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Hey everyone...its been a while since I've been on. Been a while since I had a kite in the air. But I did get out last week as we had warm temps and great south winds. Had a good day with my bud Brandon at Atlantic Beach, New York. Project_01-11_4K.mp4

Had to upload this photo. Tibbey's brother-in-law is a photographer and captured this excellent picture of the "Tamer" Here is "Blob Marley" and two of the white Trilobites. I think its a great photo.

Maasvlakte 01/2020

Obviously it's not the best kite to use in waves, still wants to go fast when it picks up speed and apparent wind. I'm using a twin tip 134cm I think and riding in good wind speed for that kite which is about 16-18 knots . And I'm not cutting back like 'proper' surfers do, just riding down the face of smallish waves, then racing along to catch another further along. You have to pump the kite sometimes whilst it's drifting and dip it quite hard once on the top off the wave, especially with my twin tip, to keep the momentum of speed and match the wave, but it's fun still. I have some great freeride sessions here at the bottom end of Kingy that's facing north. With an onshore and decent knots so the kite is powered up you can ride lots of waves in, switch and speed out popping insane jumps from the waves as you go out again. The control of this kite is insane, you can wash of the power so easily, it turns better than the Speed 3 Deluxe (never tried the IV). I've found my skill level with this kite has gone up, you can twitch it, pump it, and squeeze that little bit of extra performance out of it. I f---ing love, love this kite. Since I got it I've started enjoying kitesurfing much more because being on it is so fulfilling. I got an 8m too and have only had it out in a couple of high wind days, but god that thing is FUN. Quick, grunty- I think more so per square meter than the 12m because of the lower aspect ratio, and still with the insane floaty jumps. I just got in from a session by the way, so still buzzing🤩

I was just in contact with Chris from Buggy Kite Shop. I'm interested in the Sysmic 53 MIDI XL. He said they're on hold for now because the company they use for the heat treated aluminum has other orders to fill that require larger amounts than what Kite Shop uses. He'll let me know by end of January 2020. The buggy is still the best if you're looking for ease of transport! The whole thing fits in a bag you can carry!

Totally out of luck. Warranty is only 7 years, 364 days. They obviously don't stand behind their products.

What do you think my chances are of getting a warranty claim on one of the extreme kites t-shirts? I love this shirt, but after ONLY 8 years of regular exposure to sweat, salt water, sunscreen and sunlight it has started to fall apart. @.Joel what was the warranty period on these shirts, because I feel like I should of got at least 10yrs out of it? 😄

Our new toys/transport. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNqOU4jx62I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYmbZfEkWNY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-i8lO-JsNw

Thanks Steve, I'll see if I can dig that one out of the archives and repost. That is still my favorite all around kite. It's just so versatile.

Kevin Langeree announces launching his new kitesurfing brand Reedin Kites. He's partnered up with Damien Girardin whom previously worked for Naish Kiteboarding. I remember interviewing Kevin back in around 2009 for a podcast after he had just won the world freestyle championships. A decade later being at the top of the sport he launches his own brand. Incredible progression, can't wait to see how he moves forward. https://www.reedinkites.com/

Knowing John, I'm sure the windbreaker would be an optional extra 😎

These are always entertaining, however this one just takes it to another level

I think the last time I had a holiday in Australia was the last time i went to Yeppoon the the EK guys and gals. A few years ago, 2012 I think. I got away over New Year, went up to Hervey Bay to stay and look specifically for good flat water conditions that I could practice getting going on the foil board. Thanks to some Seabreeze forum advice I had a couple of days at Elliot Heads and one day at Woodgate. I loved these two spots, especially Woodgate. The wind was crap for two of the three sessions, maybe 10-12 knots, but the Soul did itself proud and I was still able to practice my foil board starts and ride along, until inevitable I'd crash. Not enough wind for a twin tip or for any other LEI kiters to bother trying. The Soul saved my trip, otherwise it would have been a long way to travel and only get one decent session in. You do have to time it right for the tides as the lagoons can get to shallow for the foil mast when tide is low. Lovely spots to kite. If EK ever decided to organize some trip up that way for foiling about (pun intended), could be good fun.

Brilliant as always Juan! Please keep the videos up, you guys have so much fun and it's really cool to watch.

Done I bit of testing/experimenting over the Christmas holidays with kite recoating. firstly I worked out what solvent dissolves silicon the best/fastest/easiest. I tried acetone, turps, mentholated spirits and shellite. i worked out that shellite was the best option. Dissolves the silicon easily and evaporated quickly. the way I made up the mixture to coated the test pieces was to mix about 1 part silicon to 10 parts shellite in an ice cream container. I just mixed it for a couple of minutes then poured the liquid into a pump up garden sprayer. Make sure not to pour any remaining bits of solid silicon into the sprayer and only do it when you are ready to coat the kite. Have everything ready and work quickly. i made up a porosity tester a while ago, so dragged it out. The tester is calibrated and doesn’t give results that can be checked against a database. But it does give a guide and can be used to compare old kites to new. The cloth is sandwiched between the 2 seals, held together with magnets. It creates a vac by lifting a water column inside the bottle and you can simply time how long it takes to drop between marks on the bottle. I used an old flogged out peter lynn s-arc for the test and a bit of brand new chickara from a cut up f-arc. i first tested them uncoated to get a starting point. i then put some pin holes in the fabric and retested. next came the recoating. I lay the kite on the grass and sprayed the test area. making sure the cloth was well wet. Do NOT spray on cement, timber decking, etc. any silicon overspray will creat a VERY slippery surface. I let dry for 24 hrs and retested the porosity. I was amazed. The difference was HUGE! the fabric isn’t now crunchy, but feels soft and slippery. And is extremely hydrophobic. I don’t think that it will improve the strength of old fabric or how long it will last. But it will definitely improved the ability of the kite to hold air. The next step I guess is to coat an entire kite.... THE RESULTS: test area 1 uncoated - 2:17 (average over 3) test area 2 uncoated - 1:58 (average over 3) control area 2 - 15:00 (calculated as it took 5 minutes to drop 1/3) test area 2 with 3 pin holes - 1:35 test area 1 coated - 15:00 (calculated) test area 2 (with 3 pin holes) coated - 18:00 (calculated) so it has not only improved the porosity, but actually increased it to a level greater then the new fabric.

I had a zipper on my 16m venom 2 give up on me last week. Bloody frustrating, as it was the inflate zipper and I was about to launch 🤬. The slide was so worn out that it won’t close the teeth anymore. anyway, I have fitted new waterproof zips to an arc before, but they can be a bit expensive and hard to find. So I thought it was a good chance to test out a Velcro alternative. its basically just a short sock and Velcro opening similar to the deflates in the flysurfer kites. the Velcro valves work quite well. I inflated the kite and slowly opened the Velcro. No air was escaping until it opened far enough to for the end of the sock to open. Sorry, no pictures before they got sewn in. But a few pointers I worked out for anyone wanting to do this mod. -Make the sock width about 50mm more then the zipper opening in the kite. - place sticky ripstop inside the kite where the zipper stitching was removed. - measure from the opening in the kite to the cell wall, subtract 1cm. This is how long the sock needs to be. -sew the sock in the direction you would use it to inflate the kite (pointing towards the centre) - sew a deflate valve into the trailing edge to replace the deflate zipper.

He was never a fan, just a chameleon in pansh clothing. Flexi Buggy & Kites $550 https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/yanchep/surfing/kite-surfing-powerkite-kite-buggy-flexifoil/1236679218

I've been using single handed bar now with my buggy. Works quite well.