BayAreaKiteboarding.com

Hi guys,
This is the first time I have posted here,but I have read a lot of really helpful advice from many of you for other guys and I was hoping you could help me out with a question I cannot figure out. I was kiting with a friend of mine at Alameda. We are both neophites, he more so than me, but not much(I have done a lot of reading, but only been in the water 4 times, including to 2 hour lessons off a jetski.

He crashed the kite, a Liquid Force Envy, 12 meter in about 14 or 15 mph wind. He could not get it back up into the air and nose down into the power zone, he went downwind for about 2 miles. He released the chicken loop and pulled on the center lines, but the kite still was powered, not a lot, but enough to keep him blowing down wind faster than I could swim to get him(trust me, I tried twice, only to see him power right on by).

The problem, that I saw was that because of all the attachment points on the leading edge, when he pulled on the center lines, they just pulled him closer to the kite,but it didn't really depower the kite all the way and the kite didn't flop over onto its back.
Now, it is true that he only pulled the center lines like three feet in, but the kite was totally depowered at the bar, and the outside lines were totally slack, so I don't understand why the kite didn't flop over onto it's back when the center lines are pulled up?

Second question, everybody talks about the Envy being super easy to water relaunch, and I have not had much problems, but when I pull on the outside line to have the kite roll around to the opposite side and start to travel up the the side of the wind window, a lot of the time that end of the kite will catch wind on the outside of the kite and flop down into the wind, cutting off the wind into the center of the kite and stopping it from rolling to the outside for relaunch. I then have to ease up on the outside line, the kite rolls back down into the power zone, nose down and then fills with air again, so I have to start over again. Happens 1 out of every two times. Could it be that this weird wind summer has only allowed me to kite in sub 15mph wind and the kites, from what I hear, don't behave as well in slower wind speeds?

Lastly, I can get up on the board, but I am having trouble staying up. I am 190lbs, have only one kite, a 12m Envy, no board skills at all, but used to water ski and still snow ski, a lot. The kite gets me out of the water, but i am having trouble doing the sign curve fast enough to keep my butt out of the water and I fall back in. Again, is it low wind speed, or just crappy skills all around? Does anybody have any suggestions about ways to keep me powered longer by improving my kite skills. I have spend lots of time with a trainer kite, but with only two lines, it is a poor excuse for learning how to handle a 4 line kite.

Thanks everybody, I could really use the help.

This is my first season, so I'm sure more experienced kiter can give you plenty of advice. But here is mine:

15mph wind? that's about what? 13 knots?
I don't go out with my 13m and I'm 185lbs when it's only blowing that little.
I had the same problem when I started a few months ago as far as the kite not drifting into the edge of the wind window after a crash. Don't worry, it will do it automatically on stronger wind.
It takes a lot of skills to actually ride on lighter wind. You need to keep powering up your kite up and down to keep enough power to keep you out of the water. If you just use one stroke to get your butt out of the water and then leave the kite there on 13kts you won't go really far.

My advice? keep going to the beach! yes, it sucks to get skunked because it's not blowing enough (or worse, blowing too much and you only have 1 kite as a beginner and you see everybody going in the water but you, but that's when you have to be smart and just stay on the beach. It's actually not that bad and I learned a lot by watching other kiters riding while I was stuck on the beach with my 13m on a 20kts day).
JUST KEEP GOING!
And as soon as you can stand on your board, do a self rescue without breaking a sweat, launch and land with ease, then move to 3rd ave where you'll get waaaaaaaaay better wind than alameda!

As far as your buddy rescue:
Things get tangled sometimes. One of his back lines could have get caught in one of the bridles. But the bottom line is: If you pull your safety it's for a reason. Whatever that reason is, as soon as you pull it, start rolling those front lines around your bar and start your self rescue. If it keeps pulling a little, give a few wrap of the front lines only and then restart rolling all the lines together.
And don't ever forget, worse comes to worse, If for any reason you are still getting dragged STRONGLY after pulling your safety and you are getting close to any type of hazard, IT'S TIME TO DISCONNECT YOURSELF FROM THE KITE!

If your safety releases to dual front lines you will not achieve 100% depower (though a newer kite should come damn close), needs to be a single line. I read a bit about this yesterday and seems that with that sort of setup people suggest punching out to your two front lines and once the kite is in the water, recover the bar and SWITCH from your safety leash on your front lines to one rear line, this will flag it out completely. You could also just wrap one front line around your bar several times to achieve this if you're setting up for self-rescue.

