SaltySinus said...
Reminder to self, if you're getting launched over the board, it's because you're an idiot and pulling on the bar rather than the harness. There should be no 'surprise' power yanking you out of the water.

Gentle with the bar and it will be gentle back.

Hey Salty, it's not always that you are pulling on the bar, some other common mistakes are:-

•Too much power in the kite. Try again with a lower-power power stroke.

•Stood up too late. Stand up sooner, keep your body straight, press down with your heels, and lean back to counterbalance the kite.

Hope it helps.

BoardGirl said...

SaltySinus said...
Reminder to self, if you're getting launched over the board, it's because you're an idiot and pulling on the bar rather than the harness. There should be no 'surprise' power yanking you out of the water.

Gentle with the bar and it will be gentle back.

Hey Salty, it's not always that you are pulling on the bar, some other common mistakes are:-

•Too much power in the kite. Try again with a lower-power power stroke.

•Stood up too late. Stand up sooner, keep your body straight, press down with your heels, and lean back to counterbalance the kite.

Hope it helps.

Or, like me, you put your board across the wind instead of pointing it downwind.

zarb said...

Scroty said...

BoardGirl said...

SaltySinus said...
Reminder to self, if you're getting launched over the board, it's because you're an idiot and pulling on the bar rather than the harness. There should be no 'surprise' power yanking you out of the water.

Gentle with the bar and it will be gentle back.

Hey Salty, it's not always that you are pulling on the bar, some other common mistakes are:-

•Too much power in the kite. Try again with a lower-power power stroke.

•Stood up too late. Stand up sooner, keep your body straight, press down with your heels, and lean back to counterbalance the kite.

Hope it helps.

Or, like me, you put your board across the wind instead of pointing it downwind.

Yeah thats a big one for me. Especially on my natural side. Nearly have it covered on goofy.

Thats what i did in the 20 minutes of trying to get up that i had in my lesson, didnt get up but heading out today to try. Even if i dont get the wind i want i think ill do some dragging and a self rescue or 2

The wind didnt play to my rules to be able to try a board. So did a body drag with the board till i got over that and then did a self rescue. It least the board floats.
The wind was only just strong enough to get the kite up.

Wrapped the lines around the bar just around one end and not Fig 8 ouch. Took two hours when i got home to untangle it.

A lesson in being patient.

Going out when there's too much wind makes for a pretty damn hairy time too!

I decided to pump up my 12m in 22 - 25kts - gusting up to 30kts the other day as it was the only kite I had. Went out and was battling HARD to keep the thing under control. It was just picking up too much speed, every time I dug my back heels in the board just skidded. Nearly got lofted a couple of times, came off and stacked hard. Got back to shore, could barely pull it up wind. Landed it as soon as another someone else came by and promptly deflated.

Wont be doing that again in a hurry

Did my first jump today. And it was totally meant. And I landed and continued on my merry way. Probably not the prettiest jump, but it counts.

Thank you Progression Kiteboarding Disk 1!

Ouch, you know you've had a bad day when you're in the road or in the shrubs...

Yeah, good tip, practice your self landings with a mate who is perhaps down wind of the kite and can help you if things go astray.

FYI, I did my first jump last night. Did I mention that?

Thanks BoardGirl, yeah, damn happy. I managed to hold back going 'whooooooooo' (in an Archer kind of way) long enough to recall I needed to land and what to do.

It was a great, great feeling!

zarb said...
Not quite as good as a first jump, but this afternoon I did my first transition slide from going left to going right. Also the first time I got some nice long runs in (more than 10 seconds ). Even got to run down the face of a waist-high wave on my way back in. Felt glorious! Bring on tomorrow.

Congrats...sounds like you are cruisin!

Okay, I appreciate like I'm showing off here... but I'd just like to announce I can finally (if not gracefully) slide turn, both directions and most of the time, consecutively!

I'd like to thank the academy...

It's certainly not perfect, but I can keep myself on the board and sometimes I find I shoot down wind and take the tension out of the lines. These symptoms I suffered when first starting to water start, so know what I need to do to fix it.

Next milestones:

1. Carving turn
2. Small jumps
3. Riding up wind toeside.

Cheers S2A.

I'm keen as mustard to try a surfboard, but want to be able to carve turn before I add another dimension of a different boar into the mix.

Good luck with the progress...

Zarb, I think so, yes, but its a balancing act. Too quick and you'll launch yourself over the board. On low wind days, I've been playing with shifting my weight around and going from a light edge to direct down wind, then back to the same edge. This has helped my (otherwise board illiterate body) learn the effects of weight and direction.

Cheers BoardGirl, oh and I'm liking the new profile pic

I lurv learning anything new... it seems to move ahead in leaps and bounds. Yesterday was another breakthrough for me.
I am getting up on both sides now 99% of my attempts, Can almost keep a bearing upwind on my natural side and can actually make some ground upwind on my goofy side! I think I may be able to end up in the same place I launched if I went out to sea far enough

Also can almost land basic jumps, and carve transitions from heelside to toeside. And the best feeling was yesterday afternoon chasing the swell back in, carved upwind to face the wave, and managed a cutback back downwind.

Just need to work on perfecting upwind, and basic sliding transitions.

SaltySinus said...
Ouch, you know you've had a bad day when you're in the road or in the shrubs...

Yeah, good tip, practice your self landings with a mate who is perhaps down wind of the kite and can help you if things go astray.

FYI, I did my first jump last night. Did I mention that?

We should start a thread on SELF ##### (ie where #### = Landing, Launching, Rescue, etc). It really is a great skill to learn and adds to your control of the kite.

Here is a tip on self landing and it worked every time with me, but it depends on the conditions:

* In light winds self landing and launching is easier to control (I said CONTROL) than it is in windy days. In windy days, it's easier to kick off the kite from a launching position or drop it off the sky to self land, but it's way harder to control and by that I mean keeping the kite steady from 3 oclock through to 12. I've seen some people attempt it in windy post 20knot days and the kites go PING up like a full on erection and actually almost loft people with it! So be warned.
But on light wind days, I highly recommend this tip:

* try and land the kite at the water's edge. Why? Because the water's edge is where small waves curl the most onto the sand and could actually help "flatten" and hold your kite allowing time for you to retrieve it. I do this almost religiously now and it works all the time. So what you do is lower the kite about 10 feet off the waters edge and with a steady but hard yank, pull on the left line (if landing the kite to the left edge of the window) or the right line (if landing the kite to the right of the edge window) and then let it plonk into the waters edge. Try and time it with the biggest wave possible, so that the curl "catches" the kite by dumping water over it. What this does is that the kite is fully soaked and so it's heavy and held down for a few moments, and by yanking on the line, the kite parks itself as best possible into the wind, so that again you are helping it park. The combo of turning the kite, and water lapping over the top at the water's edge, should hold the kite down enough for you to retrieve it.

The best part about the above, is you don't have to release your quick-release to depower the kite. Infact I hardly ever do now with the above trick.