Me: Nahh… I don’t really get obsessively into things… I can’t see myself getting addicted enough to spend that much money just on equipment!

Perhaps the biggest barrier to most people (especially teenagers or young kids) interested in taking up kitesurfing is the cost of the sport.  Parents are usually unwilling to invest thousands of pounds into what may turn out to be a passing interest, and one that is largely seen as a holiday sport nonetheless.  However, there are cheap ways to learn and obtain gear, especially if you’re in uni and there is a kitesurfing society on hand to help you out!

Here is a breakdown of the money I have spent to date on kitesurfing, listed in chronological order.

Lessons: Euro 140 (£100???*)

Fuerteventura Trip, July ’09: £350

Unlimited Kit Rental over the summer: £0 (I love you guys)

Gear: Kite- 9m Flexifoil Atom ’08, bar&lines, leash, pump (Ebay): £500

Gear: Board, 138 North Dragon ’07 (Flexi Forums): £180

Gear: Harness, Maui Magic Luna (KiteitRight NorthWest): £100

Gear: Prolimit Kite Golfbag 140 (EdgeRiders Online): £100

Bristol Uni Kitesurfing Society Membership: £15

Various trips with the society: £100 (???? total guess)

Repairs after trashing the 7m Waroo: £0 (I love you guys)

One-Way Ticket to Australia, Nov ’09: £550 (inc. excess baggage charges)

AKSA Membership: $65 (£40*)

Gear: Lost my board, bought a new one- 131 Naish Thorn ’08 (Seabreeze): $470 (£285*)

Repairs to broken kite: Full bladder replacement (SOS Surf): $280 (£170*)

Gear: New kite, 6m Royal Era ’08 (off a friend): $450 (£270*)

Gear: Stolen bar&lines, bought a new one (SOS Surf): $500 (£300*)

Kite Stock ticket, Feb ’10: $150 (£90*)

Hoodies, etc: £60

* Rough estimates

Estimated total amount spent on kitesurfing since April 2009: £3,610.00

Yesterday I received a parcel in the post- the Bristol Uni Kitesurfing Society hoodies and t-shirts had finally arrived!  Thanks to Rob for sorting everything out and sending it over.  Pictures after the cut (gear shots at the end.. yep, that’s my brand new never-been-used bar in them which cost a shocking AUD$550.. ehhh).

Gotta go kite now, it’s blowing 30+

Just a little update this time: my kite was in the shop for about two and a half weeks over the new year.  I recently got it back after spending $285 on a full bladder replacement and it’s been great.  I also finally picked up a 6m cheap from a friend who was moving back to France, it’s a Royal Era 2008.  I got it for $450 (no bar, but it works fine on my flexi one) so I’m stoked about that.  I also tried out a few other kites, Airush Vapor 7m, Core GT 9m, Ozone Sport+ 11m.  I liked the Core and Ozone (I thought the Core bar was great in particular) but I don’t like the depower on the Airush/Ozone, the mechanism seems a bit dodgy.  And bar pressure on Airush is way too light for me.

I’ve had a couple more little kitemares too recently, I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear!  Highlights include:

• Being dragged across the reef at Lancelin (I have scars on my legs to prove it)
• Becoming unhooked during a gust while I was walking upwind at Pinnaroo
• Getting my lines tangled in the engine of a boat at Woodies (yes.  an actual boat.  this could only happen to me.)
• Messing up a self-land at Safety Bay and having to walk through knee-deep, snake-infested grass to retrieve my kite, whilst praying it doesn’t relaunch in the power zone (Safety Bay is so good though, I’m half tempted to move down to Rockingham)

… But I am getting better.  Slowly, but still.  Couple more decent sessions like yesterday and I should be set to start some tricks   I think what messes up my progression is that if someone crashes in front of me, I’ll just STOP instead of trying to go around them.  That, and I tend to ride overpowered because I like the feeling.

