Looked like enough wind to try a ride on the web cam, so I trotted down to the beach.
Got talking to Miyachi and it turns out that all the Naish gear at the club has been sent by Naish Japan to Locus so that the club is a Naish demo place. This includes Parks, Chargers and 3 2012 Venturi's ... so while Miyachi was setting up the biggest one for me, I went to the beach ...
No riding but I also had my anemometer with me so I have some data at least ...
Moment of the Day was getting the biggest Venturi set up just for me!
Wind speed was recorded as 4 to 6 knots. I concur.
What I learned today ...
• The Speed 2.5 Silver Arrow will fly in 1 to 2 knots but you have to work it. Basically, if you can feel the wind, the kite will fly.
• At 4 to 6 knots (solid average of 5 knots) you can get up on a plane but will lose it as you have to turn the kite to re-stroke. I'm thinking a high volume board with float will keep you rolling and let you build up apparent wind ... hence me bugging Miyachi about Venturi.
• That leads me to conclude that at 8 knots I can be riding downwind and by 10 knots holding a beam reach easily, probably going upwind. That my fat ass on the Flydoor XL.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
A little bit of ...
... wind.
... riding.
... walking.
... back loops.
... front loops.
... little jumps - very little.
... back roll transitions.
Huzzah for the Speed2 19!
Moment of the Day was nailing a perfect front roll.
Wind speed was recorded as 4 to 6 knots with gusts to 12. I reckon it was about 8 knots on average; I spent a lot of time working hard to get upwind and even then had to walk. The only people going upwind were the tiny men on giant directionals and the guy on the race board.
What I learned today ...
• Front rolls - you need a good jump and you need to launch vertically and you need to really stomp and jump off the back foot.
• Mind you, same goes for all jumps on the foil. I really lost my mojo lately for just regular jumps.
... riding.
... walking.
... back loops.
... front loops.
... little jumps - very little.
... back roll transitions.
Huzzah for the Speed2 19!
Moment of the Day was nailing a perfect front roll.
Wind speed was recorded as 4 to 6 knots with gusts to 12. I reckon it was about 8 knots on average; I spent a lot of time working hard to get upwind and even then had to walk. The only people going upwind were the tiny men on giant directionals and the guy on the race board.
What I learned today ...
• Front rolls - you need a good jump and you need to launch vertically and you need to really stomp and jump off the back foot.
• Mind you, same goes for all jumps on the foil. I really lost my mojo lately for just regular jumps.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Why did I bother?
Cos I couldn't possibly know till after the fact.
Went to the lake for the 2pm fun fest of 12 to 16 knots. Got something.
Put up the 16m Xbow. The wind was blowing but it wasn't pushing.
Put up the Speed2 19. Still not enough wind then HOLY CRAP gusty slam invert yoink splash give up.
Got back on the Xbow. A little better but not much - no jumping fun, took all my effort just to get riding.
Wind drops off. Think about putting up the Speed2 again - already packed it up once though.
Wind comes back so I go back out. It's better for a short while and I'm starting to have fun when suddenly I'm over-powered on the Flydoor, so I grab the 'radical but I'm not loving that cos it just sprays in my face non-stop. I go back to grab the Flydoor as the sun is starting to set and get skunked. Can't relaunch the fucking 'bow and now my lines are caught in water weeds underwater so that's fucked.
Wade to shore, now the kite is soggy and covered in sand and my lines are a bunch of knots. It's getting dark, I'm getting bitten by mosquitos ... why did I bother today? I got no satisfaction at all :(
Moment of the Day was the beer when I got home.
Wind speed was recorded as 10 to 14 knots with gust over 20 ... and shifted from NE to NW. Crappy.
What I learned today ...
• LEI can still get soggy and be useless.
• You can recover and inverted Speed2. Thank god.
• Front rolls - still hard.
• Back rolls - dialed in ... maybe. Easier with the 'bows on the redirects that's for sure.
• I'm starting to hate the Flyradical - going to change the footpads around and see if that helps :(
Put up the 16m Xbow. The wind was blowing but it wasn't pushing.
Put up the Speed2 19. Still not enough wind then HOLY CRAP gusty slam invert yoink splash give up.
Got back on the Xbow. A little better but not much - no jumping fun, took all my effort just to get riding.
Wind drops off. Think about putting up the Speed2 again - already packed it up once though.
Wind comes back so I go back out. It's better for a short while and I'm starting to have fun when suddenly I'm over-powered on the Flydoor, so I grab the 'radical but I'm not loving that cos it just sprays in my face non-stop. I go back to grab the Flydoor as the sun is starting to set and get skunked. Can't relaunch the fucking 'bow and now my lines are caught in water weeds underwater so that's fucked.
Wade to shore, now the kite is soggy and covered in sand and my lines are a bunch of knots. It's getting dark, I'm getting bitten by mosquitos ... why did I bother today? I got no satisfaction at all :(
Moment of the Day was the beer when I got home.
Wind speed was recorded as 10 to 14 knots with gust over 20 ... and shifted from NE to NW. Crappy.
What I learned today ...
• LEI can still get soggy and be useless.
• You can recover and inverted Speed2. Thank god.
• Front rolls - still hard.
• Back rolls - dialed in ... maybe. Easier with the 'bows on the redirects that's for sure.
• I'm starting to hate the Flyradical - going to change the footpads around and see if that helps :(
Monday, August 15, 2011
DIY - this time, QR and CL
Thought I could add the Switch QR/CL to the PL Navigator bars ... a mixed bag of results. Here's why ...
• The QR/CL uses the same double depower rope and safety through the center - that all works fine, plugs'n'plays no worries.
• The PL CL has a larger diameter hole (7 or 8mm versus 5mm) through the body to cope with the heat-shrink that covers the line where the thicker safety joins the thinner safety - that gets stuck at the hole to the Switch QR body. I cut the heat-shrink off and it glides through fine ... the stitching could probably be improved with some whipping if necessary. I tried to drill the hole out - I got it out to 5.5mm but then my drill bits were melting and the tube was deforming :o
• Solution to the hole problem : drill it out (meh) or replace the entire safety line with the 3mm Amsteel. Which makes me wonder why they didn't do that in the first place ...? The only issue I see of NOT drilling it out, is if you go for a shortened V setup - it may not get through easy :(
http://switchkites.com/warehouse_comp/product_info.php?cPath=28&products_id=67
Oh I've just noticed that they've dropped the Complete QR from their parts page ... so basically, all this is moot. Sucky.
EDIT : back up. Great!
I'll try the whole thing out on a light wind day, anyway. So there you have it. And here are the pics ...
• Solution to the hole problem : drill it out (meh) or replace the entire safety line with the 3mm Amsteel. Which makes me wonder why they didn't do that in the first place ...? The only issue I see of NOT drilling it out, is if you go for a shortened V setup - it may not get through easy :(
http://switchkites.com/warehouse_comp/product_info.php?cPath=28&products_id=67
Oh I've just noticed that they've dropped the Complete QR from their parts page ... so basically, all this is moot. Sucky.
EDIT : back up. Great!
I'll try the whole thing out on a light wind day, anyway. So there you have it. And here are the pics ...
Switch QR/CL
Peter Lynn Navigator QR/CL
The tricky bits ... pull the cam cleat out of the sock, note that the depower line is finished with a square-knot and sheep-shanked to the cleat and that the stopper ball is knotted with a bow-line. Easy o_0
Then undo the square-knot and feed it all out.
Then undo the square-knot and feed it all out.
Loop the depower line around the swivel in the Switch QR/CL then reassemble. Note the order. And note that the stopping slider block in default configuration has the holes closer together at the bar end ... make sure to get the square-knot and sheep-shank tight and compact.
Finished!
UPDATE
After a bout of paranoia, I went back to the PL chicken loop - the hole through the Switch QR just wasn't big enough and required removal of the heat shrink covering the stitched loops of the safety line to fit through. Which got me worried about wear on the ends ... I should probably find a way to nicely splice them into each other.
In the interim, I've decided that I need to either drill the hole out PROPERLY with a drill press and some lube before I attempt it again.
Also, I've realized that the somewhat bulky and messy (IMHO) cam cleat could be replaced with the Switch "Regulator" and offer adjustable depower throw and trim range :D
... a project for the coming winter ;)
Friday, August 12, 2011
Cabrinha demo day
Again the forecast didn't promise much but the lake delivered much better. Headed down about 2pm I think, jumped onto the water with the Silberpfeil ... not much wind, fighting to hold my ground and doing even a single roll lost too much downwind for a while. Eventually, the wind picked up to the point where the SA was too much.
Packed it up and stood around hoping to get out with the Cabrinha kites. The 'salesmen' weren't too friendly, and didn't seem interested in talking to people off their own bat - I thought if you're trying to sell a couple grands worth of fabric, you'd be kissing customer ass, not trying to get them to kiss yours ...? Also, note to Cabrinha - you should probably employ people who know the difference between front and rear lines or are at least smart enough to keep their mouths shut instead of trying to be the BMOC around my Flysurfer. Especially, when they can't even relaunch their own kites :o
Thanks to Miyachi and the wife hassling them, I finally got a go on the 2012 Switchblade 14. And then the Crossbow 13 LightWind and finally, the Vector 12 ... here are some thoughts.
• Like the new bar - looks tight. Didn't bother playing with the QR cos daylight was fading ...
• I don't get why everyone at our beach & almost every other kiter with Cabs has Switchblades, except for a few Converts and Nomads and that one other guy in Mie with the Xbow ... the sheeting bar-pressure was as bad as my Xbow 16 (which isn't as bad as the Speed2 19 ...?!? ) and it wasn't that powerful. Didn't really improve much when it was worked. It did turn about it's own axis though, and relaunched the same off the water - dead easy.
• The XB 13 LW on the other hand was lovely - just like mine ;) maybe felt a tad smoother but that might have been just coming from the SB. Much easier to get bigger and longer jumps ...
• the Vector 12 was a surprise - very fast kite ... like, once you let it accelerate in a given direction, it was off like a freakin' rocket! Bit of canopy flutter when redirecting jumps ... the whole thing reminded me of a Charger with less bar pressure. Nice kite, I liked it.
Pretty good, the wind picked up nicely and despite having to chase some guy out from under where I was trying to land the SA2 when over-powered, it was fun. I'm going to be wrecked tomorrow though, my arms are already killing me! The wife had even come down to watch for a while too ...
Got back to the car ... huh, the door is locked I could swear I left my keys in there. Searched the beach, the lake ... nothing. Called the wife, she came back after she'd finished work at 8pm and guess what - she'd left a chocolate goodie on the seat and then locked my door with her keys - sealing mine inside. Doh.
Moment of the Day was busting front and back rolls with no problems at all! Success rate now up to 75% :D
Wind speed was recorded as 8 to 12 knots with a peak of 15 ... hmm, seemed like more than that! I would have guess 20knots in the afternoon ...!
What I learned today ...
• You really gotta explode off the back foot for front rolls - and keep your foot in the strap >_O a few times, the board went whipping around only attached to one foot. Not fun.
• The faster turning foils are ... interesting ... for rotations. I had less success with them in general, but more success with riding away from the good ones as the kite redirects much quicker. There was one time that I pendulumed under the kite as it went from one side of the wind to the other - I like that fine when I'm trying to do BFJ but when I'm spinning under the kite - yikes!
Packed it up and stood around hoping to get out with the Cabrinha kites. The 'salesmen' weren't too friendly, and didn't seem interested in talking to people off their own bat - I thought if you're trying to sell a couple grands worth of fabric, you'd be kissing customer ass, not trying to get them to kiss yours ...? Also, note to Cabrinha - you should probably employ people who know the difference between front and rear lines or are at least smart enough to keep their mouths shut instead of trying to be the BMOC around my Flysurfer. Especially, when they can't even relaunch their own kites :o
Thanks to Miyachi and the wife hassling them, I finally got a go on the 2012 Switchblade 14. And then the Crossbow 13 LightWind and finally, the Vector 12 ... here are some thoughts.
