One hot minute

Sunday, possibly some ridable wind predicted at this page - http://weather-gpv.info/ - which is the most accurate weather forecast so far ... and no good for you gringos who no speak-ee the Japanese-ee. The only kanji I know on the whole page are the ones in the drop-down menu for this region and the one for wind, which is enough ...

Played on the beach waiting for the wind to pick up around 3pm. Pulled out the GoPro and mounted it on the Kite Hero line mount ... not 100% impressed how the FDS line fits there - hope we don't have to bail! Otherwise it fits good - should be perfect on the 4-line kites eg. Synergy.

Lots of work for little riding. Submarined the board all the way down the beach, or water-started then fell back in. Walked for miles. Feet and ankles got cut up, probably infected by all the dead fish floating around.

Finally!
Got about 30 minutes worth of powered-up, upwind riding in! It sort of all came at once and I was off like a rocket!
Thanks to a video I saw on James' Blog that gave a riders view of timing a sliding turn, I had a crack at that - success! Pretty surprised, the first one was too easy. Fail rate of about 2 in 10 but when I get it right, it was all good!

Had my Spleene Door 154x42 at the beach cos I wanted to compare it as a light-wind board versus my Square One, so while the wind was up I dropped the Airush and grabbed the Spleene.

2005 Airush Square One versus 2007 Spleene Door 154 ...
The Square One floats better when there isn't enough oomph to plane quickly - the Door dives like a sub if I'm not thinking about keeping the nose up.
Need to shoot the leg out a bit more on starts - the Square One has let me get lazy, I guess.
Molded foot-pads on the Door are hard to get into and the straps cut into my foot a bit. They're way new though and probably still stiff. Very comfy for the heels, though.
They seem to get up planing about the same, the Square One a little earlier maybe but once the Door is off, it's f-a-s-t!
Door is the best for going upwind - much easier to do but seems to be more technical to control the speed and harder to edge. Did I say it was fast? Cos it's fast. Real fast.
Less splash in the face from between my legs on the Door.
The Door's ride overall is smoother but I'm betting that's cos of the foot pads - the Square One has nothing! Also feels more like it's on rails when edging. And it's fast.

Then the wind dropped off and I'm back to water-starting my way down the beach and walking again :(

Got home and checked out the GoPro and it seems I ran out of memory card before the wind arrived, so it'll make for a small upload with a LOT of editing! Soon ...
Was interesting that 8Gb SD card was filled before running out of battery - might be worth getting a 16Gb.

So, to sum up ...
Got some footage of me riding and tested the Kite Hero mount. Got to test the Door against the Square One. Taught myself sliding turns ... erm oh was that it?