Things that are/will be happening:

• Core Online Slider Jam at Woodies is underway, might stop by sometime this week.  I don’t particularly rate Woodies as a kiting spot though, for a number of reasons (ie. shells, and the fact that there are three beaches there so it gets pretty segregated and the atmosphere can get a bit tense on beach 3, so I’ve heard)

• Kitestock MMX!!  I’m staying in a house with Chris, Luke, Aleisha, Antman, Rob, Tamlin and Dino.. got a pool and everything, it’s going to be EPIC.

I’ve also got some plans in the making.. like hunting for a fabled secret spot with Rob and Tam (30+ knots, perfect flat water, can only fit 4 kites) and maybe another little kite trip up North in Feb.  Should be good!

Since I know you’re dying to find out, our kites were a Takoon 12m (Erik), Flexifoil Atom ’08 9m (me) and Neutron ’09 9m and 7m (Eric), RRD Obsession 2010 9m (Jan), Best Waroo ’09 11m (Zak) and 7m (Mark).  Mark had an 8 and 12 as well and I think Erik also had a 9m (keep in mind he’s 6’2 and weighs 105kg) but they didn’t use them. Board-wise, the only thing I remember was that Eric had a 136 Dragon (!) and Erik was on a 140 with boots as we were hitting fairly flat water spots.

Jan picked me up from Scarborough on Monday to meet the rest of the boys in Lancelin, where they’d been for a couple of days kiting the waves.  We kited at a spot about 2km down from the kite beach, near the camping ground which was pretty sweet; it was another bay so the wind was either cross-on or onshore depending on where you were on the beach, but if you wanted to maneouvre upwind past the anchored boats and buoy lines there’s a nice wave break on a reef out by an island a couple of kilometres out.  But we all know what happens when I get too near large objects like rocks… I figured the same would happen with a boat in the picture so I decided to take it easy and stick with the flat water closer to shore.

I have a nice afternoon kiting, up and riding both ways pretty easily but I still lose my board a lot, I don’t think my footstraps are small enough.  But at least I can body-drag upwind now pretty well thanks to Chris (never had to do that shit in Wales but apparently it’s mandatory here), but I still lose a lot of ground when recovering my board, so I’m still doing the walk of shame

When I land my kite after a couple of runs I notice that it feels pretty soft, only about half inflated.  The last time I’d pumped it up it was a very hot no-wind day and I’d left it inflated on the beach for a good few hours, sometimes if you pump your kite up crazy hard like I do this can burst the bladder due to the air heating up inside and expanding.  That day when I came to pack up my kite it was pretty much 80% deflated despite the valves still being closed; I got quite a few opinions on why that could have happened, ranging from a slow leak in the bladder to a burst bladder to a faulty valve, but when I pumped it up again straight after that it seemed fine so I didn’t think too much of it.  I just assumed there was a small leak somewhere, but it was still kiteable so I didn’t mind too much.

Monday evening we drive up to Cervantes.  By the time we get there it’s dark and everything is shut, even the petrol stations, so we just set up camp in a lay-by and head off to the beach first thing in the morning.

Cervantes is beautiful.  We get to a spot and I’m not entirely sure we’re on the main kite beach seeing as we’re the only ones around, but the wind is perfect and the water is flat-ish and it’s epic.  So I pump up my kite and do my lines all fired up and ready to go out and I get my harness on and squeeze a strut to make sure it’s still ok aaannnddd…. it’s deflated already.  I turn my kite over and I can hear the leak, high pitched and very annoying; Erik has a look, replaces one bit that’s loose but then we hear another… and it’s no use, it needs to be repaired properly.

Gutted I’m at this amazing spot, dying to go out, and my kite is out of commission.  Eric offers to let me use his 9m Neutron (which he was also on) so I go out for a while, almost run over some kids frolicking in the water with my board (gtfo) but damn, going upwind is EASY in flat water!  The Neutron flies pretty much exactly like my Atom (figures, it’s basically the same kite just newer) but the bar pressure is noticeably lighter, I’m guessing because the bar he’s using is much smaller than mine?