• Like the new bar - looks tight. Didn't bother playing with the QR cos daylight was fading ...
• I don't get why everyone at our beach & almost every other kiter with Cabs has Switchblades, except for a few Converts and Nomads and that one other guy in Mie with the Xbow ... the sheeting bar-pressure was as bad as my Xbow 16 (which isn't as bad as the Speed2 19 ...?!? ) and it wasn't that powerful. Didn't really improve much when it was worked. It did turn about it's own axis though, and relaunched the same off the water - dead easy.
• The XB 13 LW on the other hand was lovely - just like mine ;) maybe felt a tad smoother but that might have been just coming from the SB. Much easier to get bigger and longer jumps ...
• the Vector 12 was a surprise - very fast kite ... like, once you let it accelerate in a given direction, it was off like a freakin' rocket! Bit of canopy flutter when redirecting jumps ... the whole thing reminded me of a Charger with less bar pressure. Nice kite, I liked it.
Pretty good, the wind picked up nicely and despite having to chase some guy out from under where I was trying to land the SA2 when over-powered, it was fun. I'm going to be wrecked tomorrow though, my arms are already killing me! The wife had even come down to watch for a while too ...
Got back to the car ... huh, the door is locked I could swear I left my keys in there. Searched the beach, the lake ... nothing. Called the wife, she came back after she'd finished work at 8pm and guess what - she'd left a chocolate goodie on the seat and then locked my door with her keys - sealing mine inside. Doh.
Moment of the Day was busting front and back rolls with no problems at all! Success rate now up to 75% :D
Wind speed was recorded as 8 to 12 knots with a peak of 15 ... hmm, seemed like more than that! I would have guess 20knots in the afternoon ...!
What I learned today ...
• You really gotta explode off the back foot for front rolls - and keep your foot in the strap >_O a few times, the board went whipping around only attached to one foot. Not fun.
• The faster turning foils are ... interesting ... for rotations. I had less success with them in general, but more success with riding away from the good ones as the kite redirects much quicker. There was one time that I pendulumed under the kite as it went from one side of the wind to the other - I like that fine when I'm trying to do BFJ but when I'm spinning under the kite - yikes!
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Taking a spin in the light wind
Damned blogger has lost my entire post :( not impressed again.
In summary ...
Went to lake at 1pm. Played with Charger 19 for an hour - good kite, launched with less than full inflation fairly easily, flies nice in light wind so long as it's moving.
Wind picks up, ride with the Silberpfeil.
Chase off a jet-ski asshole from the swimming area.
Not enough wind to make the big jumps, I see Uncle Pyro doing back rolls so I decide to give rotations a go too.
Start with spinning under the kite during transitions - easy enough. Try with bigger and bigger jumps until I'm either landing or getting close to landing.
Big fun!
Pack up after sunset. Wife was worried cos it was so late.
Moment of the Day was landing my first back roll! The one that felt totally under control, smooth and that I rode away from easily!
Wind speed was recorded as 5 knots when I had the Charger up, 6 knots when I first put up the Silberpfeil and 7 to 14 knots when I was riding with a gust of 20 knots around 3pm. That all seems to fit nicely ...
What I learned today ...
• When going for the BFJs, get your knees up and your weight back - it seems to just point you right at the kite making it VERY easy to control the ride ...!
• Rotations aren't too hard - you have to commit to a solid jump/pop and rotation though. All this was done with the Flydoor - maybe the 'radical will be easier ...?
• SA is nice and slow so doesn't spank me when I mess up the handling ... but so much lift, THAT gives you time to spin around.
In summary ...
Went to lake at 1pm. Played with Charger 19 for an hour - good kite, launched with less than full inflation fairly easily, flies nice in light wind so long as it's moving.
Wind picks up, ride with the Silberpfeil.
Chase off a jet-ski asshole from the swimming area.
Not enough wind to make the big jumps, I see Uncle Pyro doing back rolls so I decide to give rotations a go too.
Start with spinning under the kite during transitions - easy enough. Try with bigger and bigger jumps until I'm either landing or getting close to landing.
Big fun!
Pack up after sunset. Wife was worried cos it was so late.
Moment of the Day was landing my first back roll! The one that felt totally under control, smooth and that I rode away from easily!
Wind speed was recorded as 5 knots when I had the Charger up, 6 knots when I first put up the Silberpfeil and 7 to 14 knots when I was riding with a gust of 20 knots around 3pm. That all seems to fit nicely ...
What I learned today ...
• When going for the BFJs, get your knees up and your weight back - it seems to just point you right at the kite making it VERY easy to control the ride ...!
• Rotations aren't too hard - you have to commit to a solid jump/pop and rotation though. All this was done with the Flydoor - maybe the 'radical will be easier ...?
• SA is nice and slow so doesn't spank me when I mess up the handling ... but so much lift, THAT gives you time to spin around.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Sunset Silberpfeil Special Session
Looked like a viable light wind afternoon from 1pm till dark on the interweb's forecast so I trotted off to the lake. Got there about 2pm and sat around, had a swim for an hour cos there was no wind. About 4pm I decided to try anyway so set up the Silberpfeil and got in the water ...
Working it downwind, walking back up the beach. I think I did 3 times ... on the last tack out and during the walk back up the beach, I watched Junkie-Sensei unpack a brand new Slingshot Turbine 17m and had jump in the water just before I started going back out. He was making ground upwind so I had high hopes :)
Yes! Upwind finally! I'm parked and flying but Junkie-Sensei is still working the Turbine a little ... seems to me like the big T is very close to the bottom end of the Speed2 19 but the Silberpfeil is still Uber Alles!
So proceeds the afternoon ... I honk about on the SA throwing down my jumps and trying to make ground back upwind. It was tough for a while, the wind was only just ... picked up for a bit towards the end and I was able to easily make ground but ... would lose it all in the jumps :D
Fucking powered paraglider moron - comes down to buzz the beach like they often do. Ok buzz the beach at about 50m up. Must have given him a scare on one of my jumps cos when I looked up at the kite, the PPG was making evasive maneuvers up there to avoid the Silberpfeil. Idiot.
Had reset the front lines to include a bunch of backstall, but was riding around with the kite trimmed a little ... seemed to need it right down at the low end ... hmm. No issues with it, only remember once muffing a turn and having the kite float on me, but grabbing the leader line sorted it out. North Rebel and LF Havoc both went down, unable to relaunch and had to swim for it. Miyachi had trouble relaunching his new 14m RPM too.
Got darker and darker, the YMCA kids came out for a campfire at the other end of the beach, so I showed off to them for a bit before calling it a day and packing up just on dark. Wife was a bit stressed because I hadn't checked it ... but I was having too much fun!
Moment of the Day was a brown pantser - coming back into shore for the last time, thought I'd throw a little jump within a line's length of the beach ... and it turned into a monster boost with a lot of downwind drift 0_o I redirected the kite and edged up thinking I was going to get pulled into the shore - again - but managed to stop within a meter of the beach. Never again :D
Wind speed was recorded as 3.2 to 5.1m/s (6 to 10 knots) from 4 to 7pm, with a peak gust of 8.1m/s at 5. Another wind site recorded 7m/s ... it felt like 10 to 14 knots to me, mostly on the low end of that - I was parked'n'riding but working hard to get upwind and losing a lot when I jumped.
What I learned today ...
• In the build-up to the jump ... with the Speed - dunno about my other kites yet - it's better to load your edge then launch off both feet rather than try a load'n'pop. Much more of a slingshot effect up and out!
• Don't boost jumps close to the shore cos you'll scare yourself when (thank you Mr. Murphy) you get more float than you expected and drift at the shore.
• It's amazing the contortions you'll put yourself through to land a jump and not dunk your Flysurfer :D
Working it downwind, walking back up the beach. I think I did 3 times ... on the last tack out and during the walk back up the beach, I watched Junkie-Sensei unpack a brand new Slingshot Turbine 17m and had jump in the water just before I started going back out. He was making ground upwind so I had high hopes :)
Yes! Upwind finally! I'm parked and flying but Junkie-Sensei is still working the Turbine a little ... seems to me like the big T is very close to the bottom end of the Speed2 19 but the Silberpfeil is still Uber Alles!
So proceeds the afternoon ... I honk about on the SA throwing down my jumps and trying to make ground back upwind. It was tough for a while, the wind was only just ... picked up for a bit towards the end and I was able to easily make ground but ... would lose it all in the jumps :D
Fucking powered paraglider moron - comes down to buzz the beach like they often do. Ok buzz the beach at about 50m up. Must have given him a scare on one of my jumps cos when I looked up at the kite, the PPG was making evasive maneuvers up there to avoid the Silberpfeil. Idiot.
Had reset the front lines to include a bunch of backstall, but was riding around with the kite trimmed a little ... seemed to need it right down at the low end ... hmm. No issues with it, only remember once muffing a turn and having the kite float on me, but grabbing the leader line sorted it out. North Rebel and LF Havoc both went down, unable to relaunch and had to swim for it. Miyachi had trouble relaunching his new 14m RPM too.
Got darker and darker, the YMCA kids came out for a campfire at the other end of the beach, so I showed off to them for a bit before calling it a day and packing up just on dark. Wife was a bit stressed because I hadn't checked it ... but I was having too much fun!
Moment of the Day was a brown pantser - coming back into shore for the last time, thought I'd throw a little jump within a line's length of the beach ... and it turned into a monster boost with a lot of downwind drift 0_o I redirected the kite and edged up thinking I was going to get pulled into the shore - again - but managed to stop within a meter of the beach. Never again :D
Wind speed was recorded as 3.2 to 5.1m/s (6 to 10 knots) from 4 to 7pm, with a peak gust of 8.1m/s at 5. Another wind site recorded 7m/s ... it felt like 10 to 14 knots to me, mostly on the low end of that - I was parked'n'riding but working hard to get upwind and losing a lot when I jumped.
What I learned today ...
• In the build-up to the jump ... with the Speed - dunno about my other kites yet - it's better to load your edge then launch off both feet rather than try a load'n'pop. Much more of a slingshot effect up and out!
• Don't boost jumps close to the shore cos you'll scare yourself when (thank you Mr. Murphy) you get more float than you expected and drift at the shore.
• It's amazing the contortions you'll put yourself through to land a jump and not dunk your Flysurfer :D
Friday, August 5, 2011
Machiya and Me
Wind looked ok on the forecast and I decided to drive over and brave the rain that might be lurking around - according to the forecast, but not according to the web cam ... arrived about 1pm to clear skies and 20knots. It's supposed to drop off though ...
... so I rig the 13m Crossbow and jump onto the water with the other 3 kiters. Quiet day at the ocean!
At first, I'm nicely powered and having a good time but the wind IS dropping and it's getting harder to boost decent air at all. I'm still able to go upwind ... just. Spend a good time riding around, enjoying the sun, water and waves.
After about 2 hours, the weather makes like it's going to pack in, so I think about packing it in. My back is starting to hurt - being unable to lean against the kite means the harsh impacts from the chop is going straight up my spine.
Moment of the Day is again, drifting across the peak of two waves with my ass just scraping the tops.
Wind speed was recorded as 8.4m/s from 1pm. I got my 16 knots and that felt pretty close to the average ... which means, the 13 is only fun from 20knots on the ocean. Yikes!
What I learned today ...
• Spinning around under a kite, facing back the way you came from - I had a lot of problems with that a while back, and I did it a few times again today. Seems it's the result of improper load and carving upwind and/or bringing the kite down too soon and/or not aggressively enough, letting it pull to the edge of the window.
• Suicide on the Cab bar still pulls a lot - accidentally unhooked after a big prang. Got yoinked downwind.
• You CAN land the Xbow by pulling the front lines, but it'll bobble off downwind a bit - watch out!
• Should've gone with the 16m.
... so I rig the 13m Crossbow and jump onto the water with the other 3 kiters. Quiet day at the ocean!
