windy weekend at last!

Two sessions this weekend.

Saturday we had a quick jaunt up to the hot pipes at showreham power station - not the nicest bit of beach in the world. Very marginal session and a struggle to keep upwind.

Sunday was much better and included a trip out of Brighton and along the coast to Lancing. We are in spring tides at the moment so the 'home break' of King Alfred was substituted for Lancing beach. quite a nice spot, with loads of parking and a nice grassy rigging area. Bit corwded on the water, but overall a nice session with my mate Simon, who is pretty much at the same stage as me - so it's good fun to go out and push eachother a little.
Starting to learn little 180 jumps and stuff now which feels good, though bigger jumps are still eluding me. maybe next time!

Anyways, looks like it'll stay in for a few days, so I reckon this could be the last week of after work sessions.

Not Looking Good For Today

Another day, another non blowout!


Last night after scouring the south coast for somewhere suitable to go kiting, with some wind we gave up due to either overcrowdedness or a lack of wind. We even looked for fields to play in, and predictably all the suitable (and empty) ones had 'no kite flying' signs posted everywhere. Normally I would have ignored these but a recent brush with the police and a £30 fine for cycling along a deserted esplanade reminded me that logic is something sign writers appreciate.

Anyways, although I can see a few clouds bubbling up over the downs from my balcony, but not confident that this will amount to much, so in the meantime I'm off on my bike onto the downs for a bit of a spin.

maybe an update later.

no wind frustration

While the nation exhales a big sigh of relief at some decent weather coming our way, I have been driving along the south coast trying to find somewhere suitable/windy enough for my girlfriend to fly her new kite and get used to the UK.

No success I'm afraid, and not much hope for tomorrow either so I have done the only sensilbe thing and put 24 hours of parking on the car and now I'm going to get thoroughly drunk like the rest of Brighton on a Friday.

This is something I'm learning about kiting - you can be as self righteous as you like, feeling really good about yourself going to bed early so you'll be on good form on saturday morning when the tides just right, or delaying that night in the pub and substituting it for another two precious hours on the water, but when the wind ain't there, it does feel like you're missing something, and so you hit the self destruct button and bumble off down the boozer.

Let's pray for a windy Sunday, or at least a forecast of one to keep me out of trouble tomorrow night!

21st August. No wind, and non coming.

I learnt my lesson today - don't make plans that rely on you being somewhere at a certain time at a certain place expecting it to be windy.

for Bank holiday weekend my girlfriend and I decided to hire a car and do a bit of a kiting road trip along the south coast, having a bit of an explore, and finding some different and more forgiving spots in which to improve.


Of course, I should have remembered from my windsurfing days that when you start to take extra days off work and invest money in car hire etc, things are going to go wrong.....So here I am on wednesday looking at the dullest forecast I've seen this year, and wondering what to do.


The moral here is to try and be spontaneus and not plan too carefully. The wind will come and go whatever happens.

August 18th waves, onshore and a popped bladder.

woke up to a strongish southerly and rising tide - rain forecast later in the day, so i had to drag my arse out of bed. |Turned into one of those 'gnarly' sessions, with big waves and very onshore so was quite hard work trying to constantly stay upwind. However, I made it out and saw some new bits of brighton as the direction let me sail right up to fatboy slims house, and back the other way along Brighton beach.

All good, until I got home and found I'd popped one of the struts on my kite, so had an afternoon filled with glue and latex.

Sunday looking like a no go, NW winds though it is brightening up, so we'll see if it backs, but doubt it to be honest.

For those of you yet to repair a puncture, I found a neat little manual from Flexifoil for one of their kites, but this method is pretty universal I think - it worked on my Monkey Kites Griffin. Anyway, here is the Kite bladder repair guide - it's section 9.2.

Not much wind forecast for the next few days for me, with the UK dominated by a low pressure to the north, producing NW, which ain't much use to me being car-less and stuck to riding out of Brighton.

August 17th. First Jumps

I got airbourne!

Short session after work on Friday, I followed the advice on how to jump with a bow kite (see last post), and it worked! wind was on the drop when I arrived so only managed about 30 minutes, but still a happy boy now

Sunday 12th August

After the obligatory family in-law new baby scenario of saturday (not windy happily) we made it home about 2 on Sunday, still to no wind, and the tide was still quite high so I wasn't too bothered. However the more I vaccumed the flat the more the wind got up, to the point where it looked bloody good.

SO bumbled down the the beach with an hour left of tide on the drop and it turned into a lovely session, made better by the realisation that I was the first out, and many more were coming. Rode around for two hours, not doing anything very clever, but just getting into the whole staying upwind thing. It was anther of those lovely late afternoon sessions I used to love when I was windsurfing all the time and had completely forgotten about, just nice to be out there watching the sun shine through people's kites, and the usual nice quietness of being out alone on the water.

I kept trying to do jumps on the outside but to no avail. I'm not sure of the timing thing, so I've had a look around for an answer. As the simplest explanation of how to jump with a bow kite I thought this sounded good, So I'll have a go at the weekend all being well.....

Windwise....Saturday is looking like the day this weekend". Possibly Friday too, so, with the girlfriend away this weekend I happily have an activity to keep me away from watching England succumb to France again.

Will report on jumping attempts later.

James

Brighton Kiteboarding blog

another internet resource about kiteboarding......


Errr. yes. It would appear so.


That's me on the right, after my initiation into kiting. I look like a tit, but that grimace is a happy one......


Keep an eye out on this blog for session blogs of a kitesurfer of one month (me) as he goes through the usual trials of learning something new. I'll let you know when I embarrass myself, when I get dragged up the beach, when I start staying upwind, and when I nail a jump properly. I'll back up with photos as well, and try and get some pictures of people who really know what they are doing.

If you are new to the sport, you can use this site knowing you have a bit of a kindred spirit in that I am not 18, not made of rubber, don't have a six pack and have a job working as a cog in a large corporate machine.......However, I'm also hoping that this won't stop me getting into something that for years I have been watching from the beach wishing I was out there doing it.

I'll let you know how it goes.

James