Instead of cutting the trip short and going back Tuesday evening with Zak, Eric convinces me to stay by offering me the use of his 7m, seeing as I already have a Flexi bar I can use with it.  We drive up to Dongara in the afternoon via various beaches and bays that were ok but nothing special and Mark spots a nice flat water spot by the marina about an hour and a half before sunset.  The wind seems pretty light and I’m not convinced I can get up and going on a 7m but we go for it complete with extremely dodgy launches (“ok, I’ll stand under this tree while you launch my kite, and I’ll run forwards as it goes up so the lines don’t get tangled in the branches”).  I was right, however, and the 7m Neutron kept overflying zenith and crashing and the wind was so light it was pretty much impossible to relaunch.  Eric and Jan were ok on their 9s, Mark was ok at first on his 7 but all of them found it difficult to go upwind so we called it a day after about twenty minutes and had a communal outdoor shower before we found a spot to camp.

Wednesday.  Dongara to Geraldton wasn’t that far, it took about an hour and we went straight to a beach called Back Beach which was nuking 30-35 knots, I was aching to go out but that’s 5m weather for me.  The boys wanted to scope out a flat water spot so we drove on, ended up at a spot by the lighthouse called Point Moore.  There were a couple of kiters out already so Eric and Mark pumped up their 7s and decided to give it a go, but soon after they went out a local non-kiter ran up to us and said that one of the others had gotten into trouble out there and he’d called sea rescue!

The guy was alright in the end, didn’t actually have to be rescued, someone thought the kite (think it was an Airush, they’re very popular here) had inverted but he relaunched it in the end, was just carried a bit too far downwind in the process!

Thursday, Christmas Eve, there wasn’t any wind in the morning so we just went swimming/snorkelling and headed back home.  I took my kite down to the shop in Fremantle, SOS Surf, on Monday since I think they’re the only ones that stock Flexifoil.  The quote on the phone was $12 to take out the bladder and have a look, and $1/minute for repairs, so a small tear in the bladder would only cost about $20 to repair.  To replace a valve is $40.

When they had a look at it, however, the damage was a lot more severe than I’d originally thought.  All the valves were screwed, they were just coming off the bladder, and the guy in store, Nick, said that it just wasn’t worth it to replace them all at 40 bucks a pop.  Instead I’m getting a new bladder… gonna cost me about $300 to fix   And why this happened, you ask?  The extreme heat in Western Australia actually MELTS THE GLUE holding the valves to the bladder.  Apparently it can happen if you leave your kite in the car overnight, but I’m pretty sure it all stemmed from that day on the beach when I pumped it up and left it because the wind hadn’t kicked in.

See?  I knew it.  Lack of wind is bad for my bank account.

I should get a job.

About two and a half weeks ago I went to Lancelin for a little weekend getaway, and of course to check out the kiting.  The place is beautiful, as is pretty much everywhere in WA; how can you go wrong with long stretches of white sand,  perfect blue sea, flat water and steady wind?  I thought of all you guys when I was out there on my 9, cruising along, the warm sun shining down on me and the crystal ocean underneath my board.

I should have known it wasn’t going to last.  Let me explain.  See, Lancelin’s kite beach is the peak of a bay, and if the wind is blowing slightly south-easterly (which it was when I got there), the southern part of the beach is cross-on and hence completely kiteable, but if you end up too far downwind past the peak it’s offshore.

Of course, not only did I do exactly that, but as I careened downwind towards the windsurfers I faceplanted and the board came off my feet.  So I decided screw it, can’t see my board, I’ll body drag inshore (through some nasty seaweed, mind) to get a better look.  On the beach I still couldn’t spot my board so I self-landed my kite, and by that time it was hopeless.  My board was gone.  I spent the majority of the weekend trawling beaches hoping that it had washed up somewhere but no such luck, so I stuck up notices in all the shops, but to no avail.

RIP North Dragon 07 138.

So after waiting about a week and a half I gave up and bought a new board, Naish Thorn 08 131.

Second hand again, great condition again, got it for AUD$470 which is about £260 off the seabreeze.com.au listings.  Strange coincidence that I found it because before Rob found the Dragon for really cheap off the flexi forums I was actually going to get the Thorn off ebay for a similar price.