At first, I'm nicely powered and having a good time but the wind IS dropping and it's getting harder to boost decent air at all. I'm still able to go upwind ... just. Spend a good time riding around, enjoying the sun, water and waves.
After about 2 hours, the weather makes like it's going to pack in, so I think about packing it in. My back is starting to hurt - being unable to lean against the kite means the harsh impacts from the chop is going straight up my spine.
Moment of the Day is again, drifting across the peak of two waves with my ass just scraping the tops.
Wind speed was recorded as 8.4m/s from 1pm. I got my 16 knots and that felt pretty close to the average ... which means, the 13 is only fun from 20knots on the ocean. Yikes!
What I learned today ...
• Spinning around under a kite, facing back the way you came from - I had a lot of problems with that a while back, and I did it a few times again today. Seems it's the result of improper load and carving upwind and/or bringing the kite down too soon and/or not aggressively enough, letting it pull to the edge of the window.
• Suicide on the Cab bar still pulls a lot - accidentally unhooked after a big prang. Got yoinked downwind.
• You CAN land the Xbow by pulling the front lines, but it'll bobble off downwind a bit - watch out!
• Should've gone with the 16m.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Southerlies at Mie again
Good looking forecast so we loaded up the car and the wife and I went to Mie - southerlies and salt-water!
Slather myself in sunblock before we leave in the hope that the extra time soaking in will protect me :D load up the car - 2 Flyboards, 1 Silbpfeil and 2 Crossbows. Onward!
Arrive about 1:30pm and the wind looks good! HUGE turn-out! I count 22 kites in the air, on the water and more setting up! The tide is right out and towards the university, a sand bar has created a second beach ... never seen that before. Mind you, I've never seen twenty kites at one spot before either :o
Measured the wind ... 6-ish, gusting regular to 9m/s - 12 to 18 knots. Hmm, tough call - I decide to go with the 16m Crossbow and damn my girly fingers! Lots of sizes out, from 15 to 9 ... TT's and directionals ...
Set up, struggle to find space on the beach. Hook up the GoPro for a change. In the air, into the water! No worries. Nicely powered, good choice ... so far. The big 'bow is slow though and I blow jumps non-stop. Chop seems bad but I get used to it after a couple of hours. There's a nice calm patch of water down one end of the beach - good for proper flat-water load'n'pop to jumps but watch out for the Surf Life Saving swimmer festival thingy.
Have some fun with transitions, 'wave riding' ho ho ho, jumping and water starts - finally getting the "board-is-behind-me-but-I-send-the-kite-and-pop-out-and-ride-away" nailed and the wife got one on video! I'm showing off for the camera - or trying to - so there's good entertainment value in the wipe-outs. After about 90 minutes, I slam a good one and the GoPro comes off the lines. Ride in and try to sort it out on the beach but my lines get tangled around boards that people have dumped all over the beach >:( decide to give the GoPro to the wife, have a drink then go back out.
Wind has steadily picked up during the day and I'm starting to feel over-powered. I'm also getting tired, so my pops are weak and I'm getting spanked cos I can't put the effort into controlling things. Then the wind picks up more and I'm getting lofted from just sheeting in ... I decide to call it a day. I'm one of the last on the water anyway ;) pity, cos I was finally getting in the groove dealing with the chop - either that or the wind was blowing it flat.
Come in, pack up and a local goes out on a 2011 Crossbow 13 ... I get my anemometer from the car - constant 10m/s gusting to 15! No wonder I was over-powered! Glad I made the effort to go, even though I felt a bit wrecked and burned from the day or so before.
Moment of the Day was losing my hat then finding it a half hour later ... only to lose it again!
Wind speed was recorded as 7.0 to 9.9 m/s, with a peak gust of 13.4m/s at 5pm, just after I packed it in. I was recording up to 15.4 at that time ...
What I learned today ...
• Rubbing sunblock into your hair WILL protect your scalp - I lost my hat but didn't get burned. Best to lay down a nice thick base before you head out too ...
• 'Drying' out the GoPro in the car's air con is the recipe for fog-free recording - at least on the line mount.
• No matter how steady, secure and free-moving the tripod, Cameraman O can still make it look like it was operated by a palsied drunk in an earthquake. Crikey.
• It's time to try rotations. Body made some attempts but brain aborted before the launch.
• 16m isn't as bad as I thought it was - maybe I was just out of shape. Hands hurt and have callouses though ...!
• Sharks - still awesome!
• Jumps go better if you're facing the direction you're going ... just be aware of the kite position, don't let it get too far behind you.
Slather myself in sunblock before we leave in the hope that the extra time soaking in will protect me :D load up the car - 2 Flyboards, 1 Silbpfeil and 2 Crossbows. Onward!
Arrive about 1:30pm and the wind looks good! HUGE turn-out! I count 22 kites in the air, on the water and more setting up! The tide is right out and towards the university, a sand bar has created a second beach ... never seen that before. Mind you, I've never seen twenty kites at one spot before either :o
Measured the wind ... 6-ish, gusting regular to 9m/s - 12 to 18 knots. Hmm, tough call - I decide to go with the 16m Crossbow and damn my girly fingers! Lots of sizes out, from 15 to 9 ... TT's and directionals ...
Set up, struggle to find space on the beach. Hook up the GoPro for a change. In the air, into the water! No worries. Nicely powered, good choice ... so far. The big 'bow is slow though and I blow jumps non-stop. Chop seems bad but I get used to it after a couple of hours. There's a nice calm patch of water down one end of the beach - good for proper flat-water load'n'pop to jumps but watch out for the Surf Life Saving swimmer festival thingy.
Have some fun with transitions, 'wave riding' ho ho ho, jumping and water starts - finally getting the "board-is-behind-me-but-I-send-the-kite-and-pop-out-and-ride-away" nailed and the wife got one on video! I'm showing off for the camera - or trying to - so there's good entertainment value in the wipe-outs. After about 90 minutes, I slam a good one and the GoPro comes off the lines. Ride in and try to sort it out on the beach but my lines get tangled around boards that people have dumped all over the beach >:( decide to give the GoPro to the wife, have a drink then go back out.
Wind has steadily picked up during the day and I'm starting to feel over-powered. I'm also getting tired, so my pops are weak and I'm getting spanked cos I can't put the effort into controlling things. Then the wind picks up more and I'm getting lofted from just sheeting in ... I decide to call it a day. I'm one of the last on the water anyway ;) pity, cos I was finally getting in the groove dealing with the chop - either that or the wind was blowing it flat.
Come in, pack up and a local goes out on a 2011 Crossbow 13 ... I get my anemometer from the car - constant 10m/s gusting to 15! No wonder I was over-powered! Glad I made the effort to go, even though I felt a bit wrecked and burned from the day or so before.
Moment of the Day was losing my hat then finding it a half hour later ... only to lose it again!
Wind speed was recorded as 7.0 to 9.9 m/s, with a peak gust of 13.4m/s at 5pm, just after I packed it in. I was recording up to 15.4 at that time ...
What I learned today ...
• Rubbing sunblock into your hair WILL protect your scalp - I lost my hat but didn't get burned. Best to lay down a nice thick base before you head out too ...
• 'Drying' out the GoPro in the car's air con is the recipe for fog-free recording - at least on the line mount.
• No matter how steady, secure and free-moving the tripod, Cameraman O can still make it look like it was operated by a palsied drunk in an earthquake. Crikey.
• It's time to try rotations. Body made some attempts but brain aborted before the launch.
• 16m isn't as bad as I thought it was - maybe I was just out of shape. Hands hurt and have callouses though ...!
• Sharks - still awesome!
• Jumps go better if you're facing the direction you're going ... just be aware of the kite position, don't let it get too far behind you.
Friday, July 29, 2011
3-kite marathon!
Hurt my back 2 weeks ago - first day of the holidays FFS so laid up for a while ... thank god it was only pulled muscles - I hope! - so am back, looking for a fix. Forecast let us down the past week or so - Thursday even had the cheek to switch it around to southerlies! - and today wasn't looking any better ... 8 knots forecast at 12pm. Checked web-cam at 11:30 and it looked ok so I headed down to the lake ...
Got on the water about 12pm - I'm the only one there. I'm riding with the Silberpfeil, but they're downwinders ... walk up the beach a few times. Which is cool, cos riding at all is better than not riding and the water is buttah flat! Found a stag beetle on its back at the shore so rescue it cos hey I'm just that nice. Funny little buggers, very cute with their dopey-looking eyes-on-stalks and he didn't want to bite me or whatever they do, so I put him on the dry sand and left him to it ...
That was about as exciting as it got for what felt like an hour or so, until the wind picked up and I started having some Yee-hah! fun. Jumps and fun ... it's all good!
WTF moment of the day - my spreader bar unhooks itself so I'm only half hooked into the kite ... can't hold it at full power so I drop the kite at the edge of the window and sort the harness out. I think the lock-clasp got knocked out and me adjusting the straps somehow upset it ... doh! Now, the kite. it's in a bit of a mess, sitting wing-tip on -tip so I swim around trying to get some wind under it. Eventually get it to reverse launch position but my impatience twists it up again ... more messing around but finally get it back in the air! WTF again ... and am now miles from my board - can't see it at all. Drag back upwind and there it is! Keep riding.
Now I'm overpowered - dangerously, I reckon - any sheeting in results in a lofting. I land the SA2 on the FDS and back it up. Head back to the car and grab the Flyradical and the Crossbow 13. By now, a few people have arrived and it's about 2:30pm. Enough time before work for another session :D Pump up, launch and go out with the Flydoor but the 13 isn't up to the job ... ride around for a bit working the hell out of it but I'm not having fun. Land it, go BACK to the car and get the Crossbow 16. Repeat ...
Start out nicely powered and having fun but now the wind's picked up and I have to depower the kite - I'm on the Flyradical and it's still too much. Well not really cos I stay out till I pack up at 5pm-ish :D
Man, the bar pressure is killing my hands! I gotta replace this kite! Compared to the 13, it's a joke. Compared to the Flysurfer Speed2 - known for bar pressure - it's nowhere near as bad! It's not the turning that's the problem, it's the holding the bar in! I get some OK jumps in but I bet they'd be better with the 13. Get myself spanked a few times too which is always entertaining ... but I'm going to be sore tomorrow. And it seems the sunblock has worn off so I'm going to be even more sore ... whee.
Back it up like a broken old man and hobble back to the car ... it's 5:40pm and I have to be at work at 7:30pm, fed, showered and shaved - thank god I only live 20 minutes from the lake :D
Moment of the Day was not having to swim in with the SA. And it not drifting into the buoy with the gardening pole on top 0_o
Wind speed was recorded as 4 to 10 knots, averaging around 8 knots for most of my session and peak gust at 4pm of 16 knots. What a pile of crap - it had to be around 15knots for most of my LEI session! I reckon 15 to 20 when I was on the 16 cos it was mad and I really should have gotten the 13.
What I learned today ...
• Be more thorough when applying sunblock :(
• I need to replace the 16m Crossbow - my hands are shredded!
• Need to tune the SA to sort out the line lengths ... start with the depower rope though - I think it's stretched.
• Man, I gotta work on the skills with the Flyradical ... just didn't feel connected to it at all eh :(
• Another flawless session with the 720-armour Sharks - my, they're great!
Got on the water about 12pm - I'm the only one there. I'm riding with the Silberpfeil, but they're downwinders ... walk up the beach a few times. Which is cool, cos riding at all is better than not riding and the water is buttah flat! Found a stag beetle on its back at the shore so rescue it cos hey I'm just that nice. Funny little buggers, very cute with their dopey-looking eyes-on-stalks and he didn't want to bite me or whatever they do, so I put him on the dry sand and left him to it ...
That was about as exciting as it got for what felt like an hour or so, until the wind picked up and I started having some Yee-hah! fun. Jumps and fun ... it's all good!
