Cleethorpes

Forecast
The weather forecast for today was looking pretty bad from the outset with easterly winds for the whole of the UK coupled with rain.

It was looking good for Ainsdale but I couldn't go as I don't have a permit and the person I need to get one from wasn't available.

This meant the only choice was the East coast with offshore winds, not ideal, definetly too dangerous for the water but definetly worth getting out for a good blast on the landboard to get some practice in.

Cleethorpes
I got to beach at about 11am to find it completely empty with the tide on the way out. The winds were pretty blustery so I cracked open the 9m Atom to cope with those top end gusts.

I got setup and I had a quick static fly to get things moving. Just before I jumped on the board the winds started to pick up even more ahead of a HUGE black cloud on the horizon that was moving pretty swiftely in my direction. The winds kept on rising so I decided to get the kite down before the weather came in. I brought the kite down to the edge of the window and it just wouldn't come down and it resulted in me pulling the 1st safety and letting the kite out fully on the leash but it was still bouncing around even though there was no power. It took quite a lot of wrestling but I got it down in the end.


Rain
The rain didn't half come down and I ended up sitting under the kite for 20mins while the wind howled around. One benefit of a bow kite is that you can hide under it if it rains. :)
It did feel quite 'British' to be sat on the beach in the pouring rain.

After the storm passed the wind disappeared completely for a while and then came back to a nice 15mph, although it was offshore. It was the usual gusty offshore wind.


Practise, practice, practice - land to water
I spent the rest of the day belting up & down Cleethorpes beach on the landboard practising powered transitions. I need to get the powered turns sorted so I can make better transitions if I ever get good enough on the water as I assume that a loss of power will make me sink!

I did have a few tumbles and ruined my knees on the hard sand and sharp shells. I've ripped my trousers through and got cuts on my legs. I definetly will be wearing my knee pads in future.

What I've learned - transitions
I think I've also sussed out a possible problem with my water starts as I have a tendancy to take the kite from the top of the window (12 o'clock) around the edge of the window, this enevitably ends up with the kite at the edge of the wind and therefore no power after an initial boost.

When moving right, I started moving the kite back to about 11 o'clock and then down through the center but much lower so when it moved through the 12 o'clock line it was much lower in the window and therefore more powerful.

This in itself took a bit of getting used to as there's much more power to hold down but it gets moving faster and the power stays on. :)

What I've learned - POWER!!!
I'm getting used to more power and I surprised myself by pretty much getting long runs, effectively unhooked, max permanent power, and just using the angle & direction of the board to control the power.

I also got some MASSIVE slides in on the runs and some HUGE power slides to stops. :) I left loads of sand trails along the beach and even had an audience at one point.

All in all, it was a good 4hr session. Bring it on! :)

Fraisthorpe

The promise

It promised to be the hottest day of 2008 so I checked www.xcweather.co.uk to see where the best coastal location was for some boarding.

The predicition was about perfect for Fraisthorpe - 20mph cross-on winds, mid-day high tide (15:45) and glorious sunshine to boot! What could be better?

So, I packed up all my kitesurf and landboard gear and headed out to see what I could find. I intended to get on the water as the conditions promised to be about as good as they were ever going to get.

Site surveyOn arrival, the tide was out and there wasn't anyone else on the beach so I had it all to myself. This was good in one way in that I had no-one to bother with on the board. However, it was very bad from a safety perspective as I would have no-one to help out if anything went wrong. For this reason I reluctantely decided to avoid kitesurfing and went for a landboard session.

12pm - land session

I had fun with the 9m Atom and the trampa whizzing up & down the beach and getting some power slide turns in throwing wet sand up everywhere. I had a few tumbles where my board hit soft sand and stayed where it was ejecting me across the sand. I stayed out for just over 2hrs before the tide started to edge it's way in and I wasn't sure how rapidly it would rise so I packed up and headed back to the car.

By this time a handful of kitesurf guys had turned up and were having a great time out on the water, typically with 12m Waroo and 1 guy had a 16m North Rebel. I vowed to get out on the water when the tide was heading back out so I hung around.

The wind meter was showing a healthy clean 23mph!

