if your close to largs go there plenty of learners willing to help out and match each other on who can face plant the hardest

Hey mate I'm just starting out this season also and have a bit of a hit/miss ability to get out. I go to Largs and have found it to be generally friendly and easy to get a launch etc if you're there by yourself. Am happy to have someone on board to faceplant with if you need. Hopefully heading out tomorrow after work so maybe see you down there!

hey guys - Heading out to Parham tonight with my dad and his friend kiting and keeping an eye. Any other noobs wanna come down feel free.

I was thinking we should get all the noobs down to one of the Friday sessions down at grange and have a few beers with some of the SAKSA guys and share some tips around.

Was out at parham on Sunday and noticed someone with a black 12m slingshot and possibly a 14m red and yellow slingshot struggling with the light winds. We were going to give you a hand but you seemed ok landing the kite yourself as there was absolutely no wind by that stage.

Got up on the board for a couple of 10m runs last week - totally addicted now :)

Hi Spawn

I'll probably head to Parham mid afternoon tomorrow for a kite, if the seabreeze picks up a bit. If you come down feel free to introduce yourself. I'll have a black and white rebel. ps DaGodfather's spot on- I often ended up getting blown away towards the end of the evening on my 12m.

Cheers, Brian

SpawnofFossl said...

hey guys - Heading out to Parham tonight with my dad and his friend kiting and keeping an eye. Any other noobs wanna come down feel free.

I was thinking we should get all the noobs down to one of the Friday sessions down at grange and have a few beers with some of the SAKSA guys and share some tips around.

Was out at parham on Sunday and noticed someone with a black 12m slingshot and possibly a 14m red and yellow slingshot struggling with the light winds. We were going to give you a hand but you seemed ok landing the kite yourself as there was absolutely no wind by that stage.

Got up on the board for a couple of 10m runs last week - totally addicted now :)

Sooo good news and bad news.

Good news is that it was blowing pretty much between 19 and 22 knots at parham.

Bad news is that On sunday in the light 12 knot winds I managed to invert my kite after 10 minutes and had no idea how to get out of it so had to drop to safety and wind my lines up.

I didn't seem to notice how it happened as I was fiddling with my board.

Went out again with my coach watching me this time and after 10 minutes I inverted the kite again with a bad result

Kite relaunched inverted and then crashed down in shallow water and blew the bladder - tearing a 30cm rip in the leading edge.

Coach advised me that I am letting the bar out too far with slack lines when I stack which is allowing my kite to roll.

So a couple of questions for everyone......

I know that a repair of that size will be around the $80 mark but I have no idea whether it is easy to get a replacement bladder for an 08 Crossbow and how much that will be?

Can anyone shed some light on how to recover from an inverted kite on the water if it is possible? Reading around seabreeze I have seen some suggestions to crash kite downwind and then slacken and work on the lines but I'm not sure exactly how this works and was wondering if anyone else has tried this?

So taking a break for a bit until kite is repaired - hopefully sooner than later

SpawnofFossl said...


So a couple of questions for everyone......

I know that a repair of that size will be around the $80 mark but I have no idea whether it is easy to get a replacement bladder for an 08 Crossbow and how much that will be?

Can anyone shed some light on how to recover from an inverted kite on the water if it is possible? if anyone else has tried this?

I think bladders usually are around $100-$130 (I'm sure prices vary, this is just a ballpark figure). Call up Onboard at Glenelg, they've repaired heaps of kites for me in the past - but it may be a bit of a wait for the bladder if they haven't got it. You may want to research if it's available elsewhere if they don't have it.

To recover from inverted kite is tricky. If its just straight inverted without any tangles the best method is to keep pulling on a single front line (with all other lines having sufficient slack to allow it to uninvert). If this doesn't work you may have to get back to the beach and sort it out there.

The best thing to do is to prevent the kite from inverting in the first place.
In most cases the kite gets inverted when it is in the water and the lines are slack - then it rolls through the lines and inverts. So try to avoid slack lines at all times.

And last but not least - try and go into slightly deeper water (at least knee deep) so even if you crash the kite it won't rip the leading edge.