WTF moment of the day - my spreader bar unhooks itself so I'm only half hooked into the kite ... can't hold it at full power so I drop the kite at the edge of the window and sort the harness out. I think the lock-clasp got knocked out and me adjusting the straps somehow upset it ... doh! Now, the kite. it's in a bit of a mess, sitting wing-tip on -tip so I swim around trying to get some wind under it. Eventually get it to reverse launch position but my impatience twists it up again ... more messing around but finally get it back in the air! WTF again ... and am now miles from my board - can't see it at all. Drag back upwind and there it is! Keep riding.
Now I'm overpowered - dangerously, I reckon - any sheeting in results in a lofting. I land the SA2 on the FDS and back it up. Head back to the car and grab the Flyradical and the Crossbow 13. By now, a few people have arrived and it's about 2:30pm. Enough time before work for another session :D Pump up, launch and go out with the Flydoor but the 13 isn't up to the job ... ride around for a bit working the hell out of it but I'm not having fun. Land it, go BACK to the car and get the Crossbow 16. Repeat ...
Start out nicely powered and having fun but now the wind's picked up and I have to depower the kite - I'm on the Flyradical and it's still too much. Well not really cos I stay out till I pack up at 5pm-ish :D
Man, the bar pressure is killing my hands! I gotta replace this kite! Compared to the 13, it's a joke. Compared to the Flysurfer Speed2 - known for bar pressure - it's nowhere near as bad! It's not the turning that's the problem, it's the holding the bar in! I get some OK jumps in but I bet they'd be better with the 13. Get myself spanked a few times too which is always entertaining ... but I'm going to be sore tomorrow. And it seems the sunblock has worn off so I'm going to be even more sore ... whee.
Back it up like a broken old man and hobble back to the car ... it's 5:40pm and I have to be at work at 7:30pm, fed, showered and shaved - thank god I only live 20 minutes from the lake :D
Moment of the Day was not having to swim in with the SA. And it not drifting into the buoy with the gardening pole on top 0_o
Wind speed was recorded as 4 to 10 knots, averaging around 8 knots for most of my session and peak gust at 4pm of 16 knots. What a pile of crap - it had to be around 15knots for most of my LEI session! I reckon 15 to 20 when I was on the 16 cos it was mad and I really should have gotten the 13.
What I learned today ...
• Be more thorough when applying sunblock :(
• I need to replace the 16m Crossbow - my hands are shredded!
• Need to tune the SA to sort out the line lengths ... start with the depower rope though - I think it's stretched.
• Man, I gotta work on the skills with the Flyradical ... just didn't feel connected to it at all eh :(
• Another flawless session with the 720-armour Sharks - my, they're great!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Tea-bag Transitions
First Saturday off work in a long time but there's no wind at the lake forecast, but there is some at the ocean in Mie. It's supposed to be much the same as the other day I went and that hardly blew my skirts up so I spend the morning humming and harring about it. Normally, there'd be NO humming at all but with the boo-boo on my toe, it's kinda hard to walk ... but in the end I just figure WTH it's gotta be better than sitting in front of the TV!
So I jump in the car about 1pm, suffer the traffic - seriously, who reads a newspaper while trying to drive? oh fat-ass in the shit-box in front of me does - and finally get to the beach around 2:30pm ... oh goody, continuing the theme of being surrounded by annoying half-wits - the local university students have decided to have beach parties to celebrate a whole winter of not dumping rubbish on the beach so there's hordes of 20-somethings running around screaming like they're fresh out of day-care and the mommies are having a tea-break :-/
Sigh.
Big turn-out though, there's a bunch of kiters and a couple of windsurfers ... Boofhead is there, Junkie Sensei is on the water and Granpa is in the carpark so we have a chat - Hironobu is in Tokyo for school tests (?) so he's on his own and reckons I need 'that white thing' today. I measure 5 to 6 m/s so I agree with him, but I'm a bit nervous about unrolling the precious session-saver on the trash strewn beach with crowds of retards around and then trying to ride in the light wind on a choppy ocean ... well at least the tide is out and I can see that damn pipe I chopped my shins and toe on, and the waves aren't so huge.
Have to head down the beach a lot further than usual to get some clear space to unpack and roll out the lines - not much open space with sand to weight the tip here ... but we get set up and launch eventually and onto the water.
Wind is ok, nicely powered so it's all smiles and cackles as I take a few tacks quietly to settle my nerves. Ocean is a lot flatter than it has been but it's still hard keeping up board speed through the chop ... day dreams of a Mako.
Relaxed now so I start trying to do some jumps but the board speed isn't there and can't get the timing so I give up and play silly buggers. Load'n'pops are monster big but the landings are harsher than proper jumps! Playing with slide transitions and toeside riding and even have a crack at aerial transitions. That leads to some falls and stalls of the kite but some canty line-pulling keeps the beautiful white tractor in the sky and off the water!
Also play with the trimming to try and see if sorting out the line lengths would improve things ... no, seems like it pulls harder with the stretch left in but I bet that's gonna kill the top end. But that's not what the Silberpfeil is for though, is it? Backstalls a lot more though when the wind drops right off. Better email John ...
Wind is up and down so I'm alternating going way upwind and then riding parallel to the beach - and ending up having to ride through the middle of the surfers. After I spray one of them I figure I better just change tack before I ride through them again and work my way upwind. Dodging windsurfer riding along at less than crawling pace is always entertaining too.
Water is so warm that my hands are starting to look like I've been sitting in the bath for too long. My legs are starting to get tired so now I'm pretty much just riding around ... the only other kiter out there is Auntie's Husband on his new 14m RPM and he too is mowing the lawn. Poor old Auntie can't ride on her 12 and still has no luck when she swaps it for the RPM. Huh! He must have some mad lightwind skills or weigh even less than her :o
Finally decide to pack it in around 6pm cos I'm tired and the wind is really on the bottom end of no fun. Reverse land the Silberpfeil ... as I'm securing it, a local kiter comes over to help land but I wave him off - you never know what they'll do with foils ... just as well I did too cos he says "I've never seen that kind of kite before, who makes it?" o_0
Good day, better than working! Ice blocks on the way home!
Wind speed was supposed to be 6.1 to 5.6 m/s for the time I was at the beach with a peak of 8.6 m/s at a quarter to 5. When I got my anemometer out at about 3pm I was reading just on 5 to just over 6 m/s ... compare that with the 6.1 that was posted at 3pm ... it's gotta be an average, eh!
Moment of the Day was discovering "tea-bag transitions" were fun but not as fun as the big boost up the face of the wave with a perfectly timed send for massive long hang time and float ...!
What I learned today ...
• Even almost no waves is still worse than the lake. Ma-aaaaaako!
• Aerial transitions on the SA - tough. You gotta muscle it around hard and fast and edge hard or it stalls.
• Get onto it and pull a rear line ASAP and you'll save even a tip through the bridle!
• Sure, foils are more work to keep flying than the LEIs but the pay-off - how you enjoying the walks, fellas?
• Tea-bag Transitions - send it back and lift your legs so you dip your bum just a bit in the water ... or float above surface ass-down like erm a tea-bag.
So I jump in the car about 1pm, suffer the traffic - seriously, who reads a newspaper while trying to drive? oh fat-ass in the shit-box in front of me does - and finally get to the beach around 2:30pm ... oh goody, continuing the theme of being surrounded by annoying half-wits - the local university students have decided to have beach parties to celebrate a whole winter of not dumping rubbish on the beach so there's hordes of 20-somethings running around screaming like they're fresh out of day-care and the mommies are having a tea-break :-/
Sigh.
Big turn-out though, there's a bunch of kiters and a couple of windsurfers ... Boofhead is there, Junkie Sensei is on the water and Granpa is in the carpark so we have a chat - Hironobu is in Tokyo for school tests (?) so he's on his own and reckons I need 'that white thing' today. I measure 5 to 6 m/s so I agree with him, but I'm a bit nervous about unrolling the precious session-saver on the trash strewn beach with crowds of retards around and then trying to ride in the light wind on a choppy ocean ... well at least the tide is out and I can see that damn pipe I chopped my shins and toe on, and the waves aren't so huge.
Have to head down the beach a lot further than usual to get some clear space to unpack and roll out the lines - not much open space with sand to weight the tip here ... but we get set up and launch eventually and onto the water.
Wind is ok, nicely powered so it's all smiles and cackles as I take a few tacks quietly to settle my nerves. Ocean is a lot flatter than it has been but it's still hard keeping up board speed through the chop ... day dreams of a Mako.
Relaxed now so I start trying to do some jumps but the board speed isn't there and can't get the timing so I give up and play silly buggers. Load'n'pops are monster big but the landings are harsher than proper jumps! Playing with slide transitions and toeside riding and even have a crack at aerial transitions. That leads to some falls and stalls of the kite but some canty line-pulling keeps the beautiful white tractor in the sky and off the water!
Also play with the trimming to try and see if sorting out the line lengths would improve things ... no, seems like it pulls harder with the stretch left in but I bet that's gonna kill the top end. But that's not what the Silberpfeil is for though, is it? Backstalls a lot more though when the wind drops right off. Better email John ...
Wind is up and down so I'm alternating going way upwind and then riding parallel to the beach - and ending up having to ride through the middle of the surfers. After I spray one of them I figure I better just change tack before I ride through them again and work my way upwind. Dodging windsurfer riding along at less than crawling pace is always entertaining too.
Water is so warm that my hands are starting to look like I've been sitting in the bath for too long. My legs are starting to get tired so now I'm pretty much just riding around ... the only other kiter out there is Auntie's Husband on his new 14m RPM and he too is mowing the lawn. Poor old Auntie can't ride on her 12 and still has no luck when she swaps it for the RPM. Huh! He must have some mad lightwind skills or weigh even less than her :o
Finally decide to pack it in around 6pm cos I'm tired and the wind is really on the bottom end of no fun. Reverse land the Silberpfeil ... as I'm securing it, a local kiter comes over to help land but I wave him off - you never know what they'll do with foils ... just as well I did too cos he says "I've never seen that kind of kite before, who makes it?" o_0
Good day, better than working! Ice blocks on the way home!
Wind speed was supposed to be 6.1 to 5.6 m/s for the time I was at the beach with a peak of 8.6 m/s at a quarter to 5. When I got my anemometer out at about 3pm I was reading just on 5 to just over 6 m/s ... compare that with the 6.1 that was posted at 3pm ... it's gotta be an average, eh!
Moment of the Day was discovering "tea-bag transitions" were fun but not as fun as the big boost up the face of the wave with a perfectly timed send for massive long hang time and float ...!
What I learned today ...
• Even almost no waves is still worse than the lake. Ma-aaaaaako!
• Aerial transitions on the SA - tough. You gotta muscle it around hard and fast and edge hard or it stalls.
• Get onto it and pull a rear line ASAP and you'll save even a tip through the bridle!
• Sure, foils are more work to keep flying than the LEIs but the pay-off - how you enjoying the walks, fellas?
• Tea-bag Transitions - send it back and lift your legs so you dip your bum just a bit in the water ... or float above surface ass-down like erm a tea-bag.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Stinky & The Dumbass
For some odd reason, the boss insisted I take a holiday in July. For an odder reason, I decided to take it on a day with no work scheduled. Dumb.
Wind was supposed to be good enough at Machiya in Mie Prefecture so I drove over there and arrived about 2:30pm. 4 to 5 m/s and it's supposed to pick up from 3 to 6pm to 6 or 7 m/s - that's 10 knots, picking up to 14. Drifting in on the ocean breeze is the stink of fish and seaweed. I don't really notice it though cos I left my t-shirt and shorts in the car overnight and they started to brew - so everything around me stinks!
Pumped up the 16m Crossbow, hauled out the Flydoor. Little locals were riding ok on directionals and 12m kites so I should be good. Even rigged up the GoPro ... maybe that's what jinxed it.
Not enough wind. Slogging back'n'forth like a dumb ass. Sigh. Gonna have to risk the Silberpfeil on this grotty beach ... gah.
Unpack the white monster and out I go again ... holding ground but it's a bit lully - I'm not having a lot of fun. Milk it for as long as I can then come back in and wait for a bit. Impress the locals (both of them!) with big long floaty jumps on the beach, then go back out.
