we went out on 3/02 at 8am just before high tide. the winds were ENE, so onshore in Pallarenda which felt way heavier than the offshore session the day before.
You could fully lean into the wind without falling.
Luckily we didnt get the predicted storm surge in Pallarenda on the high tide (3.6m in the morning of 2nd feb) but the ocean pretty much swallowed the whole shore front of Townsville and Northern beaches and not many trees and sand survived. It looks horrible.
There was also a nice Boat that washed up in front of our house. The anchor chain was ripped off, might have come front Maggie!?
We still have no power at home and water is limited.
I will try to put together some of the footage/photos we took on 3rd of feb (mostly taken out of car because you couldn't stay on beach with the water and sand hurting your skin too much).
We only had a Cat 2 in Townsville and I experienced the force of Yasi, which was way worse than the effects of Larry here, probably because of the massive size of the system.
Cardwell, Tully and Lucinda must have been so scary and full on with up to 290kmh.
In regards to kiting such winds (especially the session on Thursday with ENE wind), it is thrilling but honestly, not that much fun, just scary. You can only go for 10mins max and you cant do anything but trying to hold on and control the kite.
Some gusts would just pull even with kite de-powered and bar out. It's scary to bring the kite towards the edge and only just being able to hang on.
We tried to boost but it's almost impossible because you have minimal hangtime and you fall very hard (like josh did in vid) if you dont fully power up before landing.
Downloops are pretty much impossible as there was too much bar pressure and power to tilt the bar.
Also the kite comes way to fast toward the edge, which makes even transitions very difficult.
I thought the whole time the canopy would explode from the gust bullets but luckily it didn't. Maybe we can design a fully Dacron kite for 50+knts