5pm - water sessionThe high water mark was incredibly high and left no beach to launch from so everyone came off and waited until it was usable, which turned out to be 5pm.I went north up the beach (downwind) away from the guys and got all of my kit setup and I guess it was 17:30 when I was ready to go; at which point one of the other kiters came inland where I was and shouted "someone's switched it off!" and I looked around to see everyones kites were down. The wind had dropped to 5mph if we were lucky. :(I had a mess around in the water with the board & kite and managed a few small runs but was largely under-powered and struggled. In the end I just had a mess around with some body dragging and static jumps for entertainment.I gave it another try at 19:30 when the wind picked up again but it was inconsistent and invariably disappeared as soon as I was ready in the water.All in all, it was a good day with excellent conditions in the morning and some failing weather in the afternoon. Very happy and raring to go again. :)

[new] waroo 14m

My new 14m Waroo arrived yesterday, pumped it up, checked it over, looks good.


I've got all the kit now: 14m Waroo, 9m Atom, O'Neill Evo wetsuit, Custom Kiteboard 146x40, impact vest, waistharness and oceanus reel leash.

kite surf lesson

Well, I'm back home after my first kitesurf lesson. First thing is that it's a changeable feast due to the varying weather conditions. My first day was cancelled due to zero wind, the second day was better but still not brilliant for wind. In hindsight it's obvious but you rarely get 2 consecutive days of good wind so it's therefore rare to get 2 adjacent days training.

The days wind


Start the day with a splash!
I've already got a relatively large amount of experience so I was keen to get in the water ASAP. The instructor bumped me up to day 2 status so I joined a guy who'd already done his 1st day.
The wind was 10mph at best, bang onshore and the tide was coming in so it wasn't ideal but it was enough for what we wanted to do.

We were suited up and headed up out with a couple of 9m Ozone Instinct Light kites.


We setup the kites on the beach and went through the safety systems, quickly got the kite in the air and wandered down to the water for some body dragging.





New Kite
I struggled for quite a while as I had to unlearn the characteristics of the kites I'm used to as I was too aggressive with the kite and it kept flying out of the window. The winds were light and my kites are faster on the turn. So, I spent most of my time water relaunching the kite. Relaunching is hard enough, relaunching when the kite is swallowed by waves and your being bounced around yourself is hard work. This in itself was frustrating but valuable lessons in how to water relaunch in various situations - the upshot was at all costs keep the kite flying!

Body Dragging
Once I'd got the kite sussed I quickly got into body dragging downwind, rapidly followed by a lesson in body dragging upwind. The upwind drag involved being a lot deeper in the water so I swallowed quite a bit of nasty sea water. Still, I got the principal pretty quickly and moved on.

The most tiring bit was repeatedly walking out into deep water with the kite - wind pulling me inshore, an incoming tide trying to push me into shore and a floatation vest preventing me from going anything deeper than chest height. All in all it took a lifetime to walk out, then about 10 seconds to body drag back in!

After a spot of lunch and some theory our instructor let us use his 13m Ozone Instict Sport to generate more power so we could get on the board.

On the board
This was the interesting bit and what I'd come for. Trying to fly the kite 1 handed, get your feet in the straps, get everything lined up avoiding spinning round+slipping feet+moving kite, dive the kite to get power (in light winds), weight over, plane away, keep the kite moving in low winds and battle with the waves was extremely challenging.



It took quite a lot of effort and a lot of trial & error but I eventually got up on the board for about 2m! This was an accomplishment after a solid day of working and it was good to do. I understand the prinicpal of what I should be doing and I think I'll get it with some practice.

We debriefed and it would have been easier to do if there had been more wind that would have meant I could focus on board skills rather than trying to do that *and* keep the kite in the air by moving it around a lot.

In the end, it was a great day and definetly worth going on the training course to progress a lot faster than I would have done on my own. Plus, most importantly, it was safer working with trained instructors and having the backup of lifeguards around.

Technorati Tags:kite, kitesurf, kiting, kites

Kite surfing

As I write I'm currently camping a little outside of Ainsdale waiting for the wind to pickup before I venture out for my first kite surfing lesson with West Coast Kitesurf School at Ainsdale.

My 2 day lesson was supposed to start today but it was post-poned due to a complete lack of wind, it was at best 10 mph. Never mind, at least there's always tommorrow where the wind forecast is a little better.

I'm hoping to at least come out of this with the basics of water specific skills nailed so I can venture out on my own with more confidence. I'm hoping my general kite, landboard & buggying skills will at least give me a head start.