Nothings improved though. I got some riding jollies though so I'm not frustrated or disappointed - but I was hoping to capture some video of big air!
As I'm heading into the beach for the last time, I stop about 1m from the sand and get off the board. I'm walking into shore, holding my board and LOOKING into the water and I suddenly stumble over something sharp and hard - it's a barnacle encrusted concrete drainpipe lurking below the surface of the ocean, totally invisible. No warning sign, buoy or even a rotted post that once held a sign ... for a country like Japan that has warning signs on everything - roads are so cluttered with reflecting signs, barriers, posts, lumps, bumps, stickers ... you gotta wonder who let the side down here :-/
I've barked my shins and taken a big chunk out of my toe, sliced off about 4cm square from the side and bottom. Yum yum. Hobble up the beach and back-stall land the kite ... I'm counting that as an 'injury' cos it's going to be uncomfortable and bleed into my socks for a few days :D
Now, as I'm eyeing up the best way to land the Silberpfeil - use the washed up tree stump to secure the chicken loop and risk the kite on a very dirty part of the beach or put a stick in the ground and leave the kite on the nice soft grass - Uncle Peabrain decided he's going to fly his powered paraglider ... he's setting up on the area where we pump out kites up - you could lay out about 4 kites without too much fuss, 6 if you pack 'em in like sardines. Which would be fine, but there's a tree stump in the middle, a little fence of looped 10mm steel at the beach side, a chain link fence and public toilets on the other, palm trees to the left and power lines to the right.
Somehow, he manages to get it all rigged up but he can't get the wing into the air so it bounces around the area for a while, wrapping around tree stump, narrowly missing the powerlines but avoiding the trees. He's having trouble controlling the wing without knocking the throttle for the motor o_0 but eventually, it's up and he's trying to run down the stairs to the beach and launch - directly over our 3 parked kites ...! His motor stalls as he gets about a meter up at the bottom of the stairs and about 3m from running over our kites, so he drops the wing - over the concrete stairs and the little fence - then drags it all back up to the pump-up area. And does it all again.
This time he gets into the air. It sounds like he got it done in a hurry but all us kiters were just standing there gaping at him for about 15 minutes.
The fun isn't over ... I waddle around packing up for about a half hour and Uncle Chucklehead has come back once to buzz the beach at about 3m off the ground 0_o before he sets himself up on finals - over some trees, dodges one and then touches down between 2 others, leaving a couple of meters between his wingtips.
Note, he did this in the middle of an area with 4 kiters, people walking along the beach path, a couple of guys on scooters going back'n'forth and a guy with a Rescue canoe. Unbelievable. The short time I've been that close to PPG's in Japan, I've seen that dicktard and another one in Hamamatsu try to fix a fractured propeller with - I kid you not - string and ducktape. Not to mention the guys who buzz the kite beach at the lake ...
Ok rant over ...
Wind speed was recorded as 9 to 11 knots with gusts up to ... 14 an hour before I got on the water. Lame.
Moment of the Day was finding my favourite ice block - frozen orange or pineapple juice - in the shops in Mie. They've stopped selling them here which drives me insane.
What I learned today ...
• I need about 5 more knots of wind, say 2 to 3 m/s, to get the same jollies on the ocean as I do on the lake - 9 knots at Locus would be pretty good fun but it was the worst kind of lawn-mowing on the ocean. I'm betting cos it's so hard to get & keep board speed. The winds were clean too, less gusty than the lake :(
• It's quicker and cheaper to take the local roads to Machiya.
• Flysurfer is good. All hail Flysurfer. Another session saved - I wouldn't have been riding at all.
• I want a Speed3 12 and 21. Then my kite collection will be complete. No really.
Wind was supposed to be good enough at Machiya in Mie Prefecture so I drove over there and arrived about 2:30pm. 4 to 5 m/s and it's supposed to pick up from 3 to 6pm to 6 or 7 m/s - that's 10 knots, picking up to 14. Drifting in on the ocean breeze is the stink of fish and seaweed. I don't really notice it though cos I left my t-shirt and shorts in the car overnight and they started to brew - so everything around me stinks!
Pumped up the 16m Crossbow, hauled out the Flydoor. Little locals were riding ok on directionals and 12m kites so I should be good. Even rigged up the GoPro ... maybe that's what jinxed it.
Not enough wind. Slogging back'n'forth like a dumb ass. Sigh. Gonna have to risk the Silberpfeil on this grotty beach ... gah.
Unpack the white monster and out I go again ... holding ground but it's a bit lully - I'm not having a lot of fun. Milk it for as long as I can then come back in and wait for a bit. Impress the locals (both of them!) with big long floaty jumps on the beach, then go back out.
Nothings improved though. I got some riding jollies though so I'm not frustrated or disappointed - but I was hoping to capture some video of big air!
As I'm heading into the beach for the last time, I stop about 1m from the sand and get off the board. I'm walking into shore, holding my board and LOOKING into the water and I suddenly stumble over something sharp and hard - it's a barnacle encrusted concrete drainpipe lurking below the surface of the ocean, totally invisible. No warning sign, buoy or even a rotted post that once held a sign ... for a country like Japan that has warning signs on everything - roads are so cluttered with reflecting signs, barriers, posts, lumps, bumps, stickers ... you gotta wonder who let the side down here :-/
I've barked my shins and taken a big chunk out of my toe, sliced off about 4cm square from the side and bottom. Yum yum. Hobble up the beach and back-stall land the kite ... I'm counting that as an 'injury' cos it's going to be uncomfortable and bleed into my socks for a few days :D
Now, as I'm eyeing up the best way to land the Silberpfeil - use the washed up tree stump to secure the chicken loop and risk the kite on a very dirty part of the beach or put a stick in the ground and leave the kite on the nice soft grass - Uncle Peabrain decided he's going to fly his powered paraglider ... he's setting up on the area where we pump out kites up - you could lay out about 4 kites without too much fuss, 6 if you pack 'em in like sardines. Which would be fine, but there's a tree stump in the middle, a little fence of looped 10mm steel at the beach side, a chain link fence and public toilets on the other, palm trees to the left and power lines to the right.
Somehow, he manages to get it all rigged up but he can't get the wing into the air so it bounces around the area for a while, wrapping around tree stump, narrowly missing the powerlines but avoiding the trees. He's having trouble controlling the wing without knocking the throttle for the motor o_0 but eventually, it's up and he's trying to run down the stairs to the beach and launch - directly over our 3 parked kites ...! His motor stalls as he gets about a meter up at the bottom of the stairs and about 3m from running over our kites, so he drops the wing - over the concrete stairs and the little fence - then drags it all back up to the pump-up area. And does it all again.
This time he gets into the air. It sounds like he got it done in a hurry but all us kiters were just standing there gaping at him for about 15 minutes.
The fun isn't over ... I waddle around packing up for about a half hour and Uncle Chucklehead has come back once to buzz the beach at about 3m off the ground 0_o before he sets himself up on finals - over some trees, dodges one and then touches down between 2 others, leaving a couple of meters between his wingtips.
Note, he did this in the middle of an area with 4 kiters, people walking along the beach path, a couple of guys on scooters going back'n'forth and a guy with a Rescue canoe. Unbelievable. The short time I've been that close to PPG's in Japan, I've seen that dicktard and another one in Hamamatsu try to fix a fractured propeller with - I kid you not - string and ducktape. Not to mention the guys who buzz the kite beach at the lake ...
Ok rant over ...
Wind speed was recorded as 9 to 11 knots with gusts up to ... 14 an hour before I got on the water. Lame.
Moment of the Day was finding my favourite ice block - frozen orange or pineapple juice - in the shops in Mie. They've stopped selling them here which drives me insane.
What I learned today ...
• I need about 5 more knots of wind, say 2 to 3 m/s, to get the same jollies on the ocean as I do on the lake - 9 knots at Locus would be pretty good fun but it was the worst kind of lawn-mowing on the ocean. I'm betting cos it's so hard to get & keep board speed. The winds were clean too, less gusty than the lake :(
• It's quicker and cheaper to take the local roads to Machiya.
• Flysurfer is good. All hail Flysurfer. Another session saved - I wouldn't have been riding at all.
• I want a Speed3 12 and 21. Then my kite collection will be complete. No really.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Whee!BoingVer2.0
Forecast was looking like 10 to 15 knots so it was all go for the lake. Thinking it'd be a 16m Crossbow kind of day, with the Flyradical and the GoPro on the new KiteHero board mount. Checked the webcam at 4pm and Grandpa was out on his 9m ... crikey!
Got to the lake about 4:30 after spending 120 seconds screaming at the unnecessary roadworks that drive up my blood pressure and fuel taxes and peaked through the trees ... people were coming in on their 11's and 10's and going on 7's :o all I have in the boot is my 16 & 13m Crossbow ... this could be fun.
Put the 13 on my back, the Flyradical under one arm and the Flydoor under the other - options, you know. Head over the road, pump up, gaze with deer-in-the-headlight eyes at the wind ... crikey! Good turn out today, pretty busy out on the water. Lot of kites on the beach too. The Slingshots seem to have been breeding too - there like 3 RPM's now. The Master of Disaster is boosting huge airs and "woohoo!"ing - it's the one thing he does half-good, aside from taking people out.
Auntie tries to talk me out of launching the 13 but I convince her that I am NOT going home for my 10 - and anyway, I've cheated and rigged the kite on the last knots of the rear-lines' bridle :D yes I know I know ... thank you Plummet & Peter. Forecast was supposed to peak at 4pm then drop off at sunset - which it did so I feel vindicated.
It's a very odd thing ... there's a heap of wind, the kite pulls hard but also depowers at a twitch of the wrist. Hmm, should have gone for the regular knots cos I'm constantly pulling the bar in. Oh well, too late - get riding while the riding is good.
Big jumps both directions, I got my mojo on and am having mad fun going as hard as I can, landing what feels like most of them and riding the waves. The small board is still giving me trouble though, it's so not the 'door :D Wind is gusty and the water is choppy but it's great fun!
Get spanked once or twice, can't remember why now but I do remember getting slapped by the water and thinking "Hey that felt just like falling off the 3m diving board!". Get some nice toeside riding in and smack a few wave-faces with accompanying cackles. Got a few really good aerial transitions in too, starting off as a 2m jump then sending it back ...
Damned GoPro lens has a fog spot in the center grr seriously annoying. I leave it and it seems to be clearing so I forget about it. Then a bit later I notice the camera is showing "999" files. Have a fiddle, get an SOS so a corrupt file is jacking it up. Bah! bet I need to put a bit of high-density foam under the mount for the shocks ... hope I can recover some film from it!
Wind is dropping now, been cracking-on for about 90 minutes ... people are starting to pack up - Wha-aaat! I head into the shore to reset my attachment points. Still too weak, so I jump on the Flydoor. Ah, that's better! Get another hour or so in; initially, some nice big air but the wind's still dropping. At sunset, it's only me and Soh out but I'm pretty hammered so I bring it in, self-land cos it's just me on the beach. Soh keeps trying but he's only down-winding it.
What a kick-ass evening! Much more wind than forecast but I'm kinda glad I didn't have the 10m after all ...
Windspeed was reported at 25 knots at 4pm falling to 10 knots around 8pm but it felt like more than that :D
Moment of the Day was discovering that sending the kite across the zenith fast, sheeting in hard generates a new style of water start - pop up and out like a champagne cork :D well it was a tie between that and "ollie"ing up the face of a 'breaker' and sorta blasting through the white-wash at the top ...
Shot from the upcoming theatrical release ...
What I learned today ...
• When using the board mount for the GoPro - point it away from the sun you dumbass :(
• Still need to put desiccant thingies in the case ...! FFS
• If you mess up the take-off and feel yourself starting to rotate, you can choke it off by not sending the kite back so far.
• When sending the kite back for a change of direction, send it AGGRESSIVELY or it just won't work.
• Pop-up water starts ...!