By this time I was gagging for a kite so I went out again the next day as soon as I could and let me tell you, it was a revelation.  The smaller board was so much easier to handle; it’s amazing just how much difference a few inches can make.  I found that with the 138, every time the board came off, which it was wont to do as the footstraps were also slightly too big for me, I found it difficult to recover.  Also it would drag a lot in the water when trying to water start.  The 131 however is just so much easier to maneouvre and hang on to, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise that I lost the Dragon.

I’ve been spending a lot of time at Pinnaroo Point the past week; I’ve been there kiting most days because there’s a great community there and really friendly people and the conditions are good for learning.  The après-kite is also sweet, with sunset drinks on the beach and good banter.  I suppose I’d say that’s my local spot now, but seeing as I still can’t drive I’m reliant on lifts with other people.  Eventually though, my plan is to commute to Pinnaroo with a downwinder from Brighton Beach.  Not a bad start to the day, eh?

Something for Neil:

Something for Adam:

More Pinnaroo pics:

And to finish:

]]> http://aproductofyourmind.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/on-boards/feed/ 3 aproductofyourmind Pinnaroo Point Lancelin Kite Beach New Board http://aproductofyourmind.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/waiting-for-wind/ http://aproductofyourmind.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/waiting-for-wind/#comments Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:12:36 +0000 aproductofyourmind http://aproductofyourmind.wordpress.com/?p=67 ]]> Wind’s been off for the past few days so I’ve just been settling in here instead of kiting.  I suppose it’s nice to know that Ikea’s the same everywhere you go!  It’s 35 degrees today and I wandered down to the beach (5 minutes walking!  At a leisurely pace!) but instead of wind I was greeted with a LOT of bare flesh.

Yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, I met this kiter called Dave who Trav occasionally does downwinders with.  Neil, I remember from ages ago you were talking about making your own kiteboards… well, Dave actually did it.  It is singularly the most amazing thing I’ve seen, ever.  I actually love it.

Yes, it is literally a plank of wood.  With zero flex.  And Airush footstraps pretty much nailed on.  The fins are also plywood.

Oh, and I finally saw a kangaroo!

Some observations from my first 48 hours in Perth:

• There are caution road signs for kangaroos, ducks and turtles.
• They sell triple cheeseburgers here.
• Bus drivers are friendly!  And they will actually stop for you!
• Public transport is efficient!  Side note: they have a “SmartRider” system which is basically an Oyster card, except instead of “touch in, touch out” they say “tag on, tag off” ^^
• Walking around the city centre with a kiteboard only attracts strange looks 15% of the time.
• Opening a bank account and getting health insurance is very easy and straightforward.
• Getting a driver’s license is not.
• EVERYBODY IS NICE.

I went attempted to go kitesurfing today at Pinnaroo Point with my future housemate Trav.

Unlike Llangennith or Pembrey, the beach was pretty small and had deepish water (few steps out and you’re already waist deep) so it was less tiring for water starts but also a bit Tarifa-esque with the crowdedness.  Darren, the guy who runs the school/shop (out the back of a van pretty much) had organised a small course racing event so there were quite a few kiters out on directional boards caining it upwind… and then there was me.  Walking it.

I did my first (really dodgy) self-land today; if you kite past the dunes the wind gets pretty gusty so my 9 lulled, crashed (dunes! not rocks!) and inverted when I tried to sort it out, and then I yanked on one line and my kite sat there quivering for a moment so I legged it forward.. you know the rest.

Wind wasn’t that strong, I think about 15 knots so I was riding with my kite powered up.  Managed to get up a few times, also managed to lose my board a few times and seeing as my upwind body dragging skills are fairly nonexistent considering I’ve never actually had to do it before… it was not good.  There were at least three other girls on the beach too, who seemed pretty good/confident already so at least someone’s defending my gender out there.

It was a little disheartening, but on the bright side, my beaches look like this:

Pinnaroo Point, WA, 20/11/09

instead of this:

Aberavon, South Wales, 15/11/09

And the room I’m renting?  5 mins walk to a kite beach.  Max.

Moral of the story?  COME TO PERTH!

In other news, apparently where I’m staying at the moment there are kangaroos that come out at night and just chill out on the roads!  Also there are millipedes EVERYWHERE.  They are really creepy.