Kite Work Kite
26th July 2008
This is the right ratio for a day, if work HAS to be part of it...more time spent on the beach than at work :-) On Thursday, Ben and I hit Seaview for an early morning session before work, then after work went to Bembridge for another session - it was SUCH a wicked day! The morning session especially was amaaaaazing!! It was really light to start with, barely 13knots, then in the next hour it picked up to what we found out later was 25knots! I was on my 11m so by the end of the session was super-powered up! so mainly just boosted big front loops with grabs, did backloops to toeside, and had a go at powered backloops (with kite at 45 rather than using the kite to generate pop) - I got a couple of them which Ben said looked good, just not always getting a clean take off and landing every time yet but I'll keep working on them! Wanted to practise raileys again but was waaaay too powered!
I was so gutted to leave the beach, it was such a nice warm, sunny morning, it was just wrong to have to go back to work. Having said that it did leave me just buzzing all day and pumped about the thought of a possible evening session aswell :-)
After work, we all hooked up in Bembridge - was almost a full house of island kiters! (apart from the West Wight guys!) - there's not been that many of us on the beach at the same time for a while - Ben, Chris, Stu, Eric, Dave, Rod, Humphrey, Theo, and a new guy Toby - so after a lot of chit chat (which I always have to tear myself away from) Ben and I hit the water. Stu has just finished building a slider which he, Chris and Eric were hitting - so cool to watch, and Chris was pulling out some very sweet moves as usual (check out his website for pix http://www.chrisburkeuk.com). It's wicked having good kiters on the water with you, and also people like Ben who make me try stuff and give me abuse if I don't - he means well!? It's good having feedback about what you're doing though - even if it's to tell you how bad you look doing something - I'd rather know! Although recently Ben has been quite complimentary...for now anyway! not tried kiteloops yet - that's next on the list of tricks to go for, although I think I will know and feel it myself when I get kiteloops wrong!! Such an awesome day...one I'll remember for a while :-)
3 awesome sessions in 3 days :-)
21st July 2008
What a wicked few days of kiting! so awesome, and the sun was for every one of them! :-) All three days we kited at Ryde on the island, which is the best place on the island for flat water, there are sand/bramble banks that appear as the tide goes out which create lagoons and also make it shallow for miles so it's awesome for trying new tricks :-)
I'm still on a mission to nail those railies, such a nice move, i'm getting the take-off ok just need to work on the landings! I've also been practising downloop turns which is a sweet move and its good getting used to how to loop the kite so I can move on to kiteloops really soon!! yahoooo!!
Me and my mates Ben and Phil had a cheeky early morning kite before work today which was soooo amazing but involved getting up at 5.15 so feeling quite tired now! was so worth it though, the sun was out, flat flat water and we were the only guys on the beach - it was amazing :-) Early morning kite sessions are the way forward! makes a day at work so much better! mainly because I am usually dreaming about kiting for most of the day! :-) (more than usual - which is a lot already!) I'll tell you more about the last few days tomorrow, battling to keep my eyes open tonight - see you tomorrow! :-D
Railey mission!
16th July 2008
After a weekend of no wind at the Round 4 at Skegness and no comp (but still an awesome weekend!) it was wicked to get out tonight, at Bembridge. Wind was offshore but it was low tide so was quite shallow, and a really nice sunny evening - sweeeeet. When I got there, Ben, Chris, Skelly and Sam were already out and looked quite windy (I could see Ben was on his 8) so I pumped up my 9m. By the time I got out, the wind had dropped quite a bit and everyone was coming in but decided to go out anyway. I'm SO keen to nail unhooked railies at the moment, and was determined to try some! which I did, although I was so under-powered so was quite hard work get enough pop, but did a few. Nearly landed one and Ben said it looked ok, my kite was at 45-50degrees (!) and quite horizontal so that was cool! When learning railies there's always the danger of them looking quite lame, and although the guys joke about 'gay-lies' the island boys are actually quite nice to me when I try them. If I was hooked in I think it might be a different story though :-)
I REALLY hope it's windy tomorrow, I so badly wanna start landing them more consistently, and try more surface passes after a cheeky lesson with Mr.Burke the other day who took me through how to do them...thanks Chris :-) I need to practise them too...with fins on this time! bye for now :-)
1st at Hunny! :-)
9th July 2008
BKSA Freestyle Tour - Round 3: Hunstanton, Norfolk (4-6 July)
Check out my report on the Kiteworld website: http://www.kiteworldmag.com/news/girls-on-tour-part-two/
What an awesome weekend!! and not just because I won although it was pretty cool :-) On Saturday to start with there was no wind and a whole lotta rain!! I was quite tired from the drive up the night before so had a power kip in the event land rover thing (!) on the beach which tows the judges box. The rain was coming down so heavy at times and it as quite cool watching it on the sea, the sea was so calm and the rain drops were bouncing off the sea as the rain fell. It looked wicked.
After my kip, the wind kicked in a bit and everyone started pumping up kites, so Sheryl and I went back to our car/van and got out kites and went down to the beach and pumped them up. The sun came out which was wicked and the wind picked up just before our first heat to 25knots, literally between launching our kites and the heat it had picked up a good 10 knots but too late to go in and change down, so we all went out on our big kites! (apart from Sheryl who just about made it back to beach, changed down and got back for start of heat, she said she was pretty tired from the running around! I bet she was - there wasn't a lot of time at all! I went out on 11m F-One bandit and I was ridiculously over-powered! but hey, got a few nice big front loops with grabs, definitely didn't try anything new, was battling to hold the power! There were four girls in the ladies amateurs so the plan was to do all 4 of us at the same time, and do a 'best of 3'.
I won the first heat and our second heat was meant to be later in the day but they ran out of time. So we all got changed, had a few drinks and watching the live band in the marquee. It was such a nice, warm, sunny evening! The next day, the wind was on and off all day. They started running heats but had to hold the comp a few times because the wind died off completely. Rain squalls were pretty frequent, but eventually they ran our 2nd heat at about 5ish. I had gone out on my 9m Bandit, because when the squalls came through it was strong and I didn't want to get caught out like yesterday! anyway, turned out the wind died off but, again, too late to change! So anyway we all went out under-powered and tried to do some tricks, but it was a struggle, we had NOOOO power in our kites!!! After our heat they stopped the competition because it was getting late and the wind was pretty lame!! Prizegiving was due to start half hour after we got off the water so Sheryl and I went back to deflate and pack up the 3 kites that were sat there wet and full of puddles from the rain squalls earlier! nooooo!! I've decided I would like to go out to Egypt and ask one of the beach dudes there if they would like to come and work for me!! packing up 3 kites is quite an effort (but they ARE beautiful) - thanks to F-One www.f-onekites.com) and Tommy from Session1 www.session1.com)
Just before prizegiving, I was told I had won both heats and I finished 1st yahoooo!! soo happy!!! ok gotta go but I will add more to this blog tomorrow :-)
Windy weekend
4th July 2008
What an AMAZING weekend we had of wind last weekend - we were all spoilt! but it was kind of pay back for all those no-winders we've had recently so fair enough right!? :-) It's been a while since we had a whole weekend of wind! and sunny too!! was out on my F-One 9m Bandit both days and pretty powered but wicked sessions. We went out to Brook on the west side of the IOW, mostly waves and quite a hard shore break to get past with the onshore wind in a SW but often flat in between little waves/kickers so best of both worlds! this weekend if wasn't super flat so chickened out on practising unhooked raileys which is my latest thing I am trying, but I did try a lot of backloops to toesides which I am starting to land more of, still stalling a bit when landing but I'll keep working at it! SUCH a nice weekend, and so awesome to see the sun on both days!! :-))
