Saturday, February 02, 2008

Session 32: Good wind and some jumping practice

Got on the water at Hampton Beach just after 5 pm with a good wind blowing at around 20 knots. Cranked a lot of speed leaning right out and carving upwind with the power on.

There were about 15 kites out. I did a reach out past the Middle Brighton headland and enjoyed the view. Not a good place to ditch the kite or lose your board though. It would be a hell of a swim in.

There is something really cool about having that kite flying and boosting you across the water.

I kept the power on going over a few large waves and was plucked airborne for a short distance which was a great feeling.

I also tried a couple of edge releases and was lifted just off the water too. Jumping is much harder than it looks. There is some real skill involved in setting up the jump and executing it, which surprises me as I thought all you had to do was "send the kite back" and up you went.

I lost my board a couple of times augering into waves. Upwind body dragging is not hugely successful, so I let the kite touch the water at the edge of the wind window and swam some strokes to get the board. Relaunching the kite from this position was easy. I also saw another kitesurfer swimming back for his board with his kite parked directly overhead, which is better than landing it on the water.

Tired after about 1.5 hours so I came in and landed the kite on the near empty beach and headed home.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What colours your crossbow? I may have seen you down on hampton last saturday

Peter Campbell said...

My Crossbow is yellow with black tips, a 2006 model (the first one).

Regards, Peter

Anonymous said...

oh right, the 12m? the one with "donovan's" on the side? you might see me flying my red switchblade 2 down at hampton

Peter Campbell said...

It is a 12m kite but only with standard Cabrinha marking on it. I usually wear a 1mm wetsuit with purple knee pads, a white helmet and sunglassess too. I will keep an eye out for your red Switchblade 2 - there are quite a few of them about.

Anonymous said...

Oh right, i think ive seen you down at hampton a few times, documenting your sessions in a blog will be great to look back on in the near future when you are throwing kiteloops! I only started kiteboarding at the start of the season. As for jumping, ive spoken to bryan at SHQ (he taught me everything i needed to know, and then some) and there are 2 main methods for doing powered jumps, you can send the kite back the other way (tried this, most terrifying thing ive ever done, especially in 25 knts!)or the method bryan told me about, this works especially well with bows...

ride at a comfortable speed with the kite relatively low in the window, making sure to hold an edge, depending on how crazy you are bring the kite up to 12 o' clock Completely depowered, as the kite hits 12 power on and release your edge. Ok so its the same deal as you mentioned about timing, just be sure to release your edge as the power comes on, not just before like i have so many times, resulting in an embarrassing face plant! When you get it right it will feel like a gentle loft over 10 feet (or more, depending on how fast you sent the kite) into the sky with a nice floaty landing. Im relatively new to kiteboarding but this technique bryan taught me has helped me land BIG jumps with ease and comfort. I have to admit though, the first time i heard abou this method i was a bit skeptical, i thought that it made much more sense to swing the kite back the other way through the window, but it felt more like a was being flung downwind at tremendous speed whilst my kite usually ended up nearly upwind of me as i had brought it to the edge of the window and put a bit of slack in the lines. Hope this helps out with your jumping, it has opened up a whole new world of things to do for me,

cheers,
Stephan