• Needed my Sharks :(
Got to the lake about 4:30 after spending 120 seconds screaming at the unnecessary roadworks that drive up my blood pressure and fuel taxes and peaked through the trees ... people were coming in on their 11's and 10's and going on 7's :o all I have in the boot is my 16 & 13m Crossbow ... this could be fun.
Put the 13 on my back, the Flyradical under one arm and the Flydoor under the other - options, you know. Head over the road, pump up, gaze with deer-in-the-headlight eyes at the wind ... crikey! Good turn out today, pretty busy out on the water. Lot of kites on the beach too. The Slingshots seem to have been breeding too - there like 3 RPM's now. The Master of Disaster is boosting huge airs and "woohoo!"ing - it's the one thing he does half-good, aside from taking people out.
Auntie tries to talk me out of launching the 13 but I convince her that I am NOT going home for my 10 - and anyway, I've cheated and rigged the kite on the last knots of the rear-lines' bridle :D yes I know I know ... thank you Plummet & Peter. Forecast was supposed to peak at 4pm then drop off at sunset - which it did so I feel vindicated.
It's a very odd thing ... there's a heap of wind, the kite pulls hard but also depowers at a twitch of the wrist. Hmm, should have gone for the regular knots cos I'm constantly pulling the bar in. Oh well, too late - get riding while the riding is good.
Big jumps both directions, I got my mojo on and am having mad fun going as hard as I can, landing what feels like most of them and riding the waves. The small board is still giving me trouble though, it's so not the 'door :D Wind is gusty and the water is choppy but it's great fun!
Get spanked once or twice, can't remember why now but I do remember getting slapped by the water and thinking "Hey that felt just like falling off the 3m diving board!". Get some nice toeside riding in and smack a few wave-faces with accompanying cackles. Got a few really good aerial transitions in too, starting off as a 2m jump then sending it back ...
Damned GoPro lens has a fog spot in the center grr seriously annoying. I leave it and it seems to be clearing so I forget about it. Then a bit later I notice the camera is showing "999" files. Have a fiddle, get an SOS so a corrupt file is jacking it up. Bah! bet I need to put a bit of high-density foam under the mount for the shocks ... hope I can recover some film from it!
Wind is dropping now, been cracking-on for about 90 minutes ... people are starting to pack up - Wha-aaat! I head into the shore to reset my attachment points. Still too weak, so I jump on the Flydoor. Ah, that's better! Get another hour or so in; initially, some nice big air but the wind's still dropping. At sunset, it's only me and Soh out but I'm pretty hammered so I bring it in, self-land cos it's just me on the beach. Soh keeps trying but he's only down-winding it.
What a kick-ass evening! Much more wind than forecast but I'm kinda glad I didn't have the 10m after all ...
Windspeed was reported at 25 knots at 4pm falling to 10 knots around 8pm but it felt like more than that :D
Moment of the Day was discovering that sending the kite across the zenith fast, sheeting in hard generates a new style of water start - pop up and out like a champagne cork :D well it was a tie between that and "ollie"ing up the face of a 'breaker' and sorta blasting through the white-wash at the top ...
Shot from the upcoming theatrical release ...
What I learned today ...
• When using the board mount for the GoPro - point it away from the sun you dumbass :(
• Still need to put desiccant thingies in the case ...! FFS
• If you mess up the take-off and feel yourself starting to rotate, you can choke it off by not sending the kite back so far.
• When sending the kite back for a change of direction, send it AGGRESSIVELY or it just won't work.
• Pop-up water starts ...!
• Needed my Sharks :(
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Sour Sole Session
:(
Forecast was almost identical to yesterday ... but didn't live up to expectations. I took the SA2 and the Flydoor and Flyradical to the lake beach just in case the wind got up, but I think I jinxed it.
I got maybe two tacks upwind, the rest I spent walking and standing on sharp things like fish skeletons, weird caltrop seeds and glass. Didn't get much riding in, got even fewer jumps and even though we waited and waited, nothing eventuated.
Sigh. Still, the water was cool after a blistering hot day in the "office" with no air-con at all ... 36 degrees outside, I hate to think what it was inside ...!
Windspeed was reported as 4 to 5 knots between 4 and 8pm. I think we got a touch more, albeit briefly. 2.0 to 2.6 m/s ...
Moment of the Day was riding upwind past Soh, waving in a stately manner :D
What I learned today ...
• Balance on the board can have a big effect on low-wind boardspeed ... and thus, how well you go upwind.
• Gusts as the wind shifts direction can still upset the Silberpfeil and ...
• You can't ride through the gusts!
Forecast was almost identical to yesterday ... but didn't live up to expectations. I took the SA2 and the Flydoor and Flyradical to the lake beach just in case the wind got up, but I think I jinxed it.
I got maybe two tacks upwind, the rest I spent walking and standing on sharp things like fish skeletons, weird caltrop seeds and glass. Didn't get much riding in, got even fewer jumps and even though we waited and waited, nothing eventuated.
Sigh. Still, the water was cool after a blistering hot day in the "office" with no air-con at all ... 36 degrees outside, I hate to think what it was inside ...!
Windspeed was reported as 4 to 5 knots between 4 and 8pm. I think we got a touch more, albeit briefly. 2.0 to 2.6 m/s ...
Moment of the Day was riding upwind past Soh, waving in a stately manner :D
What I learned today ...
• Balance on the board can have a big effect on low-wind boardspeed ... and thus, how well you go upwind.
• Gusts as the wind shifts direction can still upset the Silberpfeil and ...
• You can't ride through the gusts!
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Sweet Soul Session
Finally, some northerlies! Forecast looked weak - 10 knots - but I headed to the lake anyway.
Dragged the Silberpfeil and the 16m Crossbow over to the lake (in case the actual wind went either way) and tucked the Flydoor under my arm ... wind was bad when I got on the beach - about 4:45pm - and looking out at the lake, the 5pm 10-knot front didn't look like it was coming so I unpacked the SA2. Put it in the air and hit the water straight away ... may as well get wet and cool!
Was riding, but not going upwind. Tack out, back in, walk it up, get back in the water, oh hello the wind is up! We all start riding it out, but only the little guy on the Slingshot RPM 14 and I are going upwind.
I proceed to have a great time, riding toe-side, monster load'n'pops and working hard on timing the jumps properly. Finally getting it sorted! Boost from the SA in this low wind is impressive ...! I go down the other end of the 'bay' to show-off to the windsurfers but end up looping around and splashing down ... but the kite is still waiting for me when I surface! Boy-oh-boy it's so much better behaved since I got it all tuned up! I manage to get upwind enough to get back across the river mouth and onto 'our' side of the beach ...
LEIs out were the 2011 SS RPM 14, Best Waroo 14 and directional, Cab Switchblade 12 x2, Naish Park 14, LF Havoc 14 ... Poor old Master of Disaster on the Park couldn't even get up on a plane :o he's one of the bigger locals though - Auntie and Taki on the SB's are probably less than 60kg each! Soh on the Havoc was riding but only downwind ... he's no lightweight either though, I think he said 75kg.
A very enjoyable evening - just the mellow, satisfying experience I've been needing. I pack it in as the sun sets and the wind dies off again ...
Windspeed was recorded as 3.2 to 4.3 m/s (6 to 9 knots) from 5 to 8pm. Seems about right - I'm riding downwind at 6, upwind easily at 8 ...
Moment of the Day was finally getting the timing right jumping the SA2 in light winds, sending it from 2 o'clock and kicking a hole in the sky! Enough time up there to think "Holy crap! I'm up high!" and balanced correctly so I could take one hand off the bar, make the 'rock on!' horns hand sign thingy and scream "WOO HOO!" at Soh - just as I reached the zenith of the jump :D
What I learned today ...
• Cost for tune-up at powerzonekitesports.com - well worth the money! Including shipping :) the stability when I mess things up now is just awesome!
• Timing for jumping the slow ol' bus - bear-off downwind a bit, pull the bar back the other way, start loading the edge again as the kite goes up, pop the edge and pull on the bar when you feel the lift ... redirect HARD as you just start to drop.
• Don't show-off :D
• Sheeting in on a load'n'pop increases the height and extends the hang-time ... a lot!
• Riding toe-side ... slowly getting there.
• You don't necessarily need white-caps to ride the Silberpfeil successfully - but it's a very fine line at the bottom end ...
Dragged the Silberpfeil and the 16m Crossbow over to the lake (in case the actual wind went either way) and tucked the Flydoor under my arm ... wind was bad when I got on the beach - about 4:45pm - and looking out at the lake, the 5pm 10-knot front didn't look like it was coming so I unpacked the SA2. Put it in the air and hit the water straight away ... may as well get wet and cool!
Was riding, but not going upwind. Tack out, back in, walk it up, get back in the water, oh hello the wind is up! We all start riding it out, but only the little guy on the Slingshot RPM 14 and I are going upwind.
I proceed to have a great time, riding toe-side, monster load'n'pops and working hard on timing the jumps properly. Finally getting it sorted! Boost from the SA in this low wind is impressive ...! I go down the other end of the 'bay' to show-off to the windsurfers but end up looping around and splashing down ... but the kite is still waiting for me when I surface! Boy-oh-boy it's so much better behaved since I got it all tuned up! I manage to get upwind enough to get back across the river mouth and onto 'our' side of the beach ...
LEIs out were the 2011 SS RPM 14, Best Waroo 14 and directional, Cab Switchblade 12 x2, Naish Park 14, LF Havoc 14 ... Poor old Master of Disaster on the Park couldn't even get up on a plane :o he's one of the bigger locals though - Auntie and Taki on the SB's are probably less than 60kg each! Soh on the Havoc was riding but only downwind ... he's no lightweight either though, I think he said 75kg.
A very enjoyable evening - just the mellow, satisfying experience I've been needing. I pack it in as the sun sets and the wind dies off again ...
Windspeed was recorded as 3.2 to 4.3 m/s (6 to 9 knots) from 5 to 8pm. Seems about right - I'm riding downwind at 6, upwind easily at 8 ...
Moment of the Day was finally getting the timing right jumping the SA2 in light winds, sending it from 2 o'clock and kicking a hole in the sky! Enough time up there to think "Holy crap! I'm up high!" and balanced correctly so I could take one hand off the bar, make the 'rock on!' horns hand sign thingy and scream "WOO HOO!" at Soh - just as I reached the zenith of the jump :D
What I learned today ...
• Cost for tune-up at powerzonekitesports.com - well worth the money! Including shipping :) the stability when I mess things up now is just awesome!
• Timing for jumping the slow ol' bus - bear-off downwind a bit, pull the bar back the other way, start loading the edge again as the kite goes up, pop the edge and pull on the bar when you feel the lift ... redirect HARD as you just start to drop.
• Don't show-off :D
• Sheeting in on a load'n'pop increases the height and extends the hang-time ... a lot!
• Riding toe-side ... slowly getting there.
• You don't necessarily need white-caps to ride the Silberpfeil successfully - but it's a very fine line at the bottom end ...
Sunday, June 26, 2011
South Seas
More southerlies, but this time including a little bit of east which puts it onshore at Machiya Beach, near Tsu city in Mie. Hummed and harred for a while - have a very stiff left thigh from Thursday's efforts at Hamamatsu - but decided to suck it up and just do it!
Left home at 12pm, aiming to be there and on the water in time for peak wind at 2pm. Almost worked out that way but we stopped for a bit of lunch on the way so it was about 1:45 when we arrived.
Checked the wind (6 - 10 m/s) and checked what others were riding. Good turn out, probably half the people were Locus locals! Bunch of windsurfers too ... is it just them or do they not go upwind very well?
Most people were on 9 to 11m kites but were on directionals so I put up the 13m Crossbow and the Flydoor. I was nicely powered for most of the next 2 and a half hours on the water, only really getting spanked by the gusts in the last 1/2 hour.
