Watching this gives me one more reason to dislike fear teabagging - imagine spearing one of these with the top of your mast. Cleared his sinuses up though.
Ahh a beautifully executed double backed high dangly thing with a twist! Notice the poise, confidence and control. Marks given for the "bull roarer" board move, nice innovation. Now that is true free styling....or someone cut his brakes
There was a guy doing the exact same thing down at Wanda last summe. Straight thru the sailors and ending up in the flags, missing one of the sailors heads by a foot. I have never blasted someone on the water like that before. But it worked, he packed up and left the beach. I can't believe he was so stupid as to not see the danger he was putting everyone around him in.
That's just it isn't it; a windsurfer who is out of control is generally a danger to nobody but himself, but a kiter out of control is frighteningly dangerous to anyone in the vicinity, even kids on the beach.
How do you know its one of the best kiters in the world. BTW I am totally ignorant in regards to who the best kiter is.
I thought he got it back under control pretty well for pretty extreme conditions, specially coming from such an extreme jump. (edit: after the second bounce)
I think I might exit this topic at this point
my work is downe (edit) here
Don't care how well he got it back under control, it was reckless and stupid just jumping (oh sorry, boosting) in that area at that time.
If I did a back loop above a surfer and landed a few metres away I am sure I would be criticised by all and sundry. and rightly so
It wouldn't happen though as windsurfers don't do that, seems it is just a kiter thing to do stupid sh!t right next to everyone else.
In 17yrs windsurfing I have seen 5 or so incidents that could have been serious, and they were caused by not looking or right of way breaches (again, not looking usually)....... so maybe I should not have said "never" or maybe I should have written better.
But I maintain that I have never seen a windsurfer do something wilfully reckless that may harm another person or even cause a collision.....and especially never seen them show off like riding around swimmers etc.
In the last 3 seasons on my rare sessions in crowded places in Perth, every time I see a kiter do something absolutely stupid, wilfully and usually involves showing off close to people.
I thought it was funny as. I can see the danger but he didn't hit anyone so I'd would have been laughing my head off if I had of seen it. Very easily could have been disasterous though.
check out this mid air collision ! I reckon the windsurfer jumped into the kiter...
i agree the kiting in that vid is just reckless and stupid, especially from a pro rider, and i reckon most kiters would say the same.
i have had plenty of windsurfers disregard right of way rules in the surf, drop in, snake etc. even had a bloke drop in on me then fall off on his first bottom turn so i had to jump over him to avoid hitting his rig.
but i don't tar all windsurfers with the same brush, i give everyone a chance.
there are many di**heads on and in the water, whether surfing, sailing, kiting, windsurfing, or even fishing.
it just seems when a kiter ****s up all the polies jump up and down pointing the finger at kiteboarders in general. which just leads to more aggro and misunderstanding.
What a pack of grumpy old men windsurfers have turned out to be. I'm glad I gave up windsurfing and took up a sport, kiteboarding, where people are genuinely happy and positive. Get over it boys - life too short to carry grudges.
> grudges
That's not grudges, we're talking idiots trying to kill other people. I don't have a grudge against street racers, they're idiots. And so on.
Anyways, it's all settled here: I ride over the lines all the time when they're in the way. This way, kiters have grudges with me, not the other way.
i think its pretty straight forward and its been said so many times before: A kiteboarder takes up 20+m of space, and a windsurfer takes about 3m. So kiters have the responsibility to be much more careful simply because they are taking up more riding area.