initial power stroke, keep your arms at the same place. I found this to be one of the problems that prevented me from getting up on the board. I would sine the kite and reef in on the bar, get unhooked and crash the kite. It is easier to control the kite with your arms at the same place initially.

9. Keep your hands in the centre of the bar close to the chicken loop line not out on the ends. This gives you smoother control inputs. it also aids in hooking in quickly if necessary.

10. Anticipate the need to bring the kite back up after the first initial power stroke. What I mean is think of a letter S on its side and send the kite back up right away. The benefit of this is if your initial power stroke was not strong enough, the upward movement of the kite keeps you out of the water!

11. Head downwind at the beginning! Then as you start to go faster ie the board starts planing, you can turn upwind.

12. Be persistant. you will get it!

Flying the Kite

What can I say. This is so important. I think that 80% of kiteboarding is about how well you fly the kite. I noticed that when I went on the beach that I saw people that it seemed like the kite was at their spoken command. Rock solid where ever they parked it, almost no movement in gusts and no crashes. I remember one day there was a guy at our local spot and the wind was just not quite enough to go out on a 16m even on a surfboard. The guy was flying his kite close to the beach and he was totally in control of that kite. He kept in moving in the wind window and was doing some kite loops.

So what did I do? If I was taking a break between sessions, I would watch what people that were riding did with the bar and depower and at the same time see what the effect on the kite was. You can also ask people questions. Many kiters are more than happy to help.

That’s it for now. I will also do a part 2 on some other stuff.

Kiting the remnants of Ernesto at two locations in Toronto Canada - Ahsbridge’s Bay and Cherry beach.

Saturday September 2, 2006 - Kiting the Remnants of Ernesto!

Set the alarm for 0600 hrs on Saturday since the forecast was for the wind to get stronger and stronger during the day as the remnants of Ernesto came to Toronto Canada. Got up and had a look outside - no wind apparently blowing so I went back to bed for an hour. I should have checked the weather site I use. Turns out the winds had already picked up.

Asbridge’s Bay

Headed out about 0730 hrs and decided to go to Ahsbridge’s Bay. This is a large sand beach right in the middle of Toronto. Good in a NE wind although the waves can be big for Lake Ontario. When I got there, there was one guy on the water in 1.0 - 1.5m waves and another setting up. Took some video of the conditions. You can see it on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZN4FPp4K7o

Sept 19th - Here’s the full video… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuKbOIFy7eY

Folks were riding 9m kites and the wind meter indicated that the winds were 18 - 23 mph. I’m a beginner - started kiting in May 2006 so I pumped up my 9m. Got a launch from another person and started having fun! It was a challenge for me to get going upwind, which was required to get out past the shore break. I tried 4-5 times and was marginally successful but ended up walking back up the beach. Wiped out a couple of times and had to relaunch the kite a couple of times. Great thing was there were only 3 of us there at this time.

I walked up the beach the last time with the kite over the water and noticed that the flag near the beach was blowing about a 10 degrees different direction than before. Gusts were more frequent and stronger so I decided to land the kite and check out Cherry Beach. Cherry beach does not have as big of waves as Ashbridges. Good thing I came in because more guys were showing up and I would have just got in the way. This was excellent experience though and I’m looking forward to the next time I can ride in waves!

Cherry Beach

Drove over to Cherry beach (10 Mins) and there were 3 folks kiting there. Waves were small - less than 0.5m with the wind about the same as before 18-22 mph. This was the first time I had ridden at Cherry and one the experienced guys helped with the launch and explained what to look out for. Had lots of fun on my 9m C kite. Was able to stay upwind, avoid the windsurfers , and not get stuck in a lull that was hanging around out in the middle of the bay. This lull was really weird. All around it the wind was blowing very strong. Yet one guy got into the lull and couldn’t get out and had to self rescue. Came in after about 2 hours for a break and some lunch.

What happened for the rest of the day was quite interesting and as I always find when I kiteboard, I learned some things. The wind did some very wild things

- several times it increased with gusts well over 30 mph (not too suprising). I learned to watch the clouds - they can sometimes give an indication what will happen with the wind.

- Wind switched from the NE to almost due north which created a wind shadow on the beach that made it difficult to launch. I learned stay on the beach!

- the wind died out where one might think you could increase the size of your kite. None of us did that.

The net result of all this was that for me, I didn’t get out for another session. I wanted to be safe and kite another day. It ended up 4 others tried to kite the conditions. Two people on C kites (10.5m and 7m) and two on SLE kites (12 and 9m). Both the people on C kites had to come in - one didn’t make it out because he was getting dragged. He hit his safety. The two SLE kiters had trouble launching but once they got their kites in the air they were ripping on the far side of the bay. Note that this is not a plug for bows but merely an observation that they can handle gusts well. I ride C kites by choice for my own reasons.

Well that was my last session that I’ve had. A good one overall. Got to try bigger waves for Ontario at least, and had a good session on my 9m, and rode at two new spots. And thanks to the guys both at Cherry and Ashbridge’s that provided advice and helped out!

Mobettah

Just started kiteboarding in May 06. I will try to capture my progression!

Hi there. I started kiteboarding in May 06. What I will do it is share my experience in getting into this totally awesome, mind blowing sport!