Wife had her camera - and a tripod, for all the difference that made - so I started playing silly buggers. Still having a hard time with the timing of the jumps but got a few good ones in and on film ... kinda. Had to land a few toe-side (going to starboard) cos I messed them up but I was either too tired or lazy to do that going to port so I just splashed down a lot.
Had a great time playing with wave riding, actually riding the board & using the kite rather than being pulled along by the whim of the kite. Pretty tough to do anything really on the Flydoor which got me thinking about the Mako again - as did bouncing off all the chop too!
So it was a lot of just riding around and trying to jump or ride waves. Glad I went though, and didn't let a stiff leg (just one?) turn me off ...
Wind picked up right at the end, as I began to get tired and got some good spankings. Trimming the kite to cope was unsuccessful as it was too hard to hold a fast tack, so I needed instant power from the kite; but cock it up, and it whacked me.
Windspeed was recorded as 14 to 20 knots, max gust 27 knots, from JMA. I measured 14 to 20 when I arrived but the wind picked up towards 4 unclock which wasn't recorded on the website.
Moment of the Day was riding up the face of a wave, popping a little jump (more of a hover) just before the top then skimming my bum on the peaks of the launch and the landing wave, riding down the back of the second one!
What I learned today ...
• Might need that Mako King after all ...
• Water was warm, wind was cool, glasses didn't fog at all. Hurrah Sharks!
• Licking the lenses isn't a successful way of cleaning them though :(
• As with the 16m, the 13m gets twitchy at the upper end of it's actually flying limits - which I think is about 30 knots - as opposed to the limit to where it can be used by fatties.
• I'd say that 15 to 20 knots, give or take a few knots, is the butter zone for the 13 - I had great fun on it till the wind picked up at the end of my session.
• Need to work on adjusting the fit of the harness - I'm getting massive sperlunking again :(
• Charlie Chaplin! Heels close, toes out! Best edge control.
Left home at 12pm, aiming to be there and on the water in time for peak wind at 2pm. Almost worked out that way but we stopped for a bit of lunch on the way so it was about 1:45 when we arrived.
Checked the wind (6 - 10 m/s) and checked what others were riding. Good turn out, probably half the people were Locus locals! Bunch of windsurfers too ... is it just them or do they not go upwind very well?
Most people were on 9 to 11m kites but were on directionals so I put up the 13m Crossbow and the Flydoor. I was nicely powered for most of the next 2 and a half hours on the water, only really getting spanked by the gusts in the last 1/2 hour.
Wife had her camera - and a tripod, for all the difference that made - so I started playing silly buggers. Still having a hard time with the timing of the jumps but got a few good ones in and on film ... kinda. Had to land a few toe-side (going to starboard) cos I messed them up but I was either too tired or lazy to do that going to port so I just splashed down a lot.
Had a great time playing with wave riding, actually riding the board & using the kite rather than being pulled along by the whim of the kite. Pretty tough to do anything really on the Flydoor which got me thinking about the Mako again - as did bouncing off all the chop too!
So it was a lot of just riding around and trying to jump or ride waves. Glad I went though, and didn't let a stiff leg (just one?) turn me off ...
Wind picked up right at the end, as I began to get tired and got some good spankings. Trimming the kite to cope was unsuccessful as it was too hard to hold a fast tack, so I needed instant power from the kite; but cock it up, and it whacked me.
Windspeed was recorded as 14 to 20 knots, max gust 27 knots, from JMA. I measured 14 to 20 when I arrived but the wind picked up towards 4 unclock which wasn't recorded on the website.
Moment of the Day was riding up the face of a wave, popping a little jump (more of a hover) just before the top then skimming my bum on the peaks of the launch and the landing wave, riding down the back of the second one!
What I learned today ...
• Might need that Mako King after all ...
• Water was warm, wind was cool, glasses didn't fog at all. Hurrah Sharks!
• Licking the lenses isn't a successful way of cleaning them though :(
• As with the 16m, the 13m gets twitchy at the upper end of it's actually flying limits - which I think is about 30 knots - as opposed to the limit to where it can be used by fatties.
• I'd say that 15 to 20 knots, give or take a few knots, is the butter zone for the 13 - I had great fun on it till the wind picked up at the end of my session.
• Need to work on adjusting the fit of the harness - I'm getting massive sperlunking again :(
• Charlie Chaplin! Heels close, toes out! Best edge control.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Sorry Boss can't work cos (insert excuse)
Got up, got ready to go to work but there was a good stiff breeze out there ... I thought about the impending heavy workload today - after 3 days solid of heavy work loads with no air-con in 35-degree-C classrooms - and then I thought "The hell with that!" I got a Starbucks coffee, called the boss and supplied my pre-suggested excuse. "I gotta go to the Immigration office - just like I warned I might need to last week."
Went home, hit the interweb and looked for the best wind. Looked like Hamamatsu so I loaded up the K-wagon and hit the highway ...
Got to Maisaka about 12:30pm and was glad to see other kites in the sky. Good wind blowing and I got a burst of butterflies as I got out of the car ... checked the wind with anemometer and it was reading 12-18 knots cross on-shore. Checked what the locals were riding - 9's to 12's - so I decided on the 13m Crossbow and my big board cos the surf looked a bit big.
Set up on the beach near the carpark and then walked to the water. Excellent beach, miles of space! There were about 6 or 7 other kiters there, a couple of windsurfers and a few surfers.
The waves ... they are big. Oh crap. There's about 5m of very shallow water to the first breaker, maybe a half meter, that floods the shallow bit ... I put board on feet just after the breaker washes through, dive the kite and ride out through the waves. Oh wow that was easy I must've gotten the hang of dealing with waves, thinks I.
Head out through the breakers and WOW the swells are big too! I'm disappearing down the troughs and then riding up the faces of swells that are over my head :o big fun is popping off the top and floating downwind :D
Man what a battering I'm taking ... I'll never complain about chop on the lake again! The kite feels like I should be over-powered but I'm having to sine the kite just to get some board speed - then the chop kills it all. Having an impossible time setting up jumps so they all suck :( there's no flat water and the waves are at the wrong angle to boost off good. I throw some weakness into the air but it isn't cool ... load'n'pops result in large-ish jumps and long floats downwind, so there must be some power in the kite! Frustrating.
I'm holding ground and going upwind though, which is a first for Maisaka. In fact, everyone else seems to be going downwind ...??? I've got the ocean to myself. Mostly - have to take care the windsurfers aren't in my way before I try jumping ...
Flydoor works good in the "gusty" conditions and kind of surfs down the waves too :D
Wind drops off, I head back in to the beach before I'm too underpowered to get back without walking ... and I need a drink. Take some water, chat to the guy who used to live in Kyoto and we decide that the wind is going to pick up when that there front comes in and the total lack of wind now is temporary. He sets up his 14, I set up my 16.
I launch and to try it out. I'm guessing 8 knots at best. At the water's edge, I get the beat-down by the waves and have a hell of a time getting the board on my feet and out from the breakers ... would've made a good film but the wife was working fnar fnar! I'm out on "flat" water but there's no wind to be had so I turn back in ... finally get a burst of board speed and ride in for a few minutes and it's just when I look back and around me that I realize I've been riding in on a wave! Awesome!
OMG it's the shore - whaddoIdo? WhaddoIdo? Ah, fall over, ditch the board and struggle to get on my feet, chase the board as it floats down the in the rip tide ... then walk back to carpark base camp.
Stand around with the kite up and wait for the NEXT front to roll in. It brings white-caps with it, this one does. Neat-o. Starting to feel the wind now so I head back out.
Again, I get smacked around, spun around trying to get the board on. Get up and moving but Lassie the Freestyler has decided she'll enter the water 10m downwind of me so I've got to be careful getting biffed around by waves so I don't wrap my lines around hers ... FFS I'd be trying to get board on for 5 minutes - did she not notice me thrashing around?
"Safety in Japan - it's ok, everyone else is looking out for me."
Finally get rolling - the waves are bigger, the swells are bigger holy fuck! The wind is the same gusty punchy crap though ... I'm holding ground though so I work hard on the big purple monster. The heavy bar pressure is a drag ... hmm time for a Zephyr? Still can't get the jumps right ... do a lot of low long floats downwind. Play with riding waves - what fun! Go in to shore too far and have to do some fancy (for me) riding to avoid being sloshed by the breakers - what fun! Legs are starting to burn - what fu... no, time to call it a day - got a 3 hour drive if there're no traffic jams on the way home ...
Head in, pack it up, start the drive home about 4:45 and get home about 7:45. Great day! Much better than working :D
What I learned today ...
• Riding in the ocean - much harder than on the lake!
• Need to be more powered on the ocean. Bollocks to float, it doesn't help at all.
• Surface conditions (massive swells) meant there was no wind low down - better to gently sine the kite near the top of the window.
• Chop. It's not what we have on the lake!
• There's no real point in driving all the way to Maisaka unless you're desperate - it's not that good really.
• If I went to the ocean more, I'd get a directional or a Mako. I won't so I can now forget about the Mako :D
• Don't forget to take your own fresh water for washing stuff :-/ that's why you bought the 20L tank innit?
Went home, hit the interweb and looked for the best wind. Looked like Hamamatsu so I loaded up the K-wagon and hit the highway ...
Got to Maisaka about 12:30pm and was glad to see other kites in the sky. Good wind blowing and I got a burst of butterflies as I got out of the car ... checked the wind with anemometer and it was reading 12-18 knots cross on-shore. Checked what the locals were riding - 9's to 12's - so I decided on the 13m Crossbow and my big board cos the surf looked a bit big.
Set up on the beach near the carpark and then walked to the water. Excellent beach, miles of space! There were about 6 or 7 other kiters there, a couple of windsurfers and a few surfers.
The waves ... they are big. Oh crap. There's about 5m of very shallow water to the first breaker, maybe a half meter, that floods the shallow bit ... I put board on feet just after the breaker washes through, dive the kite and ride out through the waves. Oh wow that was easy I must've gotten the hang of dealing with waves, thinks I.
Head out through the breakers and WOW the swells are big too! I'm disappearing down the troughs and then riding up the faces of swells that are over my head :o big fun is popping off the top and floating downwind :D
Man what a battering I'm taking ... I'll never complain about chop on the lake again! The kite feels like I should be over-powered but I'm having to sine the kite just to get some board speed - then the chop kills it all. Having an impossible time setting up jumps so they all suck :( there's no flat water and the waves are at the wrong angle to boost off good. I throw some weakness into the air but it isn't cool ... load'n'pops result in large-ish jumps and long floats downwind, so there must be some power in the kite! Frustrating.
I'm holding ground and going upwind though, which is a first for Maisaka. In fact, everyone else seems to be going downwind ...??? I've got the ocean to myself. Mostly - have to take care the windsurfers aren't in my way before I try jumping ...
Flydoor works good in the "gusty" conditions and kind of surfs down the waves too :D
Wind drops off, I head back in to the beach before I'm too underpowered to get back without walking ... and I need a drink. Take some water, chat to the guy who used to live in Kyoto and we decide that the wind is going to pick up when that there front comes in and the total lack of wind now is temporary. He sets up his 14, I set up my 16.
I launch and to try it out. I'm guessing 8 knots at best. At the water's edge, I get the beat-down by the waves and have a hell of a time getting the board on my feet and out from the breakers ... would've made a good film but the wife was working fnar fnar! I'm out on "flat" water but there's no wind to be had so I turn back in ... finally get a burst of board speed and ride in for a few minutes and it's just when I look back and around me that I realize I've been riding in on a wave! Awesome!
OMG it's the shore - whaddoIdo? WhaddoIdo? Ah, fall over, ditch the board and struggle to get on my feet, chase the board as it floats down the in the rip tide ... then walk back to carpark base camp.
Stand around with the kite up and wait for the NEXT front to roll in. It brings white-caps with it, this one does. Neat-o. Starting to feel the wind now so I head back out.
Again, I get smacked around, spun around trying to get the board on. Get up and moving but Lassie the Freestyler has decided she'll enter the water 10m downwind of me so I've got to be careful getting biffed around by waves so I don't wrap my lines around hers ... FFS I'd be trying to get board on for 5 minutes - did she not notice me thrashing around?
"Safety in Japan - it's ok, everyone else is looking out for me."
Finally get rolling - the waves are bigger, the swells are bigger holy fuck! The wind is the same gusty punchy crap though ... I'm holding ground though so I work hard on the big purple monster. The heavy bar pressure is a drag ... hmm time for a Zephyr? Still can't get the jumps right ... do a lot of low long floats downwind. Play with riding waves - what fun! Go in to shore too far and have to do some fancy (for me) riding to avoid being sloshed by the breakers - what fun! Legs are starting to burn - what fu... no, time to call it a day - got a 3 hour drive if there're no traffic jams on the way home ...
Head in, pack it up, start the drive home about 4:45 and get home about 7:45. Great day! Much better than working :D
What I learned today ...
• Riding in the ocean - much harder than on the lake!
• Need to be more powered on the ocean. Bollocks to float, it doesn't help at all.
• Surface conditions (massive swells) meant there was no wind low down - better to gently sine the kite near the top of the window.
• Chop. It's not what we have on the lake!
• There's no real point in driving all the way to Maisaka unless you're desperate - it's not that good really.
• If I went to the ocean more, I'd get a directional or a Mako. I won't so I can now forget about the Mako :D
• Don't forget to take your own fresh water for washing stuff :-/ that's why you bought the 20L tank innit?
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Lessons Learned
Oh joy! Kick-ass forecast for today and the whole day, the wind was rockin'! Webcam looks awesome - so awesome in fact, that I go home at lunchtime to pick up the 10m Crossbow, dump the Silberpfeil and even consider the 7m Core :o
Chaffing at the bit; finally, work finishes and I race down to the lake and ... 10-12 knots!!! Oh give me a break :(
I unpack the Psycho4 15 and the Flydoor and hit the water ... hmm. This kite's a bit different. Back-stall central :( I pull the trim in a bunch and finally get up on a plane. Kite is very sensitive to sheeting in - something's gonna need a look at it! Manage to get some nice jumps in but then the wind has dropped more and I'm riding downwind. Walk up the beach - the P4 is real stable - and land, pack up and pump up the 16m Crossbow.
Pah! Just enough wind to get moving now and it's dropping even more :( Slog around on the 16 but this is not fun! Give up and land the kite. Stand around talking with Soh and Hironobu waiting for the wind, but give up about 6:30.
Could have been better, but at least I got some time on the Psycho4 - now I need to tune it a bit!
Windspeed was reported at 10-12 knots on the beach and 8 to 10 knots on the web. Pah!
What I learned today ...
• When The Fattest Kiteboarder in Japan also has The Most Powerful Kite in Japan, then you're a total jackass to leave it at home - EVER! The Silberpfeil is about to take up permanent residence in my boot!
• P4 15 - somehow, the jumps are just smoother when you're in the air, than the LEIs are ... feels more like flying rather than erm hanging under a kite :o
• P4 15 again - pulls like a 13 (so far) but also turns just as fast. VERY easy to jump with, it's just like the LEIs except smoother YOINK and longer AAH!
• Might need to Seal'n'Glide the P4 - seemed to deflate fast when I landed it on the beach. Faster than the SA2 and I thought THAT needed treatments!
Chaffing at the bit; finally, work finishes and I race down to the lake and ... 10-12 knots!!! Oh give me a break :(
I unpack the Psycho4 15 and the Flydoor and hit the water ... hmm. This kite's a bit different. Back-stall central :( I pull the trim in a bunch and finally get up on a plane. Kite is very sensitive to sheeting in - something's gonna need a look at it! Manage to get some nice jumps in but then the wind has dropped more and I'm riding downwind. Walk up the beach - the P4 is real stable - and land, pack up and pump up the 16m Crossbow.
Pah! Just enough wind to get moving now and it's dropping even more :( Slog around on the 16 but this is not fun! Give up and land the kite. Stand around talking with Soh and Hironobu waiting for the wind, but give up about 6:30.
Could have been better, but at least I got some time on the Psycho4 - now I need to tune it a bit!
Windspeed was reported at 10-12 knots on the beach and 8 to 10 knots on the web. Pah!
What I learned today ...
• When The Fattest Kiteboarder in Japan also has The Most Powerful Kite in Japan, then you're a total jackass to leave it at home - EVER! The Silberpfeil is about to take up permanent residence in my boot!
• P4 15 - somehow, the jumps are just smoother when you're in the air, than the LEIs are ... feels more like flying rather than erm hanging under a kite :o
• P4 15 again - pulls like a 13 (so far) but also turns just as fast. VERY easy to jump with, it's just like the LEIs except smoother YOINK and longer AAH!
• Might need to Seal'n'Glide the P4 - seemed to deflate fast when I landed it on the beach. Faster than the SA2 and I thought THAT needed treatments!
Monday, June 13, 2011
"Optimism, Captain!"
We had a nice wind blowing all day at work, about 10km further north up the lake from Locus. First time I check the webcam in the afternoon - there's freakin' nothing at the Locus beach ...! I keep an eye on it till knock-off time but no change at all! Decide to head down anyway.
Sit on the lake beach with all the other junkies waiting for something to change. It slowly picks up by about 5:30pm and so I decide to unpack "that white thing" as the locals call it ... it launches and kinda flies so I noodle around on the beach. Wind picks up a tiny bit more, so I try the board out ...
... I can get up on a plane but when I have to work the kite again on an upstroke, I'm sinking. I walk back up the beach. Keep playing around for a bit then suddenly, the wind starts making an impression on the back of my head!
Jump in the water and lo! I'm up and riding! Sure I'm going downwind but I'm riding :D by the time I've made a few tacks and run down the beach, started the walk back up Hironobu has hit the water with his Naish Park 14, Uncle Pyro has launched his Best Waroo 14 and that other guy is pumping up his Cult 12 like a madman. Brother Chubby gets his 15m Bandit up in a hurry too.
I get back on the butter-smooth water behind Hironobu but I'm making better ground upwind than him! Hail the Silberpfeil! Same vein; we continue to ride downwind a lot but the wind eventually picks up enough that I can make a couple of tacks upwind :o do some silly small jumps - I'm underpowered but happy to be riding. I'm still making more ground upwind than the other though - gotta love the SA2 and the Flydoor! They're the only reason I'm riding, I'm sure.
Wind finally dies right as the sun slips behind the hills; Hironobu had landed his kite already but the other guys all hindenburg like erm the Hindenburg although Uncle Pyro manages to keep his Waroo up by running backwards on the beach - but it too eventually hits the floor. I walk upwind with "that white thing" in the air.
Well, it was better than watching TV.
JMA reported the windspeed as 6 knots. I dunno what to believe cos reported 10 knots at 3pm when there was NOTHING on the webcam - not even a flag twitch.
What I learned today ...
• bottom end for riding on the SA - pretty freakin' low!
• I'm a sad junkie :D
Sit on the lake beach with all the other junkies waiting for something to change. It slowly picks up by about 5:30pm and so I decide to unpack "that white thing" as the locals call it ... it launches and kinda flies so I noodle around on the beach. Wind picks up a tiny bit more, so I try the board out ...
... I can get up on a plane but when I have to work the kite again on an upstroke, I'm sinking. I walk back up the beach. Keep playing around for a bit then suddenly, the wind starts making an impression on the back of my head!
Jump in the water and lo! I'm up and riding! Sure I'm going downwind but I'm riding :D by the time I've made a few tacks and run down the beach, started the walk back up Hironobu has hit the water with his Naish Park 14, Uncle Pyro has launched his Best Waroo 14 and that other guy is pumping up his Cult 12 like a madman. Brother Chubby gets his 15m Bandit up in a hurry too.
I get back on the butter-smooth water behind Hironobu but I'm making better ground upwind than him! Hail the Silberpfeil! Same vein; we continue to ride downwind a lot but the wind eventually picks up enough that I can make a couple of tacks upwind :o do some silly small jumps - I'm underpowered but happy to be riding. I'm still making more ground upwind than the other though - gotta love the SA2 and the Flydoor! They're the only reason I'm riding, I'm sure.
Wind finally dies right as the sun slips behind the hills; Hironobu had landed his kite already but the other guys all hindenburg like erm the Hindenburg although Uncle Pyro manages to keep his Waroo up by running backwards on the beach - but it too eventually hits the floor. I walk upwind with "that white thing" in the air.
Well, it was better than watching TV.
JMA reported the windspeed as 6 knots. I dunno what to believe cos reported 10 knots at 3pm when there was NOTHING on the webcam - not even a flag twitch.
What I learned today ...
• bottom end for riding on the SA - pretty freakin' low!
• I'm a sad junkie :D
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Post-work mad-dash
Feckin' work ... if it didn't pay for toys, I just wouldn't even bother eh. Forecast was iffy - conflicting reports on all weather sites so I hoped for the best and rushed down when I finished work at 5pm ...
... got to the lake at 5:30 and tried to figure out what kite I needed. I erred on the side of caution and took the Crossbow 13 to the beach, with the Flyradical & the Flydoor ... I really wanted to take the Psycho4 15 or the Crossbow 16 but chickened out. Should have banked on the wind dropping towards sunset, like it usually does though :(
So I pumped up the kite (damned pressure gauge I bought doesn't work on the Cab Sprint cos of the one way valve!) and hit the water with the Flyrad. Just powered enough for some fun but soon I'm working the kite hard. Back to shore, swap for the 'door. Better.
Cruising around, going upwind, doing some jumps, testing the Sharks 2.0, having some fun!
I'm landing more jumps now - like, all of them :D it's the post-landing ride away that I screw up most often now ...? Jump, land, ride away for a few meters then SPLASH ... uh? Anyway, all good fun.
Wind dies off and I'm working the hell out of the kite just to ride downwind and walk back up the beach. Sun is setting, so I pack up ... got to have a close looks at the 10m 2011 Slingshot RPM and the bar - very nice! Very light :o excellent colours and the bar looks good ... not 100% sure about the external bungy as the safety return mechanism though ...
JMA recorded the wind speed as 5 to 6 knots ... which SO can't be correct! I think weather-gpv.info offered 8 to 10 knots which sounds more likely.
What I learned today ...
• Sharks Version 2.0 are just as good as the first model - and they float!
• My sense of what the wind is doing is way off :( keep underestimating the kite I need ...
• Sending the kite WAY back is great fun - big ol' swing action going on :)
... got to the lake at 5:30 and tried to figure out what kite I needed. I erred on the side of caution and took the Crossbow 13 to the beach, with the Flyradical & the Flydoor ... I really wanted to take the Psycho4 15 or the Crossbow 16 but chickened out. Should have banked on the wind dropping towards sunset, like it usually does though :(
So I pumped up the kite (damned pressure gauge I bought doesn't work on the Cab Sprint cos of the one way valve!) and hit the water with the Flyrad. Just powered enough for some fun but soon I'm working the kite hard. Back to shore, swap for the 'door. Better.
Cruising around, going upwind, doing some jumps, testing the Sharks 2.0, having some fun!
I'm landing more jumps now - like, all of them :D it's the post-landing ride away that I screw up most often now ...? Jump, land, ride away for a few meters then SPLASH ... uh? Anyway, all good fun.
Wind dies off and I'm working the hell out of the kite just to ride downwind and walk back up the beach. Sun is setting, so I pack up ... got to have a close looks at the 10m 2011 Slingshot RPM and the bar - very nice! Very light :o excellent colours and the bar looks good ... not 100% sure about the external bungy as the safety return mechanism though ...
JMA recorded the wind speed as 5 to 6 knots ... which SO can't be correct! I think weather-gpv.info offered 8 to 10 knots which sounds more likely.
What I learned today ...
• Sharks Version 2.0 are just as good as the first model - and they float!
• My sense of what the wind is doing is way off :( keep underestimating the kite I need ...
• Sending the kite WAY back is great fun - big ol' swing action going on :)
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