Bolton-Le-Sands - failed attempt

Well, what can I say. I attempted to join the lads from RaceKites.com at Bolton-Le-Sands for a weekend of kite buggy action but the beach was a complete lake. The rain was just sitting on top of the hard bit of beach we'd usually use and it looked like it wasn't going to dry out within the space of a couple of hours. So, I didn't even get out of the car and headed straight back.

I dropped by Pilling and Knott End to see if there was a remote chance of some action down there but they were unusable too.

I didn't even try Ainsdale as I know you need to have some kind of special license and you have to sign forms days before hand before you're allowed on the beach. It's a bit OTT in my opinion and they really need some kind of quick process / day pass thing sorting out.

I even chanced my arm down at Pontefract but I was greeted with a heavy shower and the sky never cleared up.

All in all, it was an expensive waste of time at 240 miles round trip and it didn't help with lots of people saying "I told you so".

My next opportunity for kiting will be in a couple of weeks.

It's been a while

I was just re-visiting my blog and I didn't realise it was last year when I last posted!

Still, a lots happened since then and I don't as much time as I used to and everytime I turn up anywhere the wind seems to disappear.

Still, I've made a few visits to Pontefract over the winter and I dabbled in the water at Fraisthorpe last week *but* true to form the promised wind didn't appear so it was a bit of a wash-out again.

I'm determined to get out onto the water and get up and kitesurfing as soon as possible. I'm just waiting for that magic combination of high winds and good tides to kick it all off.

Talacre or Bust

On the 22nd Feb a few of us co-ordinated a trip to Talacre (North Wales) for a good days buggy action. By the time we got there only 5 of us turned up but we still looked set for a decent day.

The winds hard turned direction to cross beach so we had to walk quite a long way south around the headland in order to be able to get some long-ish runs in but the best we could get was cross-onshore winds making for diagonal runs. I think it took us about 20mins over dragging the buggies and kit before we set up camp.

The beach itself was variable softness with long banks of wet, hard, soft and super soft banks to work your way around or through. It made for  some quite technical riding if you wanted to stay dry/safe/both.

We ventured off in the buggy south around the headland for quite a distance and then made downwind runs back. Again, the downwind runs were quite hard as it was easy to over-take the kite. Keep them high and moving to keep them powered up.

…or bust.

I ventured back to our camp and decided I was getting hungry but I’d left my sarnies in the car so cue a long walk back to the car park.

Just as I was walking back a paramedic turned up and he jumped out of his car fully loaded with kit. I walked with him up to the beach and chatted, weirdly I asked him if he was looking for the kite lads but he said someone had fallen off the lighthouse and he was here to attend them. I felt relieved and I walked with him to the lighthouse before I trudged off.

As I got closer to the camp I could see a crowd of people nearby, which I thought was strange as we were setup quite a long way from anywhere.

I got closer and I could see something on the floor and the people were waving at me. I realised what was happening so I turned around and headed back towards the paramedic who was now looking lost as he hadn’t found the mythical person who’d fallen off the lighthouse.

I managed to get his attention and we walked towards each other and I told him it looked like something was wrong further round, and it was.

He was totally loaded down with kit and refused to let me carry some to share the burdon so I sped up to dump my stuff and help out where I could.

I reached the site to see Chris was decked out with his ankle at 90degs to where it should be. Ewww. There was a handful of people there too and the woman was squeezing Chris’ hand to keep him comfortable.

After lots of to-ing and fro-ing the paramedic eventually made it to the site and proceeded to radio in the details of the injury as he said we’d need the air ambulance to get him off the beach.

A few minutes later the lifeguard turned up along with a 2nd unit and they proceeded to find a decent landing place for the pending helicopter. We helped them find the hard sand as we’d been riding on it most of the morning.

After what seemed like a lifetime the helicopter turned up and the lifeguard set a flare on the beach so they could see the wind direction & strength. It was pretty cool really. :)

By this time the paramedic had prepped Chris’ leg and he was now fully morphined up.

We all helped to get Chris into the air ambulance and he was taken to a nearby hospital for care. His fried Karl broke the news to his missus and we were left to get together all of the kit and get it back to the cars.

Sadly, Chris missed most of this as he was doped up on morphine but he’s since seen the pics & vids. :)

It actually turned out pretty exciting for what started out to be quite a dull proposition and the wind disappeared shortly afterwards so we kind of wimped out at the end of the day.

UPDATE: Since then, Chris has made a full recovery from broken tibs & fibs and he’s back out kiting with the rest of us.

Bought – Flexifoil 10.5m Ion III (3)

I recently bought a used Ion3 with the intention of plugging the gap between the 9m Atom and the 12m Atom. The main problem I have is that the 12m Atom is quite a heavy & slow kite so the bottom end of the wind-range is deceptively high. This means it rarely sees the light of day.

I’m also hoping that the Ion re-launches a damned site easier than either of the Atoms do. They’re particularly bad and I’d even go as far as to say dangerous on water as they’re a complete pig to re-launch on water.

In an ideal world, the 10.5m would be a single kite quiver but I can’t see that happening. It may languish in mid-table obscurity but time will tell.