I am a beginner, and just recently I took another lesson to get me comfortable (again) with the equipment in a controlled environment, and to practice waterstarts. I have done a few before, but never knew what to do when I got up on the board.

At the start of the lesson I was told they have 12m and 14m kites, and that they would use the 12m. The wind was somewhere around 15 knots, and dropping off at times. The instructor weighed 75kgs, and I weigh 100kgs. For anyone not sure of the difference that makes, grab a 20kg bag of cement and try kiting with that onboard.

After the initial checking I was comfortable with safety, and upwind body dragging to see if I knew anything about kite control, I was attempting waterstarts. Initially I would get up and then go a short distance and then fall in. I would sine the kite to generate more power, but still fall in. Sometimes I would water start and then once on the board there would be almost nothing. With the bar pulled in, there was almost no power.

So the question I have is, are there any instructors out there that even try and match you with a kite to suit your weight?

Does it matter much at this stage? I have been windsurfing for 13 years or so, and my understanding of wind strengths is pretty good. Once you get better at windsurfing you can sail a smaller sail than a beginner of the same weight and you can handle a bigger sail than a beginner. I am pretty sure that when I get better at kiting I will find that a smaller kite more manageable as I will have the skills to work it to generate more power.

I can understand that you wouldn’t want the student to have too much power, but in this case I felt that the kite power was marginal and really didn’t give me much to work with. Body dragging upwind is not practical without enough power.

The lesson was excellent, the instructor was very good, but I feel that a better kite size would have been the 14m.

I have had this before, so I am starting to wonder, does anyone try to match the kite size to the student, even if it means that they as the instructor would be over powered (or even underpowered) on the same kite? Or is it where the instructor is only comfortable with the kite they would use in those conditions so can’t adjust this for heavier or lighter students?