So I've been keeping an eye on the weather - the way you do - and the forecast said the afternoon will be rocking. All afternoon. Thus one PM found me making my way to Locus ...
"Ah, this morning was great! We were all on our smallest kites! And the wind was silky smooth!" says everyone. Great, weather report was off again ...
Oh well, it looks ok now - but what is the wind going to do? Tough decision ... and everyone's telling me it's going to be windy ... but the waves are small and those on 12's and smaller look underpowered - I go for my 16 with the 13 handy just in case.
Well. I get out on one tack on the Flyradical but I'm underpowered so I go back for the Flydoor - then the wind totally dies. First time I've had to carry a kite on a Walk of Shame :o
Waiting, waiting ... hmm, I may as well unroll the Speed3 21 and check that I haven't tangled shit up while I was fixing the bridle lines the other day. Joy, I did a good job - even got the lines around the right way. Still pulling on that part of the kite though - that's annoying. Wonder why ...
Oh hey, the wind is picking up ... is it worth the effort? Why not! I prefill and launch and jump into the water - yeah! We're rockin'!
At first I'm comfy-powered and play with rotations some, keeping away from the far end of the beach cos I'm paranoid of the wind dropping like it did just before and leaving me to swim in for a third time ... but I kept an eye upwind on the white caps and didn't push my luck.
I did drop the kite once though, and it taco'd and had me worried cos it took a bit of time to relaunch it ... the wind was light at that time so it didn't really pop straight back up like it usually does. Got it in the end though!
As the wind reached its peak, I was throwing down some good jumps - got some well timed sends with kickers off the 'waves' too. Man, I'm giving up a lot of ground downwind though - scary amount really; more than once I fly further than I thought and had to make some emergency moves to stop riding into or wrapping people up in my kites and lines. I nearly collected Hironobu but he just laughed and smiled at me like a loon.
But all good things must come to an end, and the wind eventually started to drop again. Soon I was the only one riding upwind, then the only one riding and although I couldn't help myself, jumping was losing me too much ground downwind to get upwind enough on the remaining part of the tack. So I went back to shore and waited ...
The wind never came back so I packed up, glad to have had a good successful session on the 21 and to have tested my bridle replacement!
Mood was annoyed amped relieved.
Moment of the Day was landing and riding away from the really big jumps - and having someone notice and comment :)
Weather was recorded as 6 to 10 knots at 17°C 80% with gusts to 14 knots. Maybe - the good bit would have been at least 10 to 15 knots ...
Wind felt like I was on the verge of being over-powered ... I was having mad fun but if the peaks had become the average I would have changed kites.
What I learned today ...
• We seem to be into that season where the forecast doesn't match the wind, and the wind comes and goes in waves. As it were ...
• You can make ground upwind even if you cut your tack short so you don't get stuck with a long crappy swim, should the worst happen. Again.
• I've lost a bit of confidence in the Speed3 21 - or maybe just have a less blase attitude toward it and light wind. Which is probably a good thing.
• S3 21 still delivers the goods for light wind power, lo-ooong hangtime and - when you time it right - frickin' big jumps!
• The group from Fukui had no clue about water etiquette - even simple things like raising or lowering their kites when passing :o
• Timing is king with the big kite - you have to pay a lot more attention to what it's doing to survive the jumps and landings!
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