Kite Surfing

My board arrived on Thursday, thanks Marty and Jas, and today was the first time I've had the opportunity to give it a run. Head down to one of the local beaches, set up the kite in 15 to 18 knots, head out to the water and it promptly drops to 9 to 12 knots

Ah well, as I found it was good to practice just getting up on the board and some short runs, it's not as easy as all the other kitesurfers make it look

Heading out:

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Getting up:

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The dreaded poo stance, here's me thinking I'm looking good till jess shows me the pictures

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Looking a bit better, but blurry, lets pretend it's cos I'm travelling so fast

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It does feel amazing when the board starts planing, even if it is only for a short time before I sink again

Practicing my submarine kiting:

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Crashed the kite twice, managed to water relaunch once, could have been worse:

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All in all a fun day, and I can't wait to have a bit more wind.

Kind regards

Ant

Hi Ant,

A little tip, keep your shoulders behind the rail of the board, not on top. So that way you're leaning back more, which means you're locking your edge in better. You will be grinning ear to ear once you start throwing jumps out on the water.

Regards,

.Joel

looking good mate !!!

sweet. its good to be splashing around in the water in summer.
try not to worry about crashing the kit to much as yourl be doing alot of it in the coming months.

i was practising jumps on sunday.
did a mighty jump. maybe 15 foot or so. floated for ages... landed softly.... probelm was i'd left the board behind. doh.

i then proceeded to crash the kite get the bridle hooked up, have to self rescue and leave my board 100m out to sea. grrrrr....

lost my board. was frantickly re-rigging my kite to body drag back out and get my board. 20 mins later it washed up 80m down the beach... ahhhh

Good stuff Ant, brought a smile to my dial

Glad you're having fun with it Ant. Hey picture # 5, the submarine act, wasn't this after a massive boost and dropping straight back down without a redirect?

That's a nice spot you have there, if I show that to my wife that will give her another excuse for us to move to Tasi.

Norman

Thanks guys,

Hi Ant,

A little tip, keep your shoulders behind the rail of the board, not on top. So that way you're leaning back more, which means you're locking your edge in better.

.Joel

Will give it a go next session, thanks Joel.

sweet. its good to be splashing around in the water in summer.
try not to worry about crashing the kit to much as yourl be doing alot of it in the coming months.

i was practising jumps on sunday.
did a mighty jump. maybe 15 foot or so. floated for ages... landed softly.... probelm was i'd left the board behind. doh.

i then proceeded to crash the kite get the bridle hooked up, have to self rescue and leave my board 100m out to sea. grrrrr....

lost my board. was frantickly re-rigging my kite to body drag back out and get my board. 20 mins later it washed up 80m down the beach... ahhhh

I was doing a lot of board chasing myself, even in the light winds and no jumping I tell you what, I find the stuff in the water heaps more tiring than landboarding.

A couple of hours landboarding and I'm still fighting fit, two hours in the water flying one handed getting on the board, then again chasing it when I've lost it, and I'm starting to feel a bit knackered. I've actually just bought a bodyboard and have been having a bit of fun with that to try and build up my cardiovascular fitness and just to help me get a bit more confident in the waves.

Glad you're having fun with it Ant. Hey picture # 5, the submarine act, wasn't this after a massive boost and dropping straight back down without a redirect?

That's a nice spot you have there, if I show that to my wife that will give her another excuse for us to move to Tasi.

Norman

Yep, I'd just done my first Ruben Lenten style mega loop at least 90 feet in the air when the board fell off and landed way out to sea somewhere near New Zealand. Would you mind keeping an eye out for it Plummet

Back to reality, it was was actually when the waves started picking up near the end of the session, I was getting a bit knackered and kept drifting downwind into the breakers.

The only jump I did yesterday was when a crab bit me on the toe and i managed to almost clear the surface of the water from a standing start, no assistance from the kite necesary

Tassie is an awesome spot for kite surfing especially. Just to give you an idea, that beach is 20mins drive from Hobart and I had it completely to myself kitesurf wise except for another newbie who I called to meet me out there.

Kind regards

Ant

way out to sea somewhere near New Zealand. Would you mind keeping an eye out for it Plummet

Haven't they changed the name to 'Shebangabang" ??

when a crab bit me on the toe

You too????

Great stuff Ant! Looks like you're progressing well mate.
Thought we may have seen you giving it a go up Scammy on Sunday?
Hope you and Jess and the gang had a great time!
Cheers,
Dave

thats odd. amusingly i find kitesurfing less tiring than landkiting. All that sliding and direction changes is way harder on the body than leaning back and carslicing through the chop. i suppose i am man of 15 years of mountainbiking lungs..... i'm not even breathing hard either kitesurfing for landbaording. tho 6 hours of landboarding/kitesurfing in one day is pretty hard on the body.

when you get a 20 knot session yourl rap up onto the plane and think wow this is easy with more wind.

whoot off to auckland tomorrow and tee'd up a sneeky afternoon session at muriwai beach. 17 knots on/cross/on forecast.... oh yeah. therel be landboarding till the tide comes in then kitesurfing..... ya! summer is good.

