Kite run #5
St Kilda
Conditions:
Wind 12-15 knots
Sunny 26 degrees kited from 3pm to 5pm.
Today wasn't the best day to hit the water. I figured with what North said about their kites that heading out into the water blowing 12 knots, that I would be fine to put the 12 in the air and have a session. The water was flat, there weren't many people out there and there wasn't a cloud in sight. Perfect right?
Wrong.
The wind was nowhere near enough to get me going. I could water launch, get up and then there wasn't enough wind to turn the kite back up to 11 after and keep me going. So I would launch and sink, launch and sink, then launch and sink some more. I tried this for about 45 minutes then without going anywhere decided to call it quits. There were some other kiters out there but by the looks of it they were on 14's, 16's and I believe I saw an old school 18 out there too! So knowing either my kite was too small or that I wasn't skilled enough I headed back to the beach, but as I decided this my kite lost all power and hit the water. No worries I’ll just water launch. But as much as I tried and tried I couldn't. There was enough wind to pull it towards the window but nowhere near enough to lift it off the water.
I was stuck.
I tried in vain for over half an hour with no luck, and seeing as I needed to be at my partners work in 45 minutes for us to inspect a new house to rent; I was running out of time. The only thing I could do was to pull the 5th line in and pull the kite in. I did this, the kite was wet, the lines a little tangled and there was no chance that I would be able to dry the kite off before I packed it up.
Lesson learned: If you’re keen for a session, pump up the kite, get things ready, but wait for the wind to be right instead of assuming it’ll be right when you need it on the water. See if there are other kites your size on the water and see how hard they are working the kite to get momentum.
There’s always another day
No comments:
Post a Comment