A few things to keep in mind: if you attach safety to one rear line as your primary safety while flying, it will flag out but probably spiral to the water and be unlaunchable; also, there is a possibility of relaunch if you have tension on both front lines AND one rear line while trying to switch the leash. Not the kind of relaunch you want either. Get a second leash and it'll eliminate the chance of losing your kite in a leash switch and you can use it as a board leash in self rescue.

Sounds depressingly familiar. I learned late last season and kept going to Alameda. I would launch my 12M Liquid Force C kite (another bad move, buying that kite as a beginner - the Envy is much better), get up for a bit, then it would hindenburg in the 14MPH wind, then I would get blown downwind while I tried to relaunch. At one point my fingers became cut up from constantly pulling on the lines to try to get it airborne.

I am 6'1, 190. Alameda might be a great "set up" but there is rarely enough wind for a guy my size on a 12M, especially in the summer. I learned that the most important component of kiting is WIND. I started doing downwinders @ Sherman. I also sold that C kite and grabbed a couple easy, stable delta kites.

Light wind kiting is tough. I'm a year in and feeling solid on all the basics but when the wind drops I slog my way right back to noob-ville. IMHO: your setup sounds too small to me for 15 mph. What kind of board are you using? Maybe try a door or even a surfboard. It helped me a ton when I switched to something that floats me for a few seconds to allow the kite to take a breath or two.

Hey bro thanks for posting. Agree with the others... the water re-launch issues you're having are b/c of the light wind.

10-12 knots isn't very kite-able w/o specific gear setups as you've probably seen. You might see the littler 160-180 guys out there making small kites / surfboards work in lighter wind but at your weight you'd probably need a more LW focused setup.

Once your safety skills are all there I bump the idea of getting to 3rd asap as it's easier to learn in high teens / 20's wind. You can always come back with LW gear once your kiting skills are dialed if you really want to go out and kill some flatwater Alameda fun or live over there and want to kite Crowne Beach regularly

+1 to going to a location with more consistent wind to learn.

I spent two sessions this season at alameda mostly drifting downwind, with a few small rides - maybe a minute or two up on the board (after jetski lessons where I had done much more riding). It wasn't a waste of time - Alameda is by far the safest place to learn the feel of your kite. I had the same problem of "water-start, go a little bit, fall back down".

Then I went to Third and got maybe 5 minutes of riding in the first 10 minutes on my Envy 9m. No problems relaunching there, except for the wind shadow past the golf course. Wind quality matters so much - I'll take having to do a few SRs in exchange for faster progression (right-foot-forward is my weak side).

Also, there's a reflex to get past. When I was first waterstarting, the surge of power makes it feel like you have to depower and bring the kite up. I found that focusing on keeping the kite down made a huge difference to consistent starting (well, the little riding I've done).

good luck,
-b

How big is your board? It’s a critical factor here since the wind is light and you are a beginner. Both require bigger board, and combined a very big board or a specialized light wind board.

Try to water start pointing the board 45 degrees downwind. Once you are up on the board point it more and more upwind as you gather speed. In light wind you can choke the kite speed by pointing upwind too early. The better you become the quicker the transition will be. Its good to look at experienced kiters and see how they do that, though some may do it so quickly it will be hard to notice.

As far as depowering on both front lines, some kites do it better than others. Normally kites that depower almost completely on the two front lines will have a long front bridle. IDS comes to mind as a good example. It works well and there are others, its trendy these days.
Its something you have to learn to live with. If you think it's very important, change kite to something that depowers more on the QR, or as said above, a single line release (in addition to the standard depower).

honestly IMHO Alameda should be "classified" a winter and spring kiting spot only. I think it is misleading if it is published as summer kiting. Yes there are few rare good summer days but not enough to consider May-October to be Alameda season. I dont know why ikitesurf says the season on it is june-august. It should simply say November-May. Some of my best kiting ever was in November thru May in Alameda...

Alameda can be deceiving. Every time I go out there I see these guys riding on 12 meters staying upwind of the shack with relative ease in light wind. I go out and cant even get up on my board and immediately end of down wind near Kooks beach in 5 minutes. Funny thing is I have no problem staying upwind at 3rd.