I go to the beach very often and i always see a few kitesurfers, it look awsome and alot of fun.
As buying the kitesurfing equiptment is expensive i was wonder if anyone is nice enough to let me have a go on theres?
Or do you know of any demo days where they let people try the sport before buying
The beaches i usally goto between mordialloc and morington any spot along there is good for me but i am willing to travel further down to phillip island and maybe even further
Thanks
It's great that you've taken an interest in kiting, but it's really important to start out safely. The kites that you see us flying are capable of generating enough power to move a car with the handbrake on, so in inexperienced hands they can injure or kill. Borrowing someone elses equipment or having a mate teach you are the two quickest ways to end up either in pain or in trouble, and for the sake of keeping our beaches open to kiting the responsible thing to do is to start out properly.
The smartest way to start out is to go to a kite school and see if they do an introductory lesson or course. A starter lesson will cost you ~$100-150 but it's the first very important step to safely learning to kite. The majority of the kite schools are up the north end of the bay (ie. Sandringham, Elwood, St Kilda), but i think the FIND boardsports store in Frankston may offer lessons which might be closer to home for you. To get you kiting independently it'll probably take another couple of lessons. This might sound like money wasted but your using your instructors equipment which means it's suited perfectly to the conditions and your experience, and it doesn't matter if you crash it as it's not your kite!
These first few lessons will give you the skills to safely progress, and if your a fast learner you should be up and riding by the end of your second or third lesson, at which point it's a good idea to purchase your own gear ($1500-2500 for a starter setup).
A few words of caution... kitesurfing is highly addictive. As soon as your hooked you'll stop talking to your family, stop listening to your partner/colleagues/boss and do nothing but stare out the window to see if the wind is blowing. Every spare dollar you have you'll spend on equipment. When it's not windy you'll be depressed and pining for another session. Kitesurfing is a sickness... but there's plenty of help out there for us all.
thanks everyone for all your help i was planning on getting the lessons but i wondering if there was any demo days but i guess not, which is understandable though because of the the cost of the equipment.
great summary koma
Yes Koma, very well said. They might even have to open a clinic to deal with those of us with severe kite addiction.
Gonetobeach, demo days with big kites are for experienced kiters only.
You could consider buying a foil trainer kite for around $100 to learn basic kite skills too.