Good stuff Ant

Seems really weird seeing picks of the kite in someone else's hands ... lol


That kite sure has done some K's in Australia .... and I haven't even told you about the time I lost it to the Sea



Marty

is that the one i got the bar of marty lol sorry ant and NO you cant have it !!

yup ... he got a Naish bar

Great stuff Ant! Looks like you're progressing well mate.
Thought we may have seen you giving it a go up Scammy on Sunday?
Hope you and Jess and the gang had a great time!
Cheers,
Dave

Ta mate, the black clan had a great time up at the kiters retreat, Liam was especially impressed with the giant Nemo
I didn't give it a go up Scammy cos the surf was REALLY messy, lots of rips everywhere. It would have very quickly become an exercise in frustration trying to recover the board i reckon

thats odd. amusingly i find kitesurfing less tiring than landkiting. All that sliding and direction changes is way harder on the body than leaning back and carslicing through the chop. i suppose i am man of 15 years of mountainbiking lungs..... i'm not even breathing hard either kitesurfing for landbaording. tho 6 hours of landboarding/kitesurfing in one day is pretty hard on the body.

15 years mountain boarding will do it, maybe I should dust off the old bike
It's probably also to do with the fact that the vast majority of my landboarding is in small grassy parks or ovals where I can only go 50 to 60 metres in one direction before having to change direction. Hence the move to kite surfing, where i have literally kilometers of water to play with

That kite sure has done some K's in Australia .... and I haven't even told you about the time I lost it to the Sea

Marty

Yeah, one of the first threads I read after I joined EK was when you lost your Sonic out to sea marty
As you got it back I took this to mean it's a lucky kite, but i don't plan on testing it the same way you did

is that the one i got the bar of marty lol sorry ant and NO you cant have it !!

you can keep it Wolfie, the Naish bar works great

Should be even better when I finish upgrading to the smart loop QR

Kind regards

Ant

Ant,

For the exercise, try 40 squats each day to strengthen up the thigh and knee muscles. Also try inline skating, this is what I do with my son Zachary, he rides on his push bike and I chase after him. I too find that the water action is more demanding that the landboarding, but it all depends on how hard you fly out on the water (ie park and ride ---- easy, or loop it --- big work out).

Norman

Well it's official, my skin is turning to scales and I can feel the beginning lumps under my skin of growing gill slits, I am becoming aquaman

Last night I had my first session of really good runs, 2 or 300metres in a row and even managing to get partially upwind
I could of kept going out further but I wasn't to keen to go further than I could comfortably swim back in if it went pear shaped. It wouldn't have been a problem as the wind and waves would have just pushed me back to shore but no need to tempt fate

OMG, I cannot describe with words how amazing it felt to actually get the board on top of the water and planing, downlooping the kite to get more speed and just slicing through the water with what felt like 0 resistance. It was only a little bit choppy but travelling over a moving surface after the years of land kiting was incredible, it sounds a bit weird but I felt so much more a part of the whole wind, kite, earth continuum on the water, I've never felt so ALIVE

I got partially upwind a couple of times, nowhere near as much as the rest of the crew on the water though, I pretty well ended up going straight back into the beach (the wind was cross on-shore) whereever I was but it was a start.

The funniest thing was after my first good run I tried to do a sliding turn a couple of 100 metres offshore, and loving the power I just whammed the kite across the window as hard as I could to try and get back upwind. Unfortunately I had slowed down too much, sunk a bit and got ripped straight out of the straps and flew 5 or 6 metres straight downwind fully powered up

One of the guys sailed past, grabbed my board for me and dropped it back downwind, I body dragged over to it and off I went again.

To top off a great session, we all went back to TKSA HQ for the Hobart premiere of a new kitesurfing movie Land of Lahara.

Kind regards

Ant

PS Don't worry Tassie land crew, I am gonna stay amphibious. I had an awesome session up at the taph earlier in the week boosting with the landboard and Outlaw, in the lighter winds the land still rocks. I have sore stomach muscles from a land boosting session earlier in the week, and a aching thighs from kitesurfing last night...I love summer

sounds great, Ant. Good stuff!

oh dear sound like another one lost to the dark side!


by the sound of things your landboarding spots aren't thats flash and kitesurfing spots are epic. i can still get a better buzz from land than water but thats not stopping me enjoying the hell out of the water.

today was a suprizing clean 18-20 knots cross,cross on. i say suprizing because the forcast called for 12 knots. some 2-4 foot waves so nothing too big. i was jumping around like a fool. more often than not making a dogs breakfast of the landing but who cares? its water doesn't hurt that much.

i did punch off a wave lip with the kite low aka wake stylee and dig the noze into the next lip and do an almighty face smack down to nuts squash. but still it was sweet.

oh dear sound like another one lost to the dark side!


by the sound of things your landboarding spots aren't thats flash and kitesurfing spots are epic. i can still get a better buzz from land than water but thats not stopping me enjoying the hell out of the water.

See that's what makes kiting on the water so great. You can push yourself harder without fear of breaking something serious. I throw myself into all sorts of random maneuvers each session and the worst i've ended up with was a concussion or two... wait what?

I throw myself into all sorts of random maneuvers each session and the worst i've ended up with was a concussion or two... wait what?

That just explains sooooo much