I went down to BB on Saturday but decided it was too windy for a beginner. Fun to watch though.
Yesterday after a long wait for the wind to pick up I finally got out at about 4pm for an hour or so. After lots of face planting and crashing the kite and being crashed into and having to self recue.... I did finally get a few good runs before I had to head home. Feels really good when you get it right.
Patrick
So who is looking at going out this week?
I am going to try to get as much time as possible on the water before heading on holidays and having to tackle the waves.
I had a quick look at the SB forecast and at this stage I am going to be aiming to get to Kurnell on Saturday midday onwards (depending on when i get my house work done), probably 1st carpark Sunday arvo, then back to kurnell on Monday after work. I am steering clear of the city tuesday and wednesday for obvious reasons and maybe heading back to kurnell on thursday (if I have everything sorted holidays as we leave on the following saturday).
Hit me up if you heading out
It's only another 20mins or so, but i am used to travelling due to living so far out north west. To be honest I much prefer Kurnell over 1st etc, it is a lot less crowded as there is not as many families etc over there. The wind seems a lot more consistent and the water is no where near as choppy.
Might see you on Sunday arvo. What time you looking at?
I will probAbly go around 2pm saturday and planning to go earlly on subday around 10am. Ill keep you posted via facebook
Yeah I'm freaking jinxed lol.
Had to make a detour via KP on the way back from Kurnell to put the kite in for some serious repairs
How long until you get your kite back?
I had a look at kite repairs, and it seems they can do some amazing things and make the kite fly/look as good as new.
Crazy wind today! Gusts up to 45k this morning!
That's good news! I think I'm off to Kurnell shortly. Theoretically I'm supposed to be hard back at work today, but I'm going away for 10 days so this is my last chance.
Good luck with the kite & lesson.
How did it go?
I'm still not up and going, but getting closer each time. I have a bad habit of yanking on the bar to try and generate more power to brute force my way along, but I was told not to do that. I think the main key is to figure out which way I should be pointing myself/thekite/theboard.
Big thanks to Ian and the others at Kurnell who were giving me pointers.
I managed to do a powered faceplant which gave me a minor headache, a brief feeling of whiplash and salt water all the way up my nose and down into my lungs. I kept going though and progressed more after that and finished on a high note.
It was nice at Kurnell today. Some of the more experienced guys seemed to be staying out of the water due to fast tides?, but it was not too busy, not too quiet, and what seemed like decent winds to me.
Yeah without seeing it, it sounds like you are doing the same mistakes as I am.
If you are sinking bum first back into the water this generally means you are pointing too far upwind before gaining enough speed. Try straightening your front leg a bit more to push the angle of your board further down wind, then once you have some speed up you can transfer more weight onto you back leg to point the board across wind rather than down wind as much and push on your heels to edge the board more.
If you slow down and feel like you are getting pulled over the front of the board, what I was mostly doing yesterday, you are probably choking the kite. Essentially trying to give it too much power by pulling the bar in or not diving quite hard enough. What happens (from what I can figure out) is you get the initial burst of power to get you up, then you keep the power on, or keep increasing it until the kite swings right around to the edge of the window. This washes most of the power out of the kite, you sink back into the water as the kite drifts back from the edge and picks up a little more power which in turn pulls you over the board.
I was mostly doing the second one, kept getting too excited trying to hold the power on. I would realise too late that I was stalling the kite, let the bar out, kite would drop back from the edge and gain some power but by this time it was too late and I had already slowed enough that the board was under water and acted like an anchor on my feet as my top half was pulled over the board. I did however start to feel when this was going to happen and before I let the bar out I would give a quick hard pull on the bar to turn it towards 12 then let the bar right out. What this did was stopped my getting pulled over as hard and stopped me getting pulled off the board, I would just kind of roll onto my stomach, bend my knees to kind of lift the board up behind my butt then once the kite was at 12 and settled I could take the board off my feet, bring it around the front and try again.
Again, one of the biggest things I learnt yesterday was more kite control, or lack of really. The kite is actually quite well behaved when left alone. I could give it a pretty hard pull to turn it to 12, let the bar right out and it would basically float itself up and sit there, occasionally a quick, short, sharp pull on the opposite line as it was approach 12 was needed to slow it down if I got a little too eager sending it but that was it. I was then free to use both hands to sort the board and myself out.
Glad to hear you are progressing so well mate, I am a long way from consistent water starts but getting there. I have done a few good ones where everything clicked and trust me it is sooooo much easier. You're not fighting the kite, board or wind and everything flows and just feels right.
Haha, more than once I was standing on my board without it moving, sinking down to my knees, with the kite having gone back up to 12... I'd try to dive it again to do a sort of standing start, but no dice!
I think you've got it - I'm suffering from a lack of feel for the kite in a dynamic situation, combined with board issues - or in other words getting everything wrong! Ah well, as I say every single time I go out - I'm sure I'll get it next time.
Well I officially had my best session yet yesterday at Kurnell, not a bad way to kick off the new year
My water starts are becoming a lot more consistent, maybe 8/10 tries I am up and going.
Now I just need to work on staying up and edging more, also getting the feel for and learning how much bar to pull in before it chokes the kite, this is generally my biggest reason for stopping. Choke kite = no power.
The biggest problem with my water starts at the moment is that I don't dive the kite hard enough on my starts. Often I get up but haven't quite got enough pull/power on the start to get right up out of the water so I end up dragging the board partly underwater and can't build any speed. I think I am trying to point too far across/up wind as well which is not allowing me to build enough speed before i edge.
That being said though, I hit a few personal milestones yesterday.
- I only had the kite on the water once after a bad water start. This was the first session that I was actually able to pack away a dry kite, it was a rather pleasing moment
- I had 2 really good runs where I water started right on the first go, built speed and edge for a good 200ish meter run out past the groins before I got too excited and brain snapped, forgot what i was meant to be doing and lost power in the kite, sank back down and tried again. This was all goofy side as well, it's funny, I am now struggling with my regular foot direction lol.
- And my personal favourite, I didn't get a single sinus clean out, no head dunkings for me. No massive stacks, only one reasonably good stack where I had a bad start and got pulled over my board when I caught the front edge, but I felt it happening, sent the kite to 12 and rather than body slamming the water I got body dragged and used the lift to kind of just flop/ease myself back down. Other than that a few bad start in the deeper water where I didn't dive the kite enough but that was it really.
Super stoked to start off 2014
Awesome! Nice to hear you're progressing quickly, and that you're finally getting some good sessions in!
Big congrats on using the kite to save yourself during a stack! It must be starting to become a bit more instinctive.
PS - I'm not complaining about the steep learning curve, I love it really!
Progress! I went out yesterday, and can now get up and go for a little while. I think we were right about the two key issues - pointing the board downwind, and not choking the kite by pulling too hard on the bar. It's a big step forwards as now I have time to think about and correct any issues, rather than getting up and falling back down right away.
I had an "exciting" experience - my DD fell out, and I dropped my chicken loop! I had a brief thought about trying to fly the kite unhooked, but gave up that idea pretty quickly as I didn't have the trim strap pulled in at all. I then tried to grab the chicken loop with one hand, while the other hand was on the bar. The kite did a (surprisingly tight) loop, sending me downwind at top speed. At this point, I managed to grab the chicken loop and let go of the bar and everything settled down.
While it was all happening, I forgot about my leash, and that just letting go of everything was a fairly low drama option. I think if it happens again I might try and go straight to that option - it was great that I regained the loop and was able to continue kiting, but I'd rather that my instinctual reactions would lead me to a depowered situation rather than looping the kite! Of course when I'm more experienced, I'm sure that sort of incident can be controlled much more calm way, and I won't need to flag; but any time it gets out of control I should be killing the power.
I'll be going out in the afternoon/evenings later this week, if anyone wants to join me.
It's great to read that guys are progressing... Why is it when I am free, the wind hardly tips 12 knots at Dolls...?
It's equally painful watching England lose the cricket!
Well I'm back from far north NSW and the curse continues.
Out of my 2 weeks that I was meant to spend kiting every afternoon I hit the water a total of ZERO times
Talking with the locals up there and it has been the worst season for wind that most of them ever remember. I saw one day that the wind was not direct on shore and a total of 2 days where it actually got over 10knts. The kite spot where you can usually see 20+ kites every arvo, I saw one and he was on 15-17m kites most days and struggling to get out through the direct on. You guys have been getting great wind down here the entire time but as soon as I get back down the wind turns to crap down here for the entire week.
Congrats on the progress JMS!!! Sounds like you are ahead of me in the progress stages now. Reckon I am going to be back to square one after 2 weeks of nothing.
dam thats some bad luck warehouse13 !!
I got back from NZ around the beginning of Jan and now my eyes have recovered from surgery ive been getting out when I can. Im progressing slowly, but usually feel ive impoved something at the end of the session.
My biggest problem is the wind has been too strong for my comfort zone and as such im looking a 9m kite to compliment my 12
Hope to see you guys out there when the wind picks up next!
As a side note, I was planning on heading to Old Bar over the coming long weekend but as it seems the wind is going to be completely missing up there I was considering maybe heading out to Pathers Cable Park for a day or two instead. Anyone interested in getting a little board time if the wind decides not to co-operate this weekend?
I don't think I'll be ahead - I didn't manage to get out much last week in the end, was pretty busy. I'm hoping to get out tomorrow and at the weekend wind permitting.
I tried going out on Sunday in the southerly at Doll's, but I didn't have much luck. The wind was a bit gusty, dropping down to a level where it was hard to keep the kite up, and was on-shore. I think I could have coped with one or the other, but both at the same time was too much for my newbie self!
I'll pass on the cable park - need to recover financially after the holidays.
Well I'm hopefully getting out tomorrow as long as the wind keeps up so I will see how much I've forgotten.
I wasn't getting up that confidently myself last time I was out. Maybe 100-150m, basically 10-15m out past the groynes at Kurnell but that was quite on shore so the tack was very diagonal. And that only happened maybe twice the whole session. Most of it was spent starting then sinking and the couple times I did get up I think I only really edged the board once, maybe twice.
Anyway I got the idea, just have to get the practice. My goals for this "season" are to be able to confidently water start both ways, basic direction change (slight sink into water while starting the opposite way), starting running upwind, start working on better transitions (slide trans etc). As long as I can get the time on the water I think they are achievable, I am certainly going to be trying to get out for as long into the year as I can and even going to be looking at some other spots where I can possibly kite further into the colder months.
Hopefully some board only time at the cable park will let me at least get use to how the board reacts, and the feeling of the balance and edging the board so that I can at least get that under wraps.