Forecast for today was less than yesterday, but the fronts weren't rolling through, so I was betting that the wind would be more stable. Loaded up the car and headed down at 1pm.
The course racing kooks were at it again, and the carpark was crowded, the beach was crowded, the water was... you get the picture. Junkie Sensei and I stood around looking at the far banks of the lake, humming and harring. He decided on his 9, I decided on my Xbow 13. I had my 16 with me too but when the blow-line arrived, I thought it wouldn't be needed so when I went back to the car to change and get my boards, I brought my 10 with me...
Laid out my lines to set up and go to launch but - the Flysurfer distributor has laid his lines out over the top of mine. Derp. And not the last time today he'll annoy me - he turns in front of me hard, without looking behind him and nearly wears my kite. Good thing I was watching him... kook.
At first, the 13 is great and I switch to the Flyradical and have some fun. The wind dies off again so I'm back on the Flydoor. So continues the theme for the day, repeating 3 times until...
Must be about 4pm - big front comes through and it's all on like Donkey Kong! I'm over-powered on the 13 and have to trim it a bit, and it's gusty and punchy, but I'm having great fun, boosting as big as I can and - best of all - I'm landing all but maybe one or two! As the wind starts to stabilize, it drops off a bit and while I'm getting some great boosts, the wind drops off while I'm up and I get plonked a few times.
After maybe 30 minutes or more, the wind finally falls away consistently but I'm weary and a bit cold so I call it a day. And what a great day it was!!!
Poor old Flysurfer Guy had another kitemare - dunno what happened yet but when I left the beach, he was unpacking a Pulse 2 and when I looked back a few minutes later, it was wrapped around the top of a tree :o
The Mistress of Disaster is obviously feeling threatened by ability to ride upwind when she can't, land big jumps and do back-rolls - she had the bloody cheek to ask if I'd put weight on. Shame my Japanese isn't good enough to say "Actually, bitch, I gone down 2 sizes in pants. You, however, look like you need a bigger harness and wetsuit." Oh ok - I can say that in Japanese but I'm just too polite.
Moment of the Day was surviving the gusts and boosting huge and riding away with feather-soft landings!
Weather was reported as 8 knots falling to 4, back up to 16 then dropping to 10 with peak gusts of 24 knots; about 8°C at 68%.
What I learned today...
• Why people like fast kites.
• It cos when you do jumps and stuff, you can use the kite to rescue your cock-ups with timing, sending etc.
• And it's easier to control what's actually happening.
• Everyone is someone else's kook.
• Freakin' course racing numpties riding downwind through the middle of everyone else trying to tack, flailing around in the launch zone trying to get on a plane, dropping kites while trying to man-handle their gigantic boards, not giving way and pushing through the riding pattern... dicks.
• Ok so I can handle more power with the Crossbow 13... but on flat water. With the big chop and waves and whatnot on the lake, you bounce around so much that you can't edge up against the kite and drive it to the edge...
• Glad I didn't have my S3 21 out!
• S3 15 wouldn't have been totally mental!
• Started playing with using the kite to 'pull' me out of backrolls... mixed results.
• Sometimes it's just fun to edge up a kicker-wave not so hard, send the kite back and rotate around to downwind :D
• And some other times it's fun to ride in fast, edge up hard and send the kite - BIIIIIIIIG